BCG Blog

Let’s face it: people traveled for the holidays. For employers, this means that the likelihood of employees getting the coronavirus skyrockets. How can plan sponsors help prevent, and also prepare for, the inevitable?

Like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, the last year has been filled with unexpected twists. Here’s how advisors can help explain to clients why we haven’t bounced back yet, and what signs of recovery to look for.

Social Security is primarily funded through payroll taxes; however, due to the significant layoffs caused by COVID-19, 10.7 million fewer workers are paying into social security, plus many others have had their hours cut. Taken together, this means that Social Security contributions have slowed down significantly.

TikTok, Snapchat, Instagram, oh my! Some advisors are turning to social media platforms that specialize in fast-paced content. However, these can pose compliance complications and advisors’ time may be better spent figuring out how to motivate their young clients to invest at all.

Every business is now using variations of the same coronavirus script about navigating “a new normal” in “these trying times”. How can advisors stand out from the crowd of inauthentic platitudes? It all starts with empathy.

More and more adults are becoming caregivers to aging and elderly relatives, and the number of young caregivers is increasing disproportionately. What resources can plan sponsors offer employees who are trying to plan for these emotionally and financially challenging circumstances—or may already be facing them?

Is financial advising the new Netflix? While subscription models exist in the investment world, they’re not exactly common…but that may be changing.

Not everyone wants to retire. Whatever the motivation, many older investors may have been planning on a working retirement. Those older investors probably didn’t plan on a contagious pandemic that makes them feel unsafe returning to work.

Financial advisors have a complex web of security issues to consider on a calm day. Has coronavirus made that more complicated? Maybe. Here are a few key issues to consider when reviewing your security plans while we continue to work from home at least part of the time.

Many companies that have fiscal years not tried to the calendar year, like those who start their FY in July or schools who might start their FY in August, may be entering that open enrollment period now. Here are a few tips on how to increase your presentation game to help those employees stay focused and get the information they need.

With anything hands-on miles away from the current reality and so much perceived chaos over financial matters, advisors may feel frustrated. How can they use YouTube to help calm confusion?

In a normal year, about 18% of Americans experience high levels of anxiety. In the Spring of 2020, 37% number of people reported high levels of anxiety and stress about the COVID-19 outbreak. How can financial advisors tailor their messages to be received most easily and absorbed by stressed readers?

If families were saving for a rainy day, that day may have come regardless of what other relief may be coming. Plan Sponsors readying to change the hardship rules in their plan documents, or who may have recently done so, may want to consider how they can assist their employees during this time.

With marketing, networking, and budget balancing tasks fighting for space in your Google calendar, you may feel that your time management skills need a tune up. Not so fast! Instead of managing your time, manage your attention.

As employers strive to offer more benefits to their employees, they may need to consider all the variables involved, including their own administrative capacities.

Want to avoid publishing marketing materials with glaring grammar mistakes? Here’s a review of common examples and a few tips.

How can an employer use the concept of cultural competency to ensure that their financial literacy programs hit the mark? Without cultural competency, an employer’s financial education programs may miss the mark and leave employees out.

How can you ready your business for growth? Here are solutions for addressing growth challenges in personnel, regulation and technology.

Choosing the right clients, and how you decide to forgo those that aren’t for you, can ensure business success, even when it seems crazy to turn clients away. Here’s why.

Plan Sponsors who conduct seminars for their employees may want to plan educational programs for the upcoming year on these top worries from their employees. Here are five suggestions.

Employees who are stressed about having appropriate skills for their jobs may take matters into their own hands to learn important skills. Plan sponsors can use these platforms to help their employees learn how to be just as savvy at planning for retirement as in cranking out field reports in SalesForce.

Your firm can thwart ethics and compliance problems early on by encouraging employees to ask questions and spot potential problems early on through a compliance friendly environment.

There may be something deeper in the recent revival of interest in Bitcoin, and Plan Sponsors should take note.

In late 2016 two female focused financial platforms faced off. One survived. How does that success help advisors understand financial feminism?

Employees may want to treat retirement like their laundry: set it and forget it. But retirement, and any investing, isn’t as easy as lather, rinse, repeat. Here’s how plan sponsors can help employees appropriately use automatic investment tools.

A financial advisor may keep the doctor away. Two new studies show that financial advisors may play an important role in worker’s sense of well-being. Knowing the numbers may help you understand how to help your clients even more.

Not only are other options out there for communicating with your clients besides the boring PowerPoint slides but your competition may be using them. Here’s a run through of a handful of the best alternatives to Powerpoint and also how the other game in town can help you communicate with new audiences.

Positivity can increase your immune system, reduce your risk of heart attack and possibly even lower your rate of depression. But, can such happy vibes be good for investing and retirement readiness?

After years of stagnant wages and industry shake ups, it seems like the economy has settled and your clients can pose for selfies as they float down easy river. So how do you get those clients to be ready for the next round of rapids?

Clients are doing their homework more on potential advisors. So before you start that new push for more clients, make sure you can make it as easy as possible for clients to find the information they are searching for.

In 2017, we wrote about how Investment Monitoring was a gaining prominence in financial advisory services. In the two years since that article, risk management and investment monitoring has become even more widespread. What’s changed?

Want to increase your email newsletter's open rate? Adding color may seem like a great option. But before you go tossing handfuls of brights across your page, you may want to stop and read a few key tips on color theory.

Retirees with jobs in retirement may be a growing new trend. What do advisors need to know about the new trend of choosing a retirement job and how that impacts retirement savings?

The key to finding the right people might be to focus more on how you find them and less on your job description or interview process. Letting go of what you’ve always tried and trying these ideas might help you find your client’s new favorite staff person.

2018's greatest tech trend may be the movement away from social media. If the clients you have (or want to have) are moving away from Facebook and Instagram don't chase them there. Instead, follow these key tips to increase your communications strategy.

Design thinking imports the principles for design and architecture into business and personal planning by flipping the problem solving to zero in on the problem.

FINRA’s new rule on electronic signatures highlights the differences between state and federal law. What do advisors need to know about e-signatures and how that might impact their work?

Clients choose advisors based on factors other than costs. Advisors who meet their client’s needs consistently have clients who are less likely to jump ship. Word of mouth may be the best form of advertising, but in the age of the Internet, can you control it?

How can financial advisors improve their skills to help make clients more comfortable in discussing financial performance? Many business coaches are encouraging advisors to focus on emotional intelligence.

Financial theory holds that people, as investors, will be rational thinkers, moving towards wealth maximization. Yet, often, investors, as people, make irrational choices. Behavioral finance explains why investors make bad choices and how to encourage better choices.

In 2016, Time Magazine reported that 1 in 3 Americans did not have any retirement accounts. How can employers work with this statistic to encourage more employees to save for retirement?

They lost benefit options over the years, including pensions. How advisors can help GenXers mind the gaps and improve retirement savings.

Are your plan participants betting that they’ll live a long time? Do their retirement savings and goals match that enthusiasm?