Participant Education Innovators

PLANADVISER spoke to experts about how they provide financial wellness education to meet the needs of today’s participants. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, company leaders have had to rethink the environment they supply for workers, from managing a workforce with hybrid schedules to abandoning office space entirely. But the need to educate about the plan and engage plan participants has only increased. The challenge, then, is for advisers to help their clients navigate these new workforce norms while, ideally, increasing participant offerings.

Jason Chepnik,senior vice president of retirement and wealth, OneDigital, Orlando, Florida

Best Ways to Connect: I think a hybrid workforce makes it hard to engage with participants because you can’t go into an office and see them. The last three-and-a-half years have been challenging to find new tricks and new things to do.

Against the backdrop of economic uncertainty, it has also been challenging to get people to slow down and think about decisions they’re making. Advisers must constantly reevaluate their menu of services to ensure they can meet the ever-changing needs of participants.

Staffing and Fees: Providing personalized, and often one-on-one, education requires commitment and resources, though. OneDigital is a large and growing advisory firm and continues to staff sectors dedicated to participant education. We make sure we have enough resources, by market or by the region, to handle the traffic coming in.

I think what plan sponsors really enjoy the most is having access to the one-on-ones, especially as most people are moving to virtual or hybrid work environments.

My advisory team is getting a lot of positive feedback from 20-minute, one-on-one meetings with participants. OneDigital has also found success segmenting the business by small, midsize and large clients. Depending on the pricing, we can generate education programs that fit client needs while also being profitable for us. For our larger plans and larger-market clients, we’ll do custom events—a wellness event, something fun and engaging. It depends on market size and the client’s budget.

Increasing Engagement: I believe organizations need a diverse group of educators who are different ages, different genders, different walks of life. Younger generations like everything electronic, whereas older generations like things on paper and in person. We have to make sure we’re constantly thinking about whether we have enough in our menu of services so we can address these challenges differently.

Kerry Woods, vice president of participant education and engagement, SageView, Denver, Colorado

Best Ways to Connect: SageView Advisory Group has been providing participant education in the form of group meetings, one-on-one coaching and education for many years. The popularity of financial wellness offerings largely depends on the plan sponsor and its employees.

We see heavy engagement within group meetings and webinars, though digital and online tools draw even more traffic. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to improving participant education, but SageView tries to offer something for everyone, be it a new employee entering the workforce or an employee two months away from retiring.

Staffing and Fees: With the growing level of engagement in digital one-on-one meetings, SageView has also been growing its team. We’ve been hiring new employees to take calls and offer one-on-one coaching.

It truly varies based upon location, but we do have people that are well versed in providing education located throughout the U.S. We hire as needed within the field in order to bridge any of those gaps.

Within the financial wellness suite of solutions, fees are typically paid for at a plan sponsor level. We recommend that plan sponsors pay for the service out of a human resources expense budget. But if a plan has some type of ERISA [Employee Retirement Income Security Act]budget, a company can also use that to pay for services.

Increasing Engagement: Participant engagement varies greatly across client bases. Some sponsors take a very paternalistic view of their employees, while others take a more hands-off approach.

Some [plan sponsors] want to offer a financial wellness solution just to check that box. We see more [participant] engagement rates from employers who truly take a deep dive within their employees, and you can feel that they want to be heavily engaged. We’ve seen better adoption rates from those employers.