The Inside Scoop
At the PLANSPONSOR/PLANADVISER Awards for Excellence dinner last month, we honored some of the nation’s best retirement plan advisers, even as we named the 2010 PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year, Rick Wedge, and the 2010 PLANSPONSOR Retirement Plan Adviser Team of the Year, The Prince Group. More information about the winners can be found on pages 26 and 32, respectively.
Having been part of the process since its inception, I can honestly say that, although the process is long, complicated, and arduous, it is one of the most exciting parts of my job because it gives me a chance to “meet” and talk to so many advisers who are truly skilled at helping plan sponsors do their jobs better and improving outcomes for plan participants, often one employee at a time.
As you might expect, I’m asked frequently about the criteria for the award. Although its mission has been consistent over the years, “to identify the nation’s best advisers who are helping make retirement security a reality for workers across the nation,” we also have realized that modifications were necessary to accommodate changes in regulations, the markets, and the needs of plan sponsors and their employees. For example, when we launched the award, a great deal of emphasis was given to the role of the adviser in encouraging (and obtaining) high rates of deferral and participation. However, with the expansion of automated program designs, there is a greater emphasis on the process that goes into achieving those results, than just the end results themselves.
Some advisers ask how much one’s business model matters; if it is better to be at a wirehouse or independent broker/dealer or be a registered investment adviser; if it is better to work with small plans or large plans. The best answer to those questions is found in looking at the list of winners, a list that includes advisers from all business models who work with wide variety of plan sizes. Our focus always has been whose clients really are being served the best, not the business model that, in any particular year, helps to accomplish that.
Those considerations, coupled with an increasingly competitive mix of nominees, perhaps has made our jobs as judges a little bit harder over the years, but it also forces us to dig into the inner workings of each adviser and adviser team, to explore each entrant—directly, and through client references. What we are finding then, and highlighting, are those characteristics that, in the assessment of our judges, exemplify true excellence. (I also should take a moment to thank our panel of judges who take time out of their very hectic schedules to be a part of this long, complicated, and arduous process.)
I would be remiss if I didn’t also acknowledge the growth from another part of the awards process: our Most Successful List of advisers. That list, while truly quantitative in nature, has developed its own set of competitive criteria—each year, as the awards process has more entrants, the threshold for being included in that list, whether in terms of assets under advisement or number of plans under advisement, has been raised that much higher.
This year’s awards have just been handed out, but the 2011 award process will begin in a few short months, when we will sit down to review this year’s process and discuss what might change for the 2011 awards. As always, we will open the nomination form in early September, so please be on the lookout.
Each year, we find new names and faces within this process, advisers that we enjoy getting to know, whether though speaking at or attending our conferences, though e-mail exchanges, or because they become finalists for the awards.
I hope that continues, and that we get a chance to know you—and your practices—even better this year.
From left: Alison Cooke MIntzer, Nevin Adams, Deana Harmon, Douglas Prince