Plan sponsors employ personal touch

Eddy Award contestants that showcased personalized retirement plan communications campaigns walked away with top awards this year.

In a ceremony for 2022 Eddy winners held March 15 in Orlando, Fla., as part of Pensions & Investments' annual Defined Contribution East conference, 52 plan sponsors and service providers were recognized for sophisticated campaigns that covered everything from fee disclosures and employer matching contributions to the importance of two-factor authentication. Many employed the latest communication tools to make it easier to spread their educational messaging, including QR codes and even TikTok-style videos.

Winners competed in one of seven categories: plan conversions, financial wellness, plan transitions, pre-retirement preparation, special projects, COVID-19 special projects and ongoing investment education.

Plan executives that added a personal touch to their campaigns stood out in this year's competition. Applied Industrial Technologies Inc. (record keeper Principal Financial Group), which took first place in the special projects category for corporate plans with between 1,000 and 5,000 employees, for instance, reached out personally to participants who had not yet secured their retirement accounts through two-factor authentication. The human resources team personally called 57 people with account balances greater than $50,000 and sent email communications to the rest.

"A personal touch still goes a very long way," said Kurt Loring, chief human resources officer at Applied Industrial Technologies in Cleveland, referring to the 57 calls he and his team placed.

"We wanted to make sure that individual accounts were secure because in many cases individuals had never logged in to their 401(k)," Mr. Loring said.

As a result of the outreach, the number of participants with unsecured accounts greater than $50,000 plunged to four from 57, a 93% decline. The number of participants with unsecured balances of less than $50,000 also fell, dropping 16% to 583 from 694.

Notably, the largest unsecured account balance fell to $78,000 from more than $1 million. Many of the participants who had not enabled two-factor authentication hadn't done so thinking they were doing the right thing, citing the prevailing advice to "set it and forget it," Mr. Loring said.

Participants appreciated that the company took the time to call and help them protect their accounts by "locking them down," he said.

"Personal touch really had an impact," said one of the judges, adding that he liked how the issue of account security was explained in the email communications to participants.

Missouri State Employees' Retirement System also took a personal approach to its Money Saving "TipToks" campaign, which placed first in the special projects category for public plans with more than 5,000 employees. The campaign, held during America Saves Week in 2021, featured 15 TikTok-style videos posted on YouTube to help participants learn more about the state's deferred compensation plan, save for the future and improve their financial wellness.

"TikTok literally took over social media and redefined how people were sharing information and learning," said Brooke Rowden, MOSERS' Jefferson City, Mo.-based defined contribution plans education and marketing coordinator.

The videos featured only MOSERS employees — and in some cases their spouses or children — a decision that Ms. Rowden said helped make the 30-second videos more engaging as participants searched for people they knew. "We wanted to use real state employees because that's who we serve," she said.

The in-house talent used in the videos generated robust traffic, with one video — called "What's an Emergency Fund?" — going viral. The biggest crowd-pleaser featured two little girls — Waylin and Kendall — giving simple savings tips.

"We bribed those little girls with all kinds of candy to get them to say certain stuff," Ms. Rowden said.

The campaign received more than 12,000 views in a week, she noted, the highest views among all of the America Saves campaigns that the plan has done in the past.

Meta Platforms Inc., formerly Facebook Inc., also got personal when building and launching its custom-built financial planning and guidance application called Paven, which won first place in the financial wellness category for corporate plans with more than 5,000 employees.

Meta brought together a core group of some 50 "ambassadors" who provided ongoing feedback as the company built the app and eventually became champions of the product when it launched in 2021, said Josh Newmister, Meta's Portland, Ore.-based director of global benefits.

The ambassadors, who were drawn from internal workplace groups such as [email protected], [email protected] and Women in Tech, helped raise interest in the new app by sharing life experiences, such as how they got out of credit card debt, he said.

"Our Meta employees are very community-driven so they are intrinsically motivated to support each other," Mr. Newmister said.

While Meta, MOSERS and Applied Industrial Technologies added personal touches to their campaigns, others made them highly personalized.

RWJBarnabas Health, a first-place Eddy winner in the special projects category for non-profit plans, for example, created an intranet site personalized to match the needs of three employee groups the New Jersey health-care provider identified as "avoiders," "late bloomers" and "motivated savers."

The site featured quizzes, articles, videos and fun facts that are specific to the three "personas" that RWJBH identified, said Algretta Hatcher, the organization's Somerset, N.J.-based senior director for retirement.

RWJBH further personalized the participant experience by giving them a quiz that matched them to an animal whose traits reflected their retirement style. Those identified as "elks," for example, were described as "strong and stately" and "ready to use experience to catch up on retirement savings." Owls, on the other hand, see the bigger picture, with higher contributions to their retirement savings. They're "gliding toward retirement with a strong tailwind," the quiz notes.

As part of the campaign, participants received a pair of socks featuring owls, elks, rabbits and other "retirement personality" animals with a QR code to the intranet site.

Judges praised the campaign's creativity. It was "definitely outside the box and different," said one of the judges.

Francis Investment Counsel LLC, a first-place winner in the financial wellness category for generic education efforts by service providers, also got judges' attention with a campaign promoting a new personalized tool on the firm's [email protected] mobile application.

The new tool provides users with a customized list of their top five financial priorities, such as paying off debt or building an emergency savings fund, as well as a financial wellness score. Both the list of priorities and wellness score are based on a questionnaire users must complete about their financial condition.

Unlike other tools on the market, the new Money Advice Planner tool on the app takes a snapshot of a participant's "entire financial picture," rather than just their retirement savings, said Kelli Send, principal and senior vice president of participant services at Francis Investment Counsel in Brookfield, Wis.

Ms. Send touted the wellness score as being unique because it gives participants the financial wellness equivalent of a credit score. Participants can track their progress as they meet their individual financial goals and work toward getting their wellness scores closer to the perfect score of 555.

There's an added bonus, too, for plan sponsors as Francis Investment Counsel can aggregate the scores on a personally unidentifiable basis and "report back to the employer that's sponsoring the financial wellness benefit how we've really driven change over time," Ms. Send said.

Overall, the average financial wellness score for all participants using the tool increased to 398 from 379 in 2021, Ms. Send said.

T. Rowe Price Group Inc. also took a superpersonalized approach to its campaign, which won first place in the special projects category for generic efforts by service providers. The campaign featured two "Account Check-In" videos that used real-time participant data to engage participants in a highly personalized way.

Among other things, the videos showed participants their account balance and gave them an assessment of how much they should have in their accounts for someone their age. The videos were available to all participants in plans T. Rowe Price serves at the beginning of the year and then again midyear for second check-in review.

"I loved the twice-a-year personalized check-in," one of the judges noted. "The content was short, to the point and informative."

Other campaigns distinguished themselves for being comprehensive.

ABA Retirement Funds (Voya Financial), a first-place winner in the pre-retirement preparation category for non-profit plans with more than 5,000 employees, for instance, created a website for pre-retirees hosting a wide array of resources, including a retirement planning guide, Social Security information and educational videos. The website was the centerpiece of a campaign to draw attention to the organization's new retiree investment menu made up of four funds that retirees often seek: a capital preservation fund, an income-focused fund, an inflation-protection fund and a diversified growth fund.

Judges lauded the campaign's comprehensiveness and its multimedia approach, which included email, webinars and website messaging. "It was very targeted and tailored to the demographic group," one judge said.

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association (State Street Global Advisors), a first-place winner in the ongoing investment education category for non-profit plans, also created a campaign whose comprehensiveness got judges' attention. The campaign involved explaining to participants that the three target-date fund suites offered in the association's 401(k) plan would be reduced to just one, saving the participants an estimated $10 million in fees annually. As part of the outreach, Blue Cross Blue Shield developed communication toolkits for both participants and employers participating in the 401(k) plan. Participants received brochures, postcards, a glossary and other materials, which Blue Cross Blue Shield said were so robust that participants required little, if any, additional guidance.

"Well done," said one of the judges, adding that the communications provided a "very good explanation of TDF funds."

ProHealth Care Inc. (Transamerica) was another first-place winner that took a comprehensive approach to its campaign. The health-care services provider, which won in the category of COVID-19 special projects for corporate plans with 1,000 to 5,000 employees, used the image of World War II icon Rosie the Riveter to strengthen its message to participants about "staying strong" — both physically and financially — during the pandemic.

ProHealth Care was looking to "flip the negative connotation of some of the things that our employees have been experiencing during COVID-19," said Stephanie Barenz, a compensation and benefits analyst at ProHealth Care in Waukesha, Wis.

With a modern-day Rosie in personal protection equipment gear, the campaign urged participants to not only protect themselves against a deadly virus but to protect their future financial well-being, too.

Among other calls to action, the campaign encouraged employees to safeguard their retirement accounts by registering them online and protecting their loved ones by designating a beneficiary.

Judges praised the clever use of language and the Rosie the Riveter image. It was a "creative way to tie the current situation with retirement savings goals," one judge said.

Milwaukee County Transit System Inc. (OneAmerica) also won a first-place Eddy for a multimedia campaign to spur greater participation in the transit system's 457 retirement plan.

It was MCTS' first extensive marketing campaign, said Gretchen Foltz, the Milwaukee-based employee benefits manager.

MCTS, which won in the category of special projects for public plans with less than 1,000 employees, received a one-year grant that allowed it to go beyond the "more passive campaigns" it had done in the past, she said. The grant was a collaboration among the National Association of State Treasurers, the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, the International Public Management Association for Human Resources and Wells Fargo.

The campaign used a mix of digital and print communications prompting MCTS operators, mechanics and administrative staff to enroll in the 457 plan, increase their deferrals and name beneficiaries. The messaging was also integrated into internal employee communication channels and in-person promotional events at MCTS stations.

The campaign tied all the messaging together with images of bus stop routes and the tagline "Welcome Aboard Your Route to Retirement."

"A very creative campaign built around a clever metaphor," said one of the judges.

For Ms. Foltz, the campaign's resulting boost in plan participation to 37% from 32% was encouraging.

"Our future plans are to continue to push on this effort with or without a grant," she said. "The more you get out there, I think the more engagement we'll get over time."