PLANADVISER - May/June 2019 - 38

Here are some ideas for how to blend technology and
personal coaching, in the form of four key touchpoints, to
build participant engagement.
Demystify the Website Calculator
Many employees today feel intimidated by their participant
website, says John Ludwig, a partner and the founder of
LHD Retirement in Indianapolis and a 2019 Retirement Plan
Adviser of the Year Small Team finalist. " I see a lot of money
being spent by providers to get employees active, " he says.
" Frankly, it takes somebody in front of them to show them
how to be active. "
Vendors have done a great job of rolling out information,
Ludwig continues, but he adds that this is often overkill. " An
employee works eight to 10 hours a day, and then you expect
him to go home and look at these things?
You need to show him how to access the
website and what information is there. Do
it in small tidbits, one tool at a time, every
time you do a meeting, " Ludwig says.
According to Lyday, everyone thinks
participants, especially younger ones,
need snazzy features such as gamification
to get motivated to engage. But he
says those are unnecessary. " They just
need reality. A customized retirement
income illustration is by far the home
run to engage people, " he says. " It's the
starting point for all our conversations.
People need a very simplified view of
their reality: 'Here's where you are, here's
where you need to be, and here's how you
can close that gap.' "
Alicia Malcolm and her colleagues at D'Aiutolo, Malcolm
vice president, financial adviser and corporate retirement
director at the firm, also a Small Team finalist this year.
" Our team focuses a lot on having meetings with participants
and using technology to start that conversation, " he
says. " We can go into the calculator with them, plug in the
data, get the results and discuss them. "
CAPTRUST advisers, meeting with participants in
It is only
amazing
person or on the phone, walk them through how to use a
retirement-income calculator, customizing the assumptions
for each person's situation and helping him understand
the resulting projection. " If they try to do the calculation
on their own, participants often make wildly unrealistic
assumptions about, for example, what the annual return
on their investments is going to be, " Meyer says. " It's better
to marry the electronic tool set with human coaching that
helps people better understand why they
should consider making changes. That's
where much of the value is created. "
technology
if people
actually
use it.
& Associates Investment Consulting Group at UBS Financial
Services Inc. in Rochester, New York, often talk with sponsors
about what engages employees on participant websites.
" There's so much information, and, without participants
really understanding how to navigate their website and
what to look for, it's almost a little overwhelming, " says
Malcolm, senior vice president at the practice, another 2019
Retirement Plan Adviser of the Year Small Team finalist.
Malcolm likes participant websites that share the key
information very clearly, such as displaying on the home
page
a
participant's
personalized
income-replacement
projection. This contrasts with websites where the participant
has to find the calculator and do the figuring himself.
" The best home pages show people not just how to take
action but lead them to take action, " she says. These sites
offer a streamlined way-e.g., by clicking one button-to
take an important step such as making a deferral increase.
For Noel Wolfe and his colleagues at The Beacon Group
at Morgan Stanley, in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, a retirement-income
calculator serves as a good jumping-off point
for a conversation. " The conversation always defaults to
answering the question, 'How much will I have in retirement
income, and how much do I need?' " says Wolfe, first
Narrow the Financial
Wellness Focus
A tremendous amount of financial wellness
information is now available, on
a wide array of topics. Morgan Stanley,
for instance, offers participants a financial
wellness website, branded with
their employer's name, that helps them
pinpoint their specific financial issues.
When a participant logs on, the portal
starts by asking him 10 assessment questions,
using his responses to give him a
financial wellness score. At that point, the
tool also suggests several specific actions for the person to
work on, such as boosting student-debt repayment, to raise
his score.
That is when Wolfe or a colleague steps in with one-onone
counseling. The tool's suggested improvement areas
help narrow down the universe of information and tools
that the adviser could employ with the participant. But if a
participant does not have that personal guidance and has to
log on to a website and figure out for himself which financial
wellness topics and tools to use, Wolfe says, " he doesn't
know where to start. The amount of head-spin it's going to
generate will cause most people to just walk away. "
Part of an adviser's role in financial wellness involves
offering " just-in-time education " that gives people the relevant
information they need at key points in their life, says
Matt Gulseth, a partner in Channel Financial, a 2019 Small
Team finalist,
in Golden Valley, Minnesota. " I think most
financial education misses the mark in changing behaviors, "
he says. " If the goal is to change behaviors, it isn't through
just giving people a bunch of online content or classes. We've
learned that wellness programs are ineffective unless they
specifically address that person's desires and wants. What
works is providing guidance and coaching to a person just
before he makes a financial decision. "
The adviser has another key role in financial wellness,
38 | planadviser.com May-June 2019
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