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How to Help Participants Get the Most Out of Plan Meetings |
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In recent years there have been great strides made in the areas of participant education. From the participant’s perspective, this commitment on their employer’s part has been successful, as 71% of employees have been offered some form of employee plan meeting within the past two years, per Spectrem Group Perspective™ The Participant Experience with Education and Advice. The most common theme for the employee meeting was either plan enrollment or plan re-enrollment (39%), followed by nearly equal occurrences of plan review/investment meetings and retirement planning workshops.
 First, efforts were focused on increasing participants’ knowledge levels of investments and retirement needs. Next, additional programs were developed to assist participants with portfolio development. And now, there has been a push to assist participants even more, through full investment advice. These holistic programs develop personalized strategies for plan participants to reach their retirement goals based on individual risk tolerances and asset holdings. Typically offered through online services or face-to-face, participant advice has become a competitive necessity in retirement offerings.
 Given that plan sponsors rank educational meetings as their number one participant communication initiative, the importance to plan providers of establishing effective meetings can not be more evident. Through face-to-face educational meetings, plan providers are given a unique opportunity to establish relationships with participants. By building on these relationships, providers are able to cross-sell ancillary retirement and wealth products. These additional products and services offer additional revenue opportunity to retirement service providers beyond simply the qualified retirement plan.
Given the significance of the offering, it is important to design meetings that fulfill participants’ needs and improve and expand their perception of the plan provider beyond their typical role.
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High Net Worth Advisor Insights Newsletter April 2008
