
Retirement Planning Education for Employees: Track and Stack
As Quarter 4 draws near, Plan Sponsors may be wondering how they can help employees capture the end of the year energy to plan for retirement. One of our new favorite ways is to combine a well-known method with a newer system: track and stack. Tracking habits and progress towards goals is a method known to help motivate employees towards goals. But habit stacking is a new method that is stirring up a lot of interest for its impact.
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Communication Overload as a Compliance Problem.
On an individual level, communication overload can be a serious problem in terms of employee productivity and job satisfaction. On an enterprise level, communication can have serious compliance repercussions. Generic tips for using to-do lists and AI to sort your inbox don’t fully address the problem and its impact on decision-making.
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Communications and Content Creation Series 1: Audit and Assess for Success
If the launch of a new platform rattles your marketing department, it may be because your firm’s communications plan is based too much on responding and less on a clear executable strategy. Through a series of articles, we make it easy to streamline your communications and content creation so that you can capture more leads and have a smoother pipeline of prospective clients.
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New in FinLit: Concerns About Abusive Lending Policies?
Plan sponsors are increasingly offering financial literacy programs for their participants, including educating participants on their rights and the roles of consumer agencies. A new effort by the CFPB may cause confusion among participants seeking consumer loans. The history and impact of predatory lending may predict positive and negative impacts of the new policy.
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Auto-Enrolling Beyond 401(ks) and Regulatory Rules.
The balancing act most plan sponsors engage in to expand benefits, minimize costs, and remain within regulatory rules can feel like walking a tightrope. Over the last year, we’ve been looking at aspects of auto-enrolling employees in programs. Here, we look at the concerns around compliance.
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FinTech Trends and Cases That May Change Investor Behavior
In the tsunami of information and misinformation about FinTech and digital assets some information may get missed. Here are five topics worth paying attention to: 1) the SEC v. Coinbase case and defining securities to include digital assets; 2) the UCC and Blockchain; 3) open banking extensions; 4) AI for loan processing; and 5) AI for cybersecurity.
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Secure 2.0 Act – More Changes Coming?
The passage of the Secure 2.0 Act had major changes on many American’s retirement planning options. The process was complex, drawn out and not without its problems. Six months after it was made into law, analysts and lawmakers have noted a few key holes in the legislation.
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Temporary Relief? What to Consider When Turning to Temporary Workers This Season
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows that employees are also continuing to quit in 2023 at a rate similar to 2022. Some employers turning to long term temporary employees to fill these gaps may be wondering if they can roll those into systems set up for seasonal workers in terms of benefits. Plan sponsors should exercise caution in that area. Here’s why.
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Time for a Referee? What Advisors Should Watch in Financial Coaching
Recently we noticed an absence of activity regarding financial coaching regulations and standards. What’s surprising about the lack of regulation on financial coaching is that the field has been growing significantly. Financial advisors may want to pay attention to this trend as their clients may benefit from coaching but due to lack of standards, coaches may be overstepping the goal line.
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Canada’s Pension Model Gains More Than Attention
The Canadian pension model is continuing to attract attention as word of its superior returns spreads. Are US pension funds ready to follow suit? Advisors working with institutions may want to review the Canadian model to be prepared for client questions.
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The Tax Man Cometh, And He Brings Thoughts About Auto-Enrolling Savings Accounts
Plan sponsors contemplating changes to their auto-enrollment functions may want to pay attention to the rising number of folks using their tax returns as savings. Are Americans using their tax return as a default savings account? Auto-enrollment in savings for employees without an emergency account is a newer feature of some employee benefits dashboards and is not without criticism.
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Budgeting for Benefits Retention
Many plan sponsors and human resource professionals may have felt increasing pressure to expand their benefits. But with that pressure comes the tension of the expense of employee benefits. This conflict usually arises over the budgeting process. Yet, there are steps that HR professionals can take now to reduce budget tension.
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Plan Fiduciaries, Custodial Rules, and Employee Education
New SEC custodial rules coupled with concerns over liquidity of custodians is a cocktail mix sponsors may want to send back to the bartender. A few key points to consider of how these two trends as well as how employee education about fiduciary duty may help ease concerns about custodial liquidity and bank failures.
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Cybersecurity Inside and Out
Cybersecurity continues to be a going source of concern and cost for businesses. New thoughts on how to prevent internal cybersecurity issues can be combined with the EBSA’s best practices to help advisors increase their systems.
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After the After the Pandemic- Returning to Basics.
The key to calm successful clients may be a return to basics. While the familiar may seem simple, that doesn’t mean it’s without merit. Portfolio review, rebalancing, education, and life insurance should be top of list as the economy continues to meander.
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Manufacturing May Change Benefits for the Better
Plan sponsors keeping an eye on trends in benefit plans and offerings may want to pay attention to a new field – manufacturing. Will development of new manufacturing across the U.S. change employee expectations for benefit plans?
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SECURE Act 2.0: Sponsors, Get Your Forms Ready
SECURE Act 2.0 may require a bit of work for plan sponsors and those who manage the administrative side of benefit plans. We sat down and discussed the new act with our experts. They noted three main areas sponsors may want to consider: hardship deduction tracking; changes that could significantly increase or decrease the number of participants (and by association, your costs); and how forms are worded and stored.
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A Round Up of Advisor Articles and A Few Predictions
For the last four or five years, every article seeking to review the past year’s events has summed up the previous twelve months as “a lot.” After so much unpredictability and turmoil in the markets, reading those future planning articles may seem less than fruitful. Yet, we still think it is important to take stock of what has happened in 2022 and look at what we think might be coming in 2023.
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Auto-Enrolling Seasonal Workers
Seasoning isn’t just for your stuffing. Instead, seasoning may be flummoxing your benefits team. Adding those workers can add a positive boost to morale but may be a nightmare for your administrative team. Here are three key considerations to discuss with your team.
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Projections and Statistics? How to Stay Up to Date
Projections for retirement and investment prospects for the last few years have been less than accurate. Aside from relying on professional groups and advisory sources like BCG, where can advisors turn to for reliable studies on investor trends and retirement data?
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“Financial Influencers”: Investing, Enrollment and Your Employees
There may be buzz around new laws on auto-enrollment’s impact on plan sponsors and their employees, but getting those employees to enroll and stay enrolled is still a pain point for many sponsors. If plan sponsors aren’t reaching their employees about the importance of saving for retirement, maybe there’s another option: social media influencers who post about personal finance.
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Don’t Walk Like a Duck: 3 Steps Advisors Can Take to Not Sound Like a Scam
With recession a looming possibility, there may be more fraudsters contacting the very people in your prospect pipeline. What may be worse is that fraudulent schemes have evolved to sound more like legitimate businesses. With the scammers stealing marketing methods from legitimate advisors, how can you make sure your marketing pieces don’t get confused with more nefarious folks?
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Worried About Market Volatility? Take a P.A.U.S.E.
It may seem like there is a lot of news about the stock market being volatile. If that’s got you concerned, here is an easy way to consider how you perceive the stock market and its fluctuations. Try taking a pause. Here are five things to remember about volatility that can help you position yourself appropriately and reduce your concerns.
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Manage Meeting Mayhem
As the Wall Street Journal says, “Great meetings are small, fast, and don’t involve status updates.” So how can you get to great? Here are a few key tips.
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Practice Pointers: Interviewing and Hiring
You could be doing all of your recruitment right, but still fall short on hiring. Many employers fail to focus on how the interview process informs candidates about company culture and lose networking opportunities for the almost-right candidate.
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Workforce Changes To Monitor
Plan Sponsors may feel overwhelmed having kept up with what might have felt like large swings to their demographics in their workforce. Those who are eager to keep track of demographic changes in the overall investing habits of America may want to take note of several new studies and statistics that were released.
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Love is in the Air? What to Think About Mergers After the 2021 Merger Rush
While RIA acquisitions may be slowing in 2022 after the unusual heat of 2021, the proliferation of them may have some advisor groups wondering if merging may be worth thinking about. When considering any major business move you should always consult with your advisors. While you await their calls, here are a few things to think about when thinking about mergers.
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Entrepreneur Lessons: Scale Deep and Ask Around.
Worldwide, the increase in startup companies in 2020 increased 26.9% over the last decade. Whether you are one of those companies starting fresh in 2022, or you work with many of them, there are a few clear key points in what can help make an entrepreneur successful. The clearest of them involves scaling deep versus scaling up and owning your knowledge gaps. Here’s more of what we mean.
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Educating GenZ
Recent studies have shown an uptick in interest in investing in alternative investments by Generation Z. GenZ are those who are roughly ages 10 to 25 in 2022. Plan Sponsors who worry that their GenZ employees may be forgoing 401(k)s for buying blitzes of bitcoin can rest a little easier. GenZ is investing in their 401(k)s, but that’s not all they’re betting on.
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Postal Service law and Plan Sponsors
Changes to the laws around the post office may have arrived right on time. Many plan sponsors struggled with using first class mail during the pandemic due to the overload on the Post Office. But not so fast, struggles may still be on extended delivery. Here’s a quick survey of what plan sponsors may want to consider around first-class mail and plan disclosures.
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Erase Your Tech Debt? The Biggest Tech Mistake of All
When employees returned to the office from the months or years locked in WFH, they discovered sad coffee cups, lonely plants and their undying hatred of the office printer. With employees working from home, they may have lost the tolerance they had for the minor tech issues that your office worked on or around. Now may be the best time to assess your technical debt.
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Female-Led Indexes: The ESG Funds of the Future?
New research shows that gender diversity in leadership does more than ensure fair representation. It may also change how companies think. That in turn may explain why companies that are more gender diverse outperform their less diverse counterparts. Is it time to keep an eye on Female-Led Indexes?
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It’s the Economy, Genius.
Empowering employees to ask questions, raise concerns and become more educated can help those employees feel more confident in investing and saving for retirement. How to Address Employees’ Concerns About Changes to the Economy Through Education.
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Six Solid Staffing Tips
The pandemic’s change to how we work had big effects on staffing. Is the biggest impact on workforce management hiring? Maybe, but there are a few new staff management practices that could be worth taking note. Here are six of them.
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Myths About Marketing Post-Pandemic
Given all of the unpredictability, it might be tempting for advisors to follow some common myths about post-pandemic marketing. Here is a look at a few of the most common post-pandemic marketing myths we’ve seen and an eye on what’s fact versus fiction.
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Maintain vs Retain: Keep Clients by Borrowing a Page from E-Commerce
Advisors may be turning their thoughts towards maintaining their clients. While advisors and others in service industries focus on client maintenance, those in eCommerce focus on client retention. The difference between the two may provide some interesting insight into your client maintenance plans and point to where you might be able to improve.
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The 411 on FINRA’s Rule 4111?
With the SEC and DOL potentially making new rules, don’t lose sight of new regulations from FINRA that could impact you. FINRA’s newer rules warrant caution and consultation with counsel.
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State and Local Legislation to Watch
When it comes to income, investing and saving for retirement, it isn’t only federal laws to keep an eye on. States may be creating new challenges and opportunities for investors as well. Here are a few we’ve noticed in the last year.
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Spring Cleaning your Plan Documents
Capture the calm before your budgeting storm to assess and update your Plan Documents this Spring. The IRS’s guidance on how to prevent mishaps related to not updating plan documents is sound advice at any time of year. Most of their recommendations fall under good project management processes.
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About that Roth IRA: Time to Talk About Tax-Advantaged Funds
How can advisors help walk their clients through a thicket of potentially globally changing financial circumstances? When it comes to circumstances that may hit client’s static budget items – like housing, transportation and taxes, advisors may be able to help clients position themselves now for potential problems later by discussing advantages, especially tax advantaged funds.
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