Fiduciary Is Fun!
(a.k.a. I heart taxes)
(a.k.a. I heart taxes)
Now few people are against making more money, so I am not going to suggest that making more is a bad thing. At almost any wage level, people generally lift their gaze to the next level up and begin to think what life would be like if only they were there. Fortunately, many people do move up the salary scale over the course of their careers and often hit peak earning years in their 50s.
However, one common misconception about earning more money is that money alone will result in less stress and financial worry. Some new research out from the Salary Finance suggests that this is just not the case. Salary Finance interviewed over 10,000 employees recently on a variety of Financial Fitness measures. The report is voluminous, and it isn’t possible to cover all the topics mentioned, but the idea that earning more relieves stress is so ingrained in our DNA, that I thought I would use some of the research here to debunk it. We should start by saying that there is a level of earning below which extreme stress is omnipresent. If a person is earning below subsistence level, stress will be experienced. So let’s for argument sake not consider that low of a level of income. For Salary Finance, they interviewed people at all levels and found that 58% of individuals earning between $25-40k have financial worries. That probably doesn’t surprise any of us. What was interesting is that 40% of the people earning between $160-200k also have financial worries. Wouldn’t you think the percentage should be much less for this higher income earning group? I bet if you asked someone making $30k if they would have financial stress if they were making $180k, for example, they would say Heck No! But yet, the stress is present to a surprising extent. So if money alone does not reduce financial stress and worry, what does? It appears that the number one difference is that people with less stress are Planners, using the language of Salary Finance. What is a Planner? Well, it’s someone who lives within their means, has emergency savings on hand, and focuses on long-term financial goals. In short…a Planner! If you are an employer who would like to help your employees move from Coping to Planning, and thereby maybe not think that you paying them more alone is going to solve their problems, give me a call. I would love to have a discussion about how we can improve the financial lives of your employees. Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy
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I was meeting with a prospect last week and we were discussing his business and the current challenges of finding good talent. The business requires a number of technology savvy folks, although the actual business is not a “tech business” per se. Indianapolis has in recent years become a bit of tech hub as SalesForce has expanded here and is now one of the larger employers in the area. Suffice to say that if you are a young technology person, the idea of working for SalesForce or any one of the many start-up tech companies has a slightly greater appeal than working with my prospect.
We discussed ways in which we could address my prospect’s challenges, and one of the options that he has used in the past, and continues to use now, includes signing bonuses for the right talent. These bonuses are not six figure bonuses, of course, but they are generally several thousand dollars. He feels he needs to continue to strategically use these bonuses to compete against the more tech centric competition in town. However, one of the problems with these bonuses has been that employees that do come on board often don’t stay very long. Many move on after a year or two, which is obviously frustrating. Is there a better way, he asked? Well of course there is! I mentioned to him that he could continue to keep signing bonuses part of his offering for key employees but instead of paying them out in cash, he could put them into the retirement plan and make them subject to a 5 or 6 year vesting schedule. He was surprised to hear that he could do that as he thought this might be discriminatory when in fact it is perfectly legit. Moreover, by putting these bonuses into the plan and making them subject to a vesting schedule, he and the employee avoid paying taxes on these contributions. He can even make the bonuses more generous because if the employees leave before fully vested, he can repurpose those forfeited dollars for other employees. Was my prospect happy about this idea? Naturally he was. Is he a client yet? Not quite, but things are looking positive. If you are an employer looking to partner with an advisor who can think outside the box to help you with a business problem, give me a call. I would love to have a discussion! Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy Here is what would seem like a simple question – What kind of college graduates do CPA firms hire? When I came out of college the answer was pretty simple – accounting graduates. Duh. Well, according to a new report (“Trends”) from the American Institute of Certified Public Accounts (“AICPA”), 31% of the new graduates in 2018 that public accounting firms hired were non-accounting majors. Almost 1 out of every 3 new hires was not an “accountant.” Does this surprise you?
These numbers are actually causing many in the CPA profession to reevaluate things, including the actual CPA exam itself – what it should look like, who can take it, etc. As a CPA, I have found these changes to our profession interesting. CPAs have always been on the leading edge of business changes as consultants and advisors to clients. However, as Barry Melancon, CPA President of the AICPA said of the Trends Report, “Increased demand for technology skills is shifting the accounting firm hiring model.” With more and more of the accounting profession becoming automated and technology focused, the old fashioned debit and credit skills are becoming less valuable on their own. I suppose all of this makes sense when you think about it, but what has this shift required of accounting firms and their hiring practices? It’s caused them to think differently in many areas. The traditional career paths are changing. Incentive structures are changing. Work habits of these new non-accounting graduates are different. How is your business model changing and have you considered what these changes mean to your recruitment and staffing model? All business models change. In fact, if the CPA profession can change as fast as it is doing, I am quite sure that almost every other business is changing as I type this. Are you a leader in your organization, and are you thinking about how your next new hire could be different from your last? Do you post positions simply to fill the same role of the prior person? Or are you thinking strategically about how your business is changing and adjusting accordingly? I would suggest that a growing business needs to constantly be considering what it will look like and need 2 to 3 steps out. Part of that analysis should include your benefits program including your retirement plan(s). This could be both your qualified plan – 401k – and non-qualified plans. Just because you haven’t done something in the past is no reason not to consider it in the future. If you want to have a discussion around the next generation of retirement plan and planning for your organization, please give me a call. I would love to talk to you about the unexpected. Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy Employment/Unemployment is double edged, correct? Too much unemployment is bad for everyone; on that I presume we can all agree. But is too much employment bad as well? It’s not bad in the same way, of course, but I will put forth that it isn’t all good either.
I was with a client of mine last week and because of the nature of their business, they hire a meaningful number of seasonal workers at the end of summer and into the fall. The positions are relatively high paying for the work involved, and in the past they have never really had any issues filling the spots. This year they believe things will be different. There is certainly a lot of data out there supporting my client’s concerns. The Unemployment Rate, according to the Department of Labor currently sits at 3.7%, and there were 7.3 million job openings on the last business day of June this year. That’s a lot of unfilled jobs! And all these opening can be distracting. CareerBuilder says that 32% of US employees plan to get a new job in 2019. According to the same research 29% of employees say they regularly search for new jobs and 78% say they are open to trying something new if the opportunity arises. I think it is fair to say that approximately 1/3rd of an employer’s work force is ready to jump ship on any particular day. What does this say about our work environments! Moreover, what do all these surveys suggest to my client who needs some workers…and needs them now! Well, we spent some time talking about that. The recruitment conversations are usually focused on full-time employees. What type of packages can we put together for Full Time Employees? However, sometimes it is just as important to spend some time to think about what can be done for those part time employees. Clearly, we are not talking about 401k programs and health programs in the traditional sense, but can we do something to stand out from the crowd? Well of course we can! There are any number of options available to part time employees outside the traditional employer sponsored benefits programs. Many of these incentives are in the form of cash in one way or another, but not all of them. One item that we discussed involved leveraging the health program to bring in a nurse practitioner and wellness coach to work with these seasonal workers. The conversation was very dynamic as we involved the health insurance broker into the conversation who had several ideas. The point of this post? In a tight labor market we need to be thinking outside the box to attract and retain (for whatever length of time is needed) the right employees. Are you working with an advisor willing to help you? If not, give me a call. I would love to visit on your challenges. Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy I saw some recent research from ValuePenguin that suggested 63% of Americans do not understand how a 401k plan works. This is as recent as May of 2019. Does this surprise you?
Last week I did a number of enrollment meetings for a client of mine. They are a Charter School here in Indianapolis and recently hired about 50 new teachers for the upcoming school year. They are technically a public school which allows them to sponsor a 403(b) plan. I started each meeting by asking for a show of hands of how many in the room understood what a 403(b) plan is. What do you think was the percentage of hands that went up? If only 37% of Americans understand a 401k plan, I can assure you that even less understand a 403(b) plan. In fact, most people in the room were surprised to learn that both types of plans get their name from the corresponding section of the Internal Revenue Code. For my part, I do not find it surprising that the majority of employees do not fully understand how a corporate retirement plan works. After all, why should they? It’s not their job to understand how these work, it’s mine. And it’s my job to help them understand how to fully take advantage of these plans. A key challenge to doing this is a practical one – time. Most enrollment meetings are designed by the employer to last 20-30 minutes. It is enough time to cover the basics, but do you think that everyone walks out of the room with a full understanding? What’s the best outcome that can come from an in-person enrollment meeting? For my part, the goal is not to provide a complete understanding of everything about the plan. My goal is to get the employees to take at least one step forward on their investing journey. Especially with younger folks, I encourage a modest percent of their income – 2 or 3 pennies on the dollar in the retirement plan. Once they get started, they can always increase. Certainly deferring to the match is optimal, but many employees starting out struggle with deferring 6% or so of pay. 2% or 3% is at least a start. So after the meeting, what are the next steps? I encourage employees to contact me directly, and many do. I always find it interesting to visit with employees regarding their own situations. Exploring their own challenges allows for another learning opportunity to explain how the plan works and why they need to take advantage of it. If you want an adviser for your employees that understands the financial future of your employees requires a long term journey and not just a 20-30 minute drive-by, give me a call! Pete Welsh a/k/a 401kGuy |
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