401(k) Roundtable

In case you hadn't noticed, Target Date Funds (TDFs) are kind of a big deal in workplace retirement plans.  My guest, Jeff Holt, a Director of Multiasset Strategies at Morningstar and one of the authors of their 10th annual Target Date Landscape report cites their use as default funds in retirement plans as one of the key reasons they hit $1 Trillion dollars in assets in 2017.    During our conver...

With the continued focus on fees in workplace retirement plans I thought it might be good to pivot the conversation and tackle some of the realities around the what actually goes into running a successful and compliant plan.   To add some muscle to the conversation I have Ed Murphy, President of Empower Retirement.   Ed and his team are responsible for over 30,000 of thousands of retirement plans...

The DOL Fiduciary Rule died, or did it?    Maybe its coming back to life in another form, through another government agency or even the states will take a crack at it.   What should employers know? How will this impact employees?    In this timely and action packed episode I am excited to have Fred Reish, ERISA Attorney extraordinaire with Drinker Biddle and the closest follower I know of the long...

With so much focus on employee engagement and financial wellness, what happens when you actually get your employees attention and they use the tools they are provided to help calculate what they need to do to have a successful retirement, and they are given bad information? My guest today, Tom Kmak, CEO of Fiduciary Benchmarks has thought a great deal about it, so much so that I think he even admi...

My conversation with Lynn Avitabile, Managing Director in the the Multi-Asset Group of J.P Morgan Asset Management and Wei Hu, Vice President of Financial Research at Financial Engines really cleared some things up for me on the role of Target Date Funds and Managed Accounts in workplace retirement plans.   We have talked about Target Date Funds several times on the podcast, but Managed Accounts n...

Unfortunately, mistakes are made when running workplace retirement plans.   My guest, Marcia Wagner, the founder of The Wagner Law Group brings her over thirty years of experience working on ERISA matters to the podcast today and shares her list of the top 10 mistakes she sees retirement plan sponsors make.   For a little background, Marcia is perennially listed as one of the most influential peop...

The inspiration for this episode came from a request for proposal I received recently from a company in my day job as a workplace retirement plan consultant   After giving it a quick read through, my initial reaction was wow, this company is in a fiduciary defensive shell.   Their entire focus was on managing and limiting their fiduciary liability.   I guess if you consider the lawsuits and fiduci...

Today we take a little detour from talking about the usual 401(k) or workplace retirement plan topics and focus on the challenge for many people around the country who are gainfully employed but don't have access to a retirement plan at work.   Personally, when I first heard some of the stats we discuss today they were surprising to me.   I have two guests which both shared great perspective today...

This episode is fresh out of the 401(k) Fridays Podcast experiment lab.  Today my guest JD Carlson, the President & CEO of the legendary Third Party Administration firm Plan Design Consultants and Host of the Retireholi(k)s show we poke a little bit of fun with 401(k) speak.  Each of us took the time to prepare a few statements that are full of retirement plan terms, or maybe not, and then put the...

It has never made a lot of sense to me how retirement plan participants go missing and lose track of sometimes thousands of dollars of their money.  My conversation today with Spencer Williams, the President & CEO of Retirement Clearing House shed a lot of light on just how this happens.  We tackle a host of related issues in a face paced back and forth dialogue which highlights some interesting f...

Some tricky schedules got in the way of my production calendar so no new episode this week.  However, as I searched through our archives I thought this episode had some great messages that would be good for some of our new subscribers to hear and for our long term listeners to have top of mind.  Enjoy! I'll have to admit, when I first heard of Don Barden and the "Perfect Plan" I was pretty skeptic...

Somewhere in the lifecycle of most retirement plans, employers are faced with the inevitable decision, should I bundle or unbundle the administration of my plan?  There are several different perspectives on that question and some important considerations that employers should keep in mind.  To help sort though this, I was excited to welcome back Doug Van Galder, he would call himself a recovering...

A quick word of warning, this episode is not for the faint of heart!  Today we tackle and I think make more familiar the topic of factor investing.  I will be the first one to admit that I am one of those people who is familiar with factor investing but have been confused with the role it can or does plan in workplace retirement plan investment menu design.  So, I was personally excited to have St...

This week we have one of my early favorites from the archives featuring my conversation with Jerry Patterson, the Senior Vice President of Retirement & Investor Services at Principal Financial Group.  Jerry is also a national speaker and writer on a broad range of financial topics and is a resident blogger for the Huffington Post where he focuses on financial wellness and overcoming human nature t...

Maybe this shows my age, but whenever I get thinking about surveys my mind immediately goes to The Family Feud and their often repeated catch phrase of "our survey said…".  Today, we dont' have the family feud, but I do have Joshua Dietch, group manager of Retirement & Financial Education at T. Rowe Price to share input from their results of their 3rd Annual Retirement Savings & Spending Survey. ...

Honestly, I'm not sure I even gave our guest the chance to unpack his suitcase from his trip to Washington D.C.!  I am happy to welcome Sam Henson, Director of Legislative & Regulatory Affairs at Lockton Retirement Services back to the podcast!  Our conversation is timely in that he provides great input on President Trump's first year in office, what impact it has had on workplace retirement plans...

One of my favorite things these days is to explore new topics on the podcast!  Today in my conversation with Dena Ayala, the President & CEO of Spencer Reed Consulting we dive into the role workplace retirement plans play in an employers ability to recruiting talent.  This is a pretty timely episode based on the current historically low unemployment rate and the war for talent that has been going...

I'm noticing a trend with the themes from a few recent episodes, leadership, stewardship, foresight and now I'm throwing courage into the mix!  While all of these characteristics are important to run a successful and valuable workplace retirement plan, courage is sometimes underrated!  To share some of her insights on the topic of courageous retirement plan design I was excited to have Shannon Nut...

No matter how you slice it target date funds continue to play a larger role each year in the conversation around workplace retirement plan outcomes.  However, some of the decisions that plan sponsors and fiduciaries make on their target date funds are not evolving as quickly as maybe they should.  When I discuss with employers how they selected their target date strategy often times I hear answers...

This is part two of my conversation with Jerry Schichter, to be clear that means there was a part one which was last week. I would strongly suggest you listen to that one first to gain some perspective on Jerry and the retirement plan litigation he has been responsible for.   That said, in this episode we pick up right where we left off last time and finish off the conversation around whether Jerr...

This episode marks a few milestones on the 401(k) Fridays Podcast, it's the 100th episode, the first episode of 2018 and features part 1 of 2 of my conversation with Jerry Schlichter.  For some of our listeners Jerry requires no introduction.  If you are not familiar, Jerry and his firm Schlichter Bogard & Denton have been the driving force behind many of the headline grabbing 401(k) lawsuits over...

No interview with a retirement industry expert today.  This episode shares my top ten highlights and themes from nearly 100 conversations on the podcast!   Be sure to check out our first two episodes of 2018 which are my two part conversation with Jerry Schlichter, the plaintiffs attorney driving much of the 401(k) and other retirement plan litigation against employers! Part 1 will be posted on Fr...

Every now and then its a little fun to go off the beaten path of 401(k) plan topics and explore something related, but different.  In the past, we have done that with international retirement benefits, the importance of company culture and on this episode we delve into health benefits programs.  For this episode, our last full episode of 2017, my guest Ed Fensholt, an ERISA Attorney and Senior Vic...

If you are curious, concerned or confused about what's going on with interest rates and how it might impact the bond/fixed income market or some of the investments in you 401(k) investment menu, I have great news for you!  My conversation with Brett Wander, the Chief Investment Officer for Fixed Income at Charles Schwab and Jake Gilliam, a senior Mutli-Asset Class Strategist also with Charles Schw...

When you take a new job or start with a new company, generally there is a job description, clear roles & responsibilities, a training program or on boarding process to help you get your feet underneath you in your new role.  However, when employers create a retirement plan committee many of the people they tap to be members, and thus plan fiduciaries, have never been a fiduciary to a workplace ret...