Building your plan
For more than 50 years, we’ve consulted with plan sponsors and their business partners to design and deliver the right retirement program for their organization.
Transition
Your plan. Our project.
You'll be assigned a dedicated plan implementation manager (PIM) to manage your transition and keep you informed every step of the way. Your relationship manager and other members of your service team will also be involved from the very beginning to get to know you and your plan.
We help minimize your effort and maximize efficiency
- We’ll work with your former recordkeeper to minimize your effort and involvement in the transition.
- We conduct a rigorous review of your plan and participant data to help us design the plan, then we scrub the data to ensure the transition goes smoothly.
Follow our proven process
- With decades of experience transitioning plans, we’ve streamlined the process and developed some critical best practices plan sponsors can use for a seamless transition.
- You can stay up to date as often as you like through the implementation portal, which hosts the conversion timeline for your plan, updated in real time as activities are completed.
Your service team
A best-in-class service team1
Work with a team that consistently earns best-in-class reviews for industry and plan knowledge, responsiveness and consistency, and regulatory support.
Your relationship manager
Your relationship manager will be your primary contact and will have years of experience managing plans like yours. You can count on your relationship manager to:
- Provide information on regulatory and compliance updates
- Work with you to determine an education plan
- Meet with you to conduct an annual review
- Monitor your plan and make recommendations for improvements
Your client service manager
Your dedicated client service manager will be your day-to-day contact, trained on the specifics of your plan to:
- Provide ongoing administrative support
- Provide training and support related to tools and reports
- Answer your day-to-day questions
Work with our ERISA experts or your plan's ERISA consultant
Throughout the life of your plan with us, our ERISA team can work with you to:
- Provide regulatory and fiduciary support
- Draft and maintain the plan document
- Complete all applicable form filings, notices, and required testing
- Prepare your signature-ready Form 5500
- Provide fiduciary services that include audit assistance, as well as custom and ad hoc reporting
Plan design
Plan design expertise helps you meet your goals and your employees' retirement needs
Work with our ERISA experts or your ERISA consultant to design and implement a qualified plan that aligns with your company’s overall strategy while helping your employees save for retirement.
We'll work with you to implement standard and innovative plan design features to help you optimize outcomes for you and your participants.
- Eligibility and vesting
- Automatic enrollment and increase
- Auto-enrollment into pretax or Roth based on salary
- Auto-sweeps
- Stretch match formulas
- Loan continuance for terminated employees
Your ERISA consultant will get your plan up and running.
- Review your plan design to ensure it meets your specific requirements
- Transition your plan document using our preapproved plan document
- Review protected benefits and make recommendations to improve plan efficiency and/or reduce costs
- Prepare plan documents, including the summary plan description, plan highlights, and other related documents and procedures
Payroll integration
Flexible payroll options to meet your needs
Payroll integration is a critical element of transitioning and recordkeeping your plan. We offer flexible payroll options from 180º to 360º and are adept at working with multiple payroll vendors.
Payroll integration makes your job easier
Go online any time to:
- Review and correct payroll
- Approve funding
- View previously submitted payroll files
- Highlight data corrections for your payroll system
Payroll integration reduces your risk
With true data integration, we can administer your plan more efficiently and with fewer errors.
Payroll integration drives personalized tools
Having a robust foundation of plan and participant data enables all the reporting, tools, insight, and personalization we provide you and your participants.
Payroll 360º uses two digital file paths for data integration
1 The payroll and data file from your payroll vendor to John Hancock contains contributions, loan repayments, and participant-indicative data.
2 The feedback file from John Hancock to your payroll vendor contains actionable payroll change information, such as deferral and loan repayment deduction changes.
Our advanced and flexible payroll capabilities can help you streamline payroll functions and ease your administrative workload.
Bridge connections allow direct, secure transmission of indicative and financial data to our services platform.
We post weekly online payroll reports to the plan sponsor website and connect directly with your payroll vendor.
With online payroll processing, you can easily review and correct payroll, approve funding, and view previous submissions.
Learn more about our open-architecture platform
Managing your plan
We'll make your job as an administrator and fiduciary easier, including accepting fiduciary responsibility for certain administrative tasks.
Keeping your plan secure
John Hancock uses a multilayered approach to protect plan and participant data, which includes following the DOL's best practices for cybersecurity.
Selecting and monitoring investments
Our open-architecture platform makes thousands of funds available as you select your plan's investment lineup, with services available if you'd like some help.
Engaging your participants in the power of their plan
We provide participants with personalized guidance to help them create a plan to meet their unique financial and retirement goals.
Financial professionals—want to learn more about our flexible, scalable open-architecture platform?
Find your local John Hancock representative1 “PLANSPONSOR 2020 Best in Class DC Providers,” PLANSPONSOR, January 2021. 2 John Hancock provides select fiduciary services as specified in our service agreement; the plan sponsor or other party designated as plan administrator pursuant to ERISA Section 3(16) retains fiduciary responsibilities not contractually assumed by John Hancock Retirement Plan Services LLC. Certain transactional charges may apply to participant accounts.