Advisers’ Evolving Role

Regulatory changes, litigation and even the COVID-19 pandemic have made the value of retirement plan adviser support even greater.

Over the past two decades, advising for employer-sponsored retirement plans has undergone a transformation. What was once almost exclusively an investment-focused discipline has expanded into a holistic effort centered on fiduciary governance, plan design and participant outcomes.

Of plan sponsors responding to the 2025 PLANSPONSOR Defined Contribution Survey that agreed to respond to the follow-up Adviser Value Survey, one-quarter said they employ the services of an individual adviser, 44.2% employ the services of an advisory team, and 30.8% use an investment consultant.

In addition to evaluating and monitoring the plan’s investment lineup—which 96.0% of plan sponsors indicated their adviser does—more than two-thirds (68.7%) said their adviser offers administrative support; 91.1% reported their adviser offers fiduciary protection and guidance; and 65.3% indicated their adviser offers participant education and financial wellness support.

Comparatively, in the 2016 survey, 95.0% of respondents who worked with an adviser indicated the adviser reviewed fund performance. Nearly half (49.9%) reported their adviser examined whether their plan was administered according to applicable laws, regulations and stated policies, 53.9% said advisers met one-on-one with participants to provide education, and 53.6% said advisers met with participants in groups to provide education.

PLANADVISER is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2026, sparking reflection on changes within the retirement plan and retirement plan advisory industries.

Bruce Lanser, a senior retirement plan consultant and financial adviser with TruSource Advisors, a UBS Financial Services Inc. company, recalls that early DC plan advising was dominated by investment analysis: reviewing funds, benchmarking performance and recommending replacements.

“In the old days,” he says, “90% or so was just on the investments. Very little else was done.”

Advisers spent most of their committee meetings walking through fund performance one by one, and that was “kind of the extent of it,” Lanser notes. Today, however, the emphasis is dramatically different.

“What’s really changed,” Lanser says, “is more of a focus on the outcomes for the individual employees. Income is the new outcome.”

This shift means advisers now work not just with plan committees, but with participants and as liaisons to retirement plan recordkeepers. Lanser says retirement plan advisers view their role with a broader lens on how employees can achieve retirement security—balancing competing financial challenges such as saving for retirement, managing household expenses and planning for college costs.

Impetus for Change

According to Lanser, two regulatory changes were pivotal in reshaping the advisory landscape: the Pension Protection Act of 2006, which also marks its 20th anniversary this year, and the 2012 408(b)(2) fee disclosure regulations. The combination of the PPA and 408(b)(2) disclosures gradually reshaped expectations, and plan sponsors now look for broader support—far beyond investment menus.

“The 408(b)(2) regulations really started to change how plan sponsors looked at their plans, their responsibilities and how we as advisers needed to change what we’re recommending. … It isn’t just the investments,” Lanser says.

These disclosures pushed plan sponsors to scrutinize plan oversight more rigorously, elevating fiduciary governance, vendor evaluation and fee transparency. As a result, Lanser says investment discussions now make up only 10% to 15% of most retirement plan committee meetings.

Shannon Maloney, the national practice leader for Strategic Retirement Partners, says she has seen a dramatic shift in advisers’ workload and responsibilities over the past decade, especially since the COVID19 pandemic.

“Our workload has increased tremendously, and the speed of that has really increased since COVID,” Maloney says.

One reason is that recordkeeper staff changed during the pandemic.

One reason is significant turnover in recordkeeper personnel from the pandemic—Maloney says many experienced employees retired early, resulting in “a big brain drain, leaving advisers to fill more gaps.”

Litigation has also reshaped the adviser landscape.

“Ten or 20 years ago, we didn’t have [so many] retirement plan lawsuits,” Maloney says. “Now, advisers must navigate the implications of cases and help sponsors mitigate risk.”

Advisers who once focused narrowly on investments can no longer do so.

“You have got to be expanding your wheelhouse or you’re going to end up getting replaced,” Maloney says.

Even artificial intelligence is catalyzing change. Maloney does not see it replacing advisers outright, but she believes “an adviser using AI could replace an adviser who’s not.”

A New Era of Plan Design Strategy

Lanser credits the PPA with spurring major changes in plan design flexibility. The legislation introduced safe harbor protections that allowed plan sponsors to adopt features such as:

• automatic enrollment;
• automatic escalation; and
• qualified default investment alternatives.

Once those protections were in place, Lanser says, it opened the door for deeper plan design consulting. In addition, behavioral finance research from academics like Shlomo Benartzi and Richard Thaler strengthened the case for such innovations.

“Their work really provided support for having those sorts of discussions,” Lanser notes.

Improved plan design has become central to helping employees achieve better outcomes. However, the retirement plan and retirement plan advisory industries are now grappling with what’s next.

“We got automatic enrollment; we got auto-escalation,” Lanser says. “We’re getting them to the goal line of retirement, and now we leave them on their own? How do we complete the process?”

Advisers and plan sponsors are increasingly exploring retirement income solutions, withdrawal strategies and other mechanisms for converting savings into reliable lifetime income. Lanser sees this as the next phase of evolution in advisory services.

“The evolution reflects a deeper commitment to ensuring employees not only save for retirement, but can thrive in it,” he says.

Among respondents to the Adviser Value Survey, 69.7% said their adviser offers retirement income option education and advice.

The Value of an Adviser

Maloney says the value of an adviser goes beyond plan design changes: Advisers provide perspective, protection and confidence.

“The very first thing having an adviser helps plan sponsors and committees with is understanding what they don’t know they don’t know,” she says. Over time, advisers become a source of reassurance. “There’s a comfort level that this is getting done, it’s being reviewed, and they have an expert on their side of the table.”

Advisers offer reassurance for plan participants as well.

“Participants can sleep well at night by transferring the worry of their financial independence oversight to someone else,” Maloney notes.

The Adviser Value Survey found 98.0% of plan sponsors said they believe having a plan adviser provides better retirement outcomes for participants. Additionally, 46.2% reported they believe participant education will have the greatest impact on participant outcomes, and 19.2% selected one-on-one financial planning advice with an adviser as having the greatest impact.

Fee transparency since the issuance of the 408(b)(2) regulations has also reinforced the value of adviser relationships. When she first became a registered investment adviser, Maloney feared participants might balk at seeing advisory fees on their retirement plan statements. Instead, she says, “all it did was encourage participants to meet with us. I never get any pushback.” The reason is simple, she believes: “Price matters in the absence of value.”

New Expectations Not Yet ‘Table Stakes’

According to Maloney, investment selection, monitoring and replacement are still “table stakes” for adviser services—required to even be considered. Robust reporting, clear processes and committee meeting attendance fall into this same category, she says.

When asked to select the most important adviser service, evaluation and monitoring ranked first among plan sponsors responding to the Adviser Value Survey, selected by 40.6% of respondents.

But Maloney finds that many functions she expects to be standard are not as widely offered as she assumed.

“Administration and operational oversight, fiduciary governance … you would think these are table stakes, but they’re not at all,” Maloney says. She also finds that participant education and helping with plan administration and recordkeeper relationships do not seem to be table stakes for plan adviser services. She believes this is mainly because many plan sponsors still do not understand all an adviser can provide. “Clients don’t realize that this is what we do.”

According to Maloney, plan sponsors that operate without adviser support tend to underestimate the scope of their responsibilities.

“They think they don’t need an adviser because they have a [chief financial officer] or someone interested in investments who can do it themselves,” she says. “But focusing only on the investment lineup ignores major risks, including misunderstanding fiduciary duties or assuming providers take on fiduciary liability when they don’t.”

Plans may also assume providers supply enough participant guidance, Maloney adds.

“They assume the provider is providing enough information for their participants to make good decisions, when that’s often not the case,” Maloney says.

The Adviser Value Survey found that 55.0% of respondents’ advisers directly provide participants financial education and advice, with or without a fee.

The adviser’s role has evolved from investment selection to comprehensive governance, participant engagement, legislative monitoring and risk management. As Maloney puts it, “If you don’t have an adviser, you’re not thinking about any of that … because it’s not on your radar.”

Her message is clear: In today’s complex retirement landscape, advisers are not a luxury; they’re a necessity.

—Rebecca Moore