Effective Employee Education - Spay and Associates

Posted on January 31, 2019 by retirementtimesnewsletter

Fiduciary duty requires you to provide your employees and participants with educational opportunities so they can make informed investment decisions. It’s not always easy to know what your participants need, want or will take advantage of. Using a simple framework for your educational program may increase the effectiveness of your program.1. Provide a consistent, ongoing program using a variety of communication mediums. This can include group meetings, podcasts, online tools, one-on-one meetings or other mediums attractive to your participants.

2. Vary the content of your program to provide broad education. Content should include plan basics, such as Basic Investing/Getting Started, but may also include topics related to a participant’s entire financial picture – e.g., Saving for College, Estimating Retirement Income Sources and Needs, Health Care Options – and other topics of consideration to a retiree’s financial well-being.

3. Offer online and professional advice tools to help retirees determine how much they need to save and how they will invest their contributions.

4. Fully disclose to participants, in easily understandable terms, information about the fees associated with their different investment options.

5. Offer participants opportunities to discuss their risk tolerance level, and help them understand how much risk they are willing to take when investing for their retirement.

6. Consider allowing employees to take advantage of educational opportunities and/or one-on-one meetings during working hours. This helps send a message to employees that their employer values this important benefit and is interested in helping employees prepare for their future.

7. Survey employees to determine if they find the educational program valuable, are taking advantage of it, what would make it more attractive and other feedback they may have to help continuously improve the program.

Every plan and its participant base is different, and there is no one right structure for an educational program. By starting with the above and being willing to modify your program’s offerings according to participant feedback, your educational program will get stronger, you will meet this responsibility and you may even see employee engagement increase!

ACR#307394 02/19

Spay & Associates | 5465 Utica Ridge Road | Davenport, Iowa 52807 | Phone: 563-326-0960 | Fax: 563-823-0535

Registered Representative, Securities offered through Cambridge Investment Research, Inc., a Broker/Dealer, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advisor Representative, Cambridge Investment Research Advisors, Inc., a Registered Investment Advisor. Cambridge and Spay & Associates are not affiliated.

Cambridge’s Form CRS (Customer Relationship Summary)

This communication is strictly intended for individuals residing in the states of CA, FL, IA, IL, IN, ME, MO, NM, OH, TX, WI. No offers may be made or accepted from any resident outside the specific states referenced.

PLEASE NOTE: The information being provided is strictly as a courtesy. When you access one of these web sites, you are leaving our web site and assume total responsibility and risk for your use of the web sites you are linking to. We make no representation as to the completeness or accuracy of information provided at these websites. Nor is the company liable for any direct or indirect technical or system issues or any consequences arising out of your access to or your use of third-party technologies, web sites, information and programs made available through this website.

Spay and Associates