Today we take a little detour from talking about the usual 401(k) or workplace retirement plan topics and focus on the challenge for many people around the country who are gainfully employed but don’t have access to a retirement plan at work. Personally, when I first heard some of the stats we discuss today they were surprising to me. I have two guests which both shared great perspective today, Lisa Massena, the Executive Director of OregonSaves the first state retirement plan to go live and And...
Apr 06, 2018•1 hr 9 min
This episode is fresh out of the 401(k) Fridays Podcast experiment lab. Today my guest JD Carlson, the President & CEO of the legendary Third Party Administration firm Plan Design Consultants and Host of the Retireholi(k)s show we poke a little bit of fun with 401(k) speak. Each of us took the time to prepare a few statements that are full of retirement plan terms, or maybe not, and then put the other person on the spot to determine if the statement is Jargon, Gibberish, or Jumbled. We had a...
Mar 30, 2018•1 hr 5 min
It has never made a lot of sense to me how retirement plan participants go missing and lose track of sometimes thousands of dollars of their money. My conversation today with Spencer Williams, the President & CEO of Retirement Clearing House shed a lot of light on just how this happens. We tackle a host of related issues in a face paced back and forth dialogue which highlights some interesting findings from their recent study on the topic, we also hit on how missing participants factor into ...
Mar 23, 2018•52 min
Some tricky schedules got in the way of my production calendar so no new episode this week. However, as I searched through our archives I thought this episode had some great messages that would be good for some of our new subscribers to hear and for our long term listeners to have top of mind. Enjoy! I'll have to admit, when I first heard of Don Barden and the "Perfect Plan" I was pretty skeptical. What does "perfect" mean? Who gets to judge "perfect"? My analytical mind was going crazy. However...
Mar 16, 2018•59 min
Somewhere in the lifecycle of most retirement plans, employers are faced with the inevitable decision, should I bundle or unbundle the administration of my plan? There are several different perspectives on that question and some important considerations that employers should keep in mind. To help sort though this, I was excited to welcome back Doug Van Galder, he would call himself a recovering Third Party Administrator and is now a compliance analyst with the ERISA law firm Boutwell Fay. During...
Mar 09, 2018•47 min
A quick word of warning, this episode is not for the faint of heart! Today we tackle and I think make more familiar the topic of factor investing. I will be the first one to admit that I am one of those people who is familiar with factor investing but have been confused with the role it can or does plan in workplace retirement plan investment menu design. So, I was personally excited to have Stacey Tovrov, a Vice President and Investment Strategies within Blackrock’s Defined Contribution busines...
Mar 02, 2018•55 min
This week we have one of my early favorites from the archives featuring my conversation with Jerry Patterson, the Senior Vice President of Retirement & Investor Services at Principal Financial Group. Jerry is also a national speaker and writer on a broad range of financial topics and is a resident blogger for the Huffington Post where he focuses on financial wellness and overcoming human nature to attain better financial security outcomes. We focus what employers should know about what it me...
Feb 23, 2018•1 hr 6 min
Maybe this shows my age, but whenever I get thinking about surveys my mind immediately goes to The Family Feud and their often repeated catch phrase of “our survey said…”. Today, we dont’ have the family feud, but I do have Joshua Dietch, group manager of Retirement & Financial Education at T. Rowe Price to share input from their results of their 3rd Annual Retirement Savings & Spending Survey. Their work caught my attention as it had some great insights on retirement trends and behavior...
Feb 16, 2018•55 min
Honestly, I’m not sure I even gave our guest the chance to unpack his suitcase from his trip to Washington D.C.! I am happy to welcome Sam Henson, Director of Legislative & Regulatory Affairs at Lockton Retirement Services back to the podcast! Our conversation is timely in that he provides great input on President Trump’s first year in office, what impact it has had on workplace retirement plans and a few ideas on things to come and where we go from here. We also touch on a few issues that a...
Feb 09, 2018•1 hr 1 min
One of my favorite things these days is to explore new topics on the podcast! Today in my conversation with Dena Ayala, the President & CEO of Spencer Reed Consulting we dive into the role workplace retirement plans play in an employers ability to recruiting talent. This is a pretty timely episode based on the current historically low unemployment rate and the war for talent that has been going on in many industries and geographies around the country. Dena provides great input on what questi...
Feb 02, 2018•46 min
I’m noticing a trend with the themes from a few recent episodes, leadership, stewardship, foresight and now I’m throwing courage into the mix! While all of these characteristics are important to run a successful and valuable workplace retirement plan, courage is sometimes underrated! To share some of her insights on the topic of courageous retirement plan design I was excited to have Shannon Nutter Weirbinsky who heads Participant Strategy and Development for Vanguard's institutional business jo...
Jan 26, 2018•51 min
No matter how you slice it target date funds continue to play a larger role each year in the conversation around workplace retirement plan outcomes. However, some of the decisions that plan sponsors and fiduciaries make on their target date funds are not evolving as quickly as maybe they should. When I discuss with employers how they selected their target date strategy often times I hear answers like, they had the best performance, they were inexpensive or they were the one our provider offered....
Jan 19, 2018•1 hr 22 min
This is part two of my conversation with Jerry Schichter, to be clear that means there was a part one which was last week. I would strongly suggest you listen to that one first to gain some perspective on Jerry and the retirement plan litigation he has been responsible for. That said, in this episode we pick up right where we left off last time and finish off the conversation around whether Jerry feels some of the strategies employers and plan fiduciaries use to determine the reasonableness of p...
Jan 12, 2018•43 min
This episode marks a few milestones on the 401(k) Fridays Podcast, it’s the 100th episode, the first episode of 2018 and features part 1 of 2 of my conversation with Jerry Schlichter. For some of our listeners Jerry requires no introduction. If you are not familiar, Jerry and his firm Schlichter Bogard & Denton have been the driving force behind many of the headline grabbing 401(k) lawsuits over the past decade. As you will hear, his firm has successfully garnered multi-million dollar settle...
Jan 05, 2018•47 min
No interview with a retirement industry expert today. This episode shares my top ten highlights and themes from nearly 100 conversations on the podcast! Be sure to check out our first two episodes of 2018 which are my two part conversation with Jerry Schlichter, the plaintiffs attorney driving much of the 401(k) and other retirement plan litigation against employers! Part 1 will be posted on Friday, January 5th and Part 2 on Friday, January 12th. Don't forget that if you have been enjoying the p...
Dec 29, 2017•20 min
Every now and then its a little fun to go off the beaten path of 401(k) plan topics and explore something related, but different. In the past, we have done that with international retirement benefits, the importance of company culture and on this episode we delve into health benefits programs. For this episode, our last full episode of 2017, my guest Ed Fensholt, an ERISA Attorney and Senior Vice President and Director of Compliance Services with Lockton Benefits Group keeps things interesting a...
Dec 15, 2017•57 min
If you are curious, concerned or confused about what’s going on with interest rates and how it might impact the bond/fixed income market or some of the investments in you 401(k) investment menu, I have great news for you! My conversation with Brett Wander, the Chief Investment Officer for Fixed Income at Charles Schwab and Jake Gilliam, a senior Mutli-Asset Class Strategist also with Charles Schwab clears a lot of things up! Brett shares some great economic insights and Jake does an excellent jo...
Dec 08, 2017•1 hr 9 min
When you take a new job or start with a new company, generally there is a job description, clear roles & responsibilities, a training program or on boarding process to help you get your feet underneath you in your new role. However, when employers create a retirement plan committee many of the people they tap to be members, and thus plan fiduciaries, have never been a fiduciary to a workplace retirement plan and aren’t really sure what that means and receive no training. If this sounds at al...
Dec 01, 2017•1 hr 4 min
Financial Wellness, while a very hot topic, is not yet mainstream. One reason could be there has not been a clear value proposition for the employer to invest the time and/or the money to roll it out. Today, my conversation with Lynn Pettus, the National Leader for Ernst & Young’s Employee Financial Services Practice sheds some light on that topic. Our conversation begins with exploring what financial wellness is or isn’t, how employers are measuring the impact of financial stress in the wor...
Nov 17, 2017•52 min
Nine years into a bull market, that generally gets people talking about bubbles. Today, I am excited to have Rob Arnott, Chairman of Research Affiliates join me for a second round on the podcast! Why have him back you might ask, well Rob and his firm manage nearly $200 Billion dollars and over the years have made some bold statements, pioneered several unconventional strategies and challenged conventional wisdom to search for solutions that add value for investors. As you will hear, Rob is not s...
Nov 10, 2017•57 min
The idea of changing workplace retirement plan recordkeepers, or going through a "conversion" in retirement plan lingo, can be a daunting and stressful proposition if you are not familiar with the process. If it has been a little while since you changed recordkeepers or if you just never had the pleasure, my conversation today with Tom Dennis, Director and Head of Defined Contribution Implementation Services for John Hancock should be helpful. We tackle head on some of the most common concerns a...
Nov 03, 2017•56 min
While I’ve been in the retirement plan business for over twenty years now, one thing I had never found was an easy to read book that an employer or someone new to the business could pick up and finish in one or two sittings and get their arms around where our retirement plan system has been, where it is today and some ideas on where it is headed in the future. My guest today Bob Reynolds, the President and CEO of both Putnam Investment and Great-West Financial must have shared my frustration and...
Oct 27, 2017•50 min
Are workplace retirement plans vulnerable to cyber threats? When it comes to cyber threats & workplace retirement plans, what questions should employers be asking their retirement service providers to better understand their security policies? I address these questions and much more with Lee Harms, Business Information Security Officer for the Principal Financial Group. Guest Bio Lee Harms is the Business Information Security Officer for the five businesses that make up Retirement and Income...
Oct 20, 2017•52 min
Sometimes employers will comment, we don’t hear to much about the 401(k) from our employees, well that’s not because your employees don’t have questions, it’s likely because they are going elsewhere to get their answers! To help uncover what 401(k) participants are doing outside the watchful eyes of their employers, is my guest Catherine Golladay, the Senior Vice President of Participant Services and Administration at Charles Schwab. During our conversation, we explore how 401(k) participants ar...
Oct 13, 2017•47 min
To Roth or not to Roth, that is the question. With the option to make Roth contributions now offered in well over 50% of workplace retirement plans by most surveys, it is great to see more acceptance of Roth but there are still a lot employers who are either not making it available, or who might offer it but don’t recognize the full scope of benefits it offers their employees. To help inform the conversation I was excited to have Katherine Roy, Managing Director and Chief Retirement Strategist a...
Oct 06, 2017•1 hr 3 min
An offer to outsource or delegate your fiduciary responsibility for your workplace retirement plan can be pretty tempting! When you think about all the rules, tasks, processes, approvals and for that matter the time that you could save if you didn’t have to do all that work, it might sound really good! However, before you sign on the dotted line, my conversation with J.D. Carlson and Chad Johansen, TPAs with Plan Design Consultants and half of the infamous Retireholi(ks) could be really helpful ...
Sep 29, 2017•1 hr 5 min
As the most recent bull market continues to mature, some retirement plan sponsors are either exploring or being encouraged to explore ways add diversification to their workplace retirement plan investment menus. Incorporating exposure to Real Estate or REITS, has been one of the more popular strategies to add some variety to traditional stock and bond offerings. While the REITs are offered in 31% of plans up from 27% five years ago according to Vanguard’s How America Saves reports, personally I ...
Sep 22, 2017•54 min
Excited to welcome back Peter Dunn, a.k.a. Pete the Planner to the podcast! Our conversation was definitely one of the more entertaining ones that I have had on the podcast in recent memory. This episode was inspired by a few recent discussions I had with workplace retirement plan sponsors who were wondering why their employees couldn't just go talk to their broker/advisor/wealth manager to get help planning for their retirement. Why did they as the employer have to get in the middle of it. With...
Sep 15, 2017•53 min
2017 started off with the winds of change blowing through Washington DC and to date has been nothing short of interesting and unexpected with the Trump administration at the helm for over seven months. Back in January, I discussed with Bob Holcomb, the head of legal and regulatory affairs at Empower Retirement some of the anticipated changes to workplace retirement plans that seemed imminent. In this episode, I revisit some of these topics with Sam Henson, Director of Legislative & Regulator...
Sep 08, 2017•1 hr 1 min
The main focus of our conversation is determining if some common employer beliefs about retirement plan audits are truth or myth. John also pulls from his experience auditing well over 100 retirements plan each year to offer some tips to employers who are preparing for their first audit and best practices for some grizzled veterans to help their audit run smoothly. Guest Bio My guest today is John Russon , a retirement plan auditor and founder of Pension Assurance , a single purpose audit firm t...
Sep 01, 2017•45 min
