PLANADVISER - September/October 2019 - 44

new employees is important, the
experts agreed. " At Kidder Advisers, we
have always looked toward the future
with our employees, " said Gredys. " We
have weekly meetings so we can dialog
back and forth with our up-and-coming
advisers. We create a schedule and
purposefully give up the reins.
" Your ego can't get in the way, " he
added. " Our purpose is to take care of
our clients. "
" Let your mentees have a purpose
in every meeting they attend with you, "
Peluse said. " And let them be their individual
selves. " -Judy Faust Hartnett
Beyond the Buzzwords: Making
'Cents' of Financial Wellness
Moderator: Sean M. Ciemiewicz, founder
and managing partner, Retirement Benefits
Group (RBG). Panelists: Kenneth Forsythe,
head of product strategy, Empower Retirement;
Jim McDonald, partner, Channel
Financial; and Kelli Send, principal, senior
vice president - participant services,
Francis Investment Counsel LLC.
The way Kenneth Forsythe visualizes
one, " A true financial wellness
program should consist of solutions
that help people make progress to
better their financial lives and that
move the dial. "
The success of a financial wellness
program also hinges on whether it
includes a financial coach and advice,
noted Kelli Send.
" There are many financial wellness
programs out there, but they
don't get used unless they are paired
with a coach, accountability for the
participant, and making the participant
confident enough to use them, "
agreed Jim McDonald. " On January 2,
the gym is packed. On February 2, it's
empty-unless you have a personal
trainer keeping you on track. The same
concept applies with a financial coach. "
It is also important to keep goals for
participants attainable, Forsythe said.
This is why Empower developed a new
tool, the Next Step Evaluator, he said.
Empower plans on rolling out the tool,
now in pilot, to all of its clients by this
coming February. " Don't overwhelm
people with the entire path they must
take to achieve a financial goal, " he said.
" Instead, focus on the very next step
they must take, the best use of [their]
next dollar. Maybe that's establishing
an emergency savings account. " The
tool will also track users' achievements,
for sponsors and advisers to follow.
To ensure that people actually use
a financial wellness tool, Send said,
gamify it by building incentives into it
such as points earned toward a useful
gift, or money contributions to their
retirement plan.
Incentives definitely work, Forsythe
concurred. A company pilot-testing
the Next Step Evaluator is one of the
top 10 retirement plans in the country
by assets and employs mostly professionals,
he said. This company promised
to give every worker who completed the
tool $100. " Within 30 days, 78% of this
company's workers had engaged with
and completed the tool. It's amazing
what financial incentives can do. "
As to determining a wellness
program's return on investment (ROI)
in order to get a company's human
resources (HR) department or chief
financial officer (CFO) to buy into the
cost, " it's easy to track improvements
in the retirement plan but harder to
measure assets outside of it, " Send said.
Francis Investment Counsel has
developed a means to score the financial
wellness of its participants. When
the firm first took the measurement,
the average score was 60; it is now at
72. The firm has reported this back to
its plan sponsor clients, she said.
" Justifying the ROI [for a program]
to the CFO or C-suite is going to take
a while, " McDonald observed. For
now, they need to realize " there are
many folks working past retirement
age, " which should be something of a
wake-up call. They also have to know
that improving a worker's financial
house makes him more productive and
less financially stressed, which affects
a company's bottom line, he said.
Additionally, advisers should be
cautioned not to overpromise improvements,
Forsythe said, noting that the
" big promises made for health wellness
programs did not come to pass.
Some CFOs who have been down that
path are skeptical. " For instance, " Don't
position a student loan repayment
program as the silver bullet to reduce
turnover, " he said. " There are too many
other variables at a company, such as
its culture. Be careful quantifying it,
from a dollar perspective. "
Most wellness programs start off at
From left: Kenneth Forsythe, Empower Retirement; Jim McDonald, Channel Financial; Kelli
Send, Francis Investment Counsel LLC; and Sean M. Ciemiewicz, Retirement Benefits Group.
a slow boil, Send said, and their popularity
hinges on the sponsor letting its
workers participate during work hours.
If the sponsor does not, usage typically
begins with just 5% of the workforce,
she said. If the employer allows participation
" on the clock, within one to two
years, there will be 30% participation,
and, within three to four, everyone will
be in the program. " -Lee Barney
44 | planadviser.com September-October 2019
Photography by Matt Kalinowski
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