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.
Jennifer Gregory, vice-president, business development, sales, group savings and retirement with The Standard Life Assurance Company of Canada shares the best ideas from the question she moderated: Can we create a plan where you can set it and forget it?
No, we cannot set a plan and forget about it. If the object is to get employees to save more, then auto features are important. But education and communication are also critical. On the pro side are the soft costs that stem from HR spending a lot less time on paperwork and a lot more time on education and communication. On the con side are financial costs and member disengagement. If you automate too much, members question the perceived value when they only receive a statement but are not involved in the process.
Call to action
- Why do we make group insurance mandatory but make retirement plans voluntary? Consider a re-enrollment process.
- You can’t automate it all, so ongoing education and communication about the value of the plan is vital.
- Find ways to enrol members in the plan, to have them save as much as possible and to get them to stay in the plan for as long as possible.
- Search for ways to reduce the barriers to enrollment and auto-escalation.
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