During Benefits Canada’s annual DC Plan Summit, plan sponsors participated in interactive sessions. They split into small groups and were given questions to discuss. Based on these discussions, moderators later offered their insights and relayed key take-aways.
Catherine Jackman, vice-president, Phillips, Hager & North Investment Management shares the best ideas from the topic they discussed: member education.
The Challenge:
Sponsors should talk with members about the best way to achieve a target lifestyle in retirement. Encourage early participation and adequate contribution rates in DC/savings plans. Member engagement is challenging, and investment education is especially daunting. Some sponsors report that their members express fear when it comes to investing. Education efforts are best spent on broad financial literacy.
Survival Tips for Employers:
- Excellent plan design and default options should be the focus for plan sponsors going forward.
- Education should be holistic, relevant and simple for plan members to digest.
- Use targeted messages for specific groups within the employee base. Sponsors that use this approach have reported higher levels of engagement.
Additional videos from the DC Plan Summit can be found here.