Want to Help Your Employees Enter Retirement?

The pendulum of life is always swinging.  With respect to employees and employers the pendulum swang in the direction of paternalism in the middle 20th Century.  Employees and their employers had informal contracts that implied that if employees worked there long enough, their employers would take care of them.  That pendulum swung in the other direction for a good part of the last 50 years with employees assuming more and more responsibility for their own wellbeing and employers taking a more hands off approach.  Is the pendulum swinging back again?
 
Some new research from PIMCO, a large asset management firm on the west coast, is suggesting that the pendulum is indeed swinging back at least a little bit.  In the last couple of years, more and more research has come out that employees trust their employers more than they used to.  They are looking to their employers for help and guidance in a number of areas from better health and wellbeing advice to retirement and financial planning tools.  This new research from PIMCO is now showing a further iteration in employees and employers working together.
 
It has long been known that most employees when they retire have almost no idea how to arrange their assets in such a way as to provide a lifetime of income.  And why should they?  After all, they have been spending a lifetime accumulating assets and saving, not figuring out how to make their assets last the rest of their lives. It appears that employers are starting to take notice and help out.  The PIMCO Study shows that in the Small Plan Market (<$50mm in plan assets), the top client priorities in 2020 are Improving Participant Retirement Education, Evaluating Retirement Income for Participants, and Minimizing Fiduciary Liability, in that order.
 
So what does this mean, or could this mean, to you as a Plan Sponsor?  The first question to ask, of course, is do you have any interest in helping your employees prepare for retirement beyond just helping them save through the retirement or 401k plan?  If yes, then it is probably a good idea to begin exploring what this assistance would look like.  It should begin with education and helping employees understand how to use their assets in retirement.  It could then move to helping employees work with an advisor to put together a plan for transitioning into retirement and living the life they want and can afford.  
 
But where does it truly begin?  It begins with working with an advisor with experience in helping pre-retirees plan for retirement.  Experience helping employees understand their asset mix and the tax implications of using those assets.  Experience with Social Security and estate planning.  
 
If you are concerned with your current advisor’s level of experience, please give me a call.  I would love to work with you and your employees as they prepare for a retirement they have earned.

​Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy