Assessment and Planning

Assessing your employees’ participation in retirement savings and direct deposit helps identify the opportunities for improvement. Consider:

  • How is my company doing now?
  • What changes could be made to improve participation?
  • What are our goals? What commitments should we make?

How is my company doing now?

  • What are your company’s current participation rates in direct deposit and retirement savings/401(k) plans?
    • Analyze participation in direct deposit and retirement savings by relevant employee sub-groups (e.g. age, tenure, compensation level and ethnicity). You may use the Participation Worksheet for ideas to focus your analysis. Note: Survey data typically shows lower retirement participation rates among those who are minorities, young, earn lower incomes or have achieved less education.
    • Which employee groups have lower participation rates in direct deposit and retirement savings?
    • Consider conducting focus groups with employees that represent these groups to better understand why they don’t participate. Try to determine what would encourage them to do so.
    • Learn about cultural differences and challenges unique to particular groups (e.g. immigrants may prioritize sending money to family in their native country versus saving for retirement; other groups may be unfamiliar with or mistrust financial institutions).
  • How do your program design and engagement/communication strategies compare to the Best Practices?
    • Assess your company’s current direct deposit and retirement plan offerings relative to the Best Practices.
    • Evaluate your plan design and features, engagement strategies and communication strategies.
    • Note similarities and differences between your company’s practices and the Best Practices.

What changes could be made to improve participation?

Based on your assessment, what changes could you make in both plan design and communication/engagement strategies that would have the greatest impact on participation rates?

  • What could you do to reach employee sub-groups with low participation rates? Make sure the tactics you use are culturally relevant.
  • What will motivate people and encourage them to participate?

What are our goals? What commitments should we make?

  • Draft a set of goals and commitments. Ideally, these should include program/plan design changes, financial education and enhanced engagement/communications strategies. See Sample Goals and Commitments for ideas.
  • Assess the potential impact, feasibility and resources required to make the changes you are considering.
  • Get support and approval from key decision-makers.
  • Develop an implementation plan, including tactical steps, communication plan, timeline, accountabilities and resources required.
    • Develop a complete communication plan incorporating the Best Practices.
      Note: Communication and engagement strategies are keys to increasing participation.
  • Implement a measurement system to track and report your progress relative to your goals.
    • Help Financially Fit Minnesota by reporting your progress and responding to information requests.