[Updated article; original publish date 12/12/22].

1 Assess your plan’s current competitiveness

You can do a few things to help determine if your retirement plan is competitive. The first is benchmarking, which is when you compare your plan’s design, features, and services to plans offered by similar companies in your area. Your results can help you understand where your plan is excelling and where it may be lagging. If your talent search isn’t limited to your community, don’t limit your benchmarking either—consider including companies in your state and across the country. Many financial professionals offer benchmarking services, so you may want to contact yours for assistance.

Your employees can be surveyed to find out how they feel about your plan. The survey should be brief and include some open-ended questions such as:  

• Are you participating in the plan? If not, why?
• What do you value most about the retirement plan?
• If you could change one thing about the plan, what would it be?
• How do our retirement benefits compare with those of your prior employer?
• What are your top financial priorities? How could the plan help you address them?  

2 Consider plan design and service enhancements

Once you know where your plan stands today, you can work with your financial professional and retirement plan committee to identify and evaluate potential changes to help make it more competitive. For example, based on your benchmarking and survey results, you may consider: 

• Using online enrollment to make it easier and faster for people to join your plan
• Switching to a tiered match to encourage higher contribution rates
• Offering personalized advice to help participants choose their investments
• Pairing an emergency savings account with your 401(k) to help participants plan for unexpected expenses
• Providing support for student loans, which could take many forms, from education to repayment assistance
• Expanding your financial wellness program to include more personal finance topics such as budgeting and saving for college

As with any plan change, you should document these discussions in your committee minutes to help demonstrate that you followed a prudent process in reaching your decisions.

3 Promote, promote—and then promote some more

Plan enhancements alone won’t help your recruitment and retention efforts. Prospective and current employees need to understand what your plan offers in order to consider it a valuable benefit. Consider including the following in your communication strategy if you don't already:  

• Educating your talent recruiters about your plan’s benefits—after all, they’re the face of your organization to potential candidates  
• Highlighting innovative and differentiating plan features in your job offers. You can also consider including benchmarking information for the areas where your plan excels 
• Sending regular communications to employees that showcase how the plan can help them reach their retirement goals and address their current financial needs
• Hosting in-person or virtual meetings to promote plan enhancements and answer questions

Strive to make your organization the top choice for top talent

In today’s labor market, your retirement plan can be a powerful recruitment and retention tool. Show prospective and current employees that you’re invested in their well-being by investing in your retirement plan. You can work with your recordkeeper or financial professional to create a competitive plan for your employees.

1 John Hancock’s ninth annual stress, finances, and  well-being survey, John Hancock, Edelman Public Relations Worldwide Canada Inc. (Edelman), December 2022. This information is general in nature and is not intended to constitute legal or investment advice. Edelman and John Hancock are not affiliated, and neither is responsible for the liabilities of the other. This report presents the results of research conducted by Edelman on behalf of John Hancock. The objectives of this study were to (1) quantify the financial situation and level of financial stress of John Hancock plan participants; (2) determine the key triggers of financial stress; (3) understand the extent to which actions, including actual financial behavior and planning activity, ameliorate stress; and (4) assess retirement preparation and readiness. This was an online survey of 3,825 John Hancock plan participants. The survey was conducted from 11/29/22 through 12/14/22, with an average survey length of approximately 18 minutes per respondent. Respondents were located from a list of eligible plan participants provided by John Hancock. All statistical testing is done at 0.95 significance levels. The maximum margin of sampling error at the 95% confidence level is ±1.3%. Percentages in the tables and charts may not total to 100 due to rounding and/or missing categories.