PLANADVISER - January/February 2022 - 5

Mission Possible
Meeting the needs of retirees in the public sector
THE RETIREMENT landscape is constantly
evolving and, with it, the challenges
employers face in helping employees reach
their retirement goals. To better understand
how plan sponsors and participants
in the public sector can rise to the occasion,
PLANADVISER spoke recently with Lynne
Ford, chief executive officer and president
of MissionSquare Retirement, which until
July had been known as ICMA-RC.
PLANADVISER: Your organization had
a long history of serving the public
sector as ICMA-RC. Why change your
name now?
Lynne Ford: Our goal has always been to
provide outstanding service to plan sponsors
and participants. When I joined the
company in 2019 and we started retooling
our strategic plan for the next 50 years,
we felt our name wasn't reflecting the
story of who we are. Working with a team
of experts and our various stakeholder
groups, we landed on MissionSquare.
We love having the word " Mission " in
our name because it's what we focus on
every day-serving those who serve their
communities. " Square " is a nod to the
town square, the place where our clients-
government,
education,
nonprofit
and
health care professionals-come together
to serve their communities.
PA: What new challenges are your
plan sponsor clients and their
employees facing?
Ford: Saving for and living in retirement
remains the single largest financial challenge
we all face. But the dynamics of how
that occurs are changing. In the public
sector, a large majority of employees once
relied on defined benefit
(DB) pension
plans for retirement income. Many public
workers still have access to these plans, but
we've also seen more hybrid plans installed.
This has required plan participants to really
understand the different mechanisms they
have for saving for retirement, how much
they must set aside to create a comfortable
life in retirement, and how they can
generate income from their savings once
they are no longer working.
PA: How can plan sponsors help
employees manage this shift?
Ford: Certainly, great plan design is a
good place to start. But employers also
can help by promoting and offering access
to financial planning and education on
a holistic basis so that people know not
only where they stand today but where,
with commitments to certain actions and
investments over a period of time, they are
likely to stand tomorrow.
PA: How is MissionSquare helping?
Ford: We've just rolled out a financial wellness
center with a library of articles and
tools to help participants educate themselves
on saving for retirement and other
financial matters. We've also transformed
our
operational
MissionSquare
platform,
Plan
Services,
now called
to make
it easier for plan participants to access
what they need digitally. I'd also point to
our research on workforce issues for the
public sector via what is now the MissionSquare
Research Institute. We are leveraging
the work that group does to assist
plan sponsors in recruiting and managing
their workforces, with a particular emphasis
SPONSORED SECTION
Lynne Ford, chief executive
officer and president
of MissionSquare Retirement
on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I).
PA: How do diversity, equity and
inclusion factor into the challenges
facing plan sponsors?
Ford: Diversity is important because it
can deliver a lot of benefits, especially
when paired with equity and inclusion.
Beyond creating a sense of comfort for
employees, it has a positive impact on
productivity, quality of decision-making
and financial success. In fact, our research
shows that having a diverse workforce
yields a 56% improvement in employee
job performance. Our work in this area can
help guide our clients in creating a diverse,
equitable and inclusive workplace culture.
PA: Workers are quitting their jobs
at an extraordinary rate this year.
Can a commitment to diversity,
equity and inclusion help stem the
Great Resignation?
Ford: I believe it can. People leave jobs if
they feel unwelcome. We did a deep dive
into this issue with the LGBTQ community,
for example, and found that 10% of
workers who identify as part of that group
have left jobs because they felt unwelcomed.
That's just one of many reasons
our clients want to focus on this, and why
we want to help them do it. Incidentally,
we're committed to this issue ourselves.
Seventy percent of our employees identify
as women or people of color, and our
leadership team and board are also very
diverse with 75% of our leadership team
and 60% of our board being women or
people of color. This is an area of utmost
importance to us, and it's one of the ways
we believe we can help our clients. n
PLANADVISER - January/February 2022

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