Adviser Voices: How to Structure a Retirement Plan Advisory

With the evolving role of advisory firms in handling increased responsibilities related to fiduciary duties and employee outcomes, a firm’s organizational structure is crucial to allow for optimal results. 

Below, three plan advisers give their thoughts on how a team can be structured to effectively serve clients and grow its business.  

Matthew Eickman, National Retirement Practice Leader, Qualified Plan Advisors 

Matthew Eickman

Before diving into details regarding team composition, we begin with one key philosophy that permeates through the plan advisory relationship: Concern for services available to employees and their potential outcomes should be integrated into the broader fiduciary and advisory relationship. 

The nation’s strongest advisory firms reflect plan sponsors’ demand for them to handle significantly more responsibility than a decade ago. We have built an advisory practice that is not only situated to handle those specific responsibilities, but also can weave them together in a way that looks out for employee outcomes. Here are some ways we have adapted to meet the demands of various stakeholders: 

• Sponsors no longer ask if a firm can be a fiduciary; they simply ask whether an adviser will serve in an ERISA 3(21) or 3(38) capacity. We have built out consistent fiduciary investment selection, monitoring and reporting processes that permit us to be equally comfortable in either capacity. 
• Sponsors and plan participants are no longer primarily dependent on portfolios self-constructed from a lengthy core funds list; an adviser must be prepared to analyze target-date funds in detail and offer adviser-managed account capabilities. We have developed a proprietary Target Date Deep Dive and developed adviser-managed account offerings on roughly 10 recordkeeping platforms. 
• Recordkeepers have cut back on the use of people to service clients; an adviser must have greater knowledge of plan design issues, operational best practices and IRS and DOL methods of correction for common errors. Our retirement team includes four ERISA attorneys to meet that need. 
• Recordkeeper education is largely dead; recordkeepers offer tremendous online resources, but most have conceded that their education efforts are ineffective. Advisers are developing their own educational services or outsourcing it to a third-party financial wellness service. We developed a proprietary financial wellness platform and deliver those services in our Financial Fitness for Life program. 
• Participants have demonstrated a diminished interest in in-person group meetings; they can access group educational content online and place greater emphasis around the availability of one-on-one meetings with a financial adviser, consultant or coach. We built out a Financial Wellness Checkup tool that makes it easy for employees to share their levels of stress and confidence and to schedule those personalized one-on-one conversations. 

Advisory firms and retirement practices are best-situated to thrive and grow when they can integrate those services. Many firms continue to take a siloed approach to investment management, vendor management, participant education, financial wellness and wealth management services. Those firms are being left behind by those that recognize the need for the “investment folks” to care about employees’ needs and expectations, for the ERISA attorneys to think about plan design options that may drive better outcomes and for the financial wellness team to understand the plan. 

There is growing demand for fiduciaries to not only be safe fiduciaries, but also be good fiduciaries. Our firm is structured to make good on that demand, for both our clients and our advisers. 

Marilyn Suey, Principal and Owner, Diamond Group Wealth Advisors 

Marilyn Suey

Top Tools, Tips and Techniques for Success: 

1. Know and understand your clients’ needs and goals. Every individual/group is unique and has different plans for their future. We start off with getting to know who they are, their ambitions and about their life outside of their finances.
2. Discuss their financial goals and how best to achieve these goals. We send out a risk assessment to gauge their risk tolerance to the market. We want to know how they feel about money as a whole. 
3. We meet people where they are and then guide them to where they want to be. Every person has a different starting point, as well as a different end goal.
4. Meeting with the participants/clients regularly. Life happens … period. It is important to be in contact with clients often, as so many unplanned events can happen in short periods of time. The client/participant needs to know we are there for them through the good times and bad. 
5. Involve the clients in the investment process. While yes, some people have no interest in the investment process, we feel it is important to educate our clients on not only their investments, but the market as well. Explaining what is happening in the stock market leads to better-informed clients who understand volatility.  
6. Assist clients in referring them to other professionals of expertise. Ensuring your clients have a knowledgeable CPA, estate planning attorney for trusts/wills, life/health insurance and especially a point of contact at our office that they can reach out to and expect a quick response. 
7. At the end of the day, make sure your client feels important. We have a monthly newsletter that goes out with updates on the financial markets and even includes a different food recipe, so they are not overwhelmed with investment information. Be sure to send birthday and holiday cards, as clients appreciate the attentiveness to details. 

Jeff Leonard, Financial and Retirement Services Leader, Gallagher 

Jeff Leonard

Gallagher has structured its Financial & Retirement Services business to address all aspects of individual and organizational financial well-being. With qualified retirement plans at the core of our business, we use the team’s understanding of how qualified and nonqualified plans fit into a total rewards strategy to structure plans that align an organization’s philosophy with effective and engaging programs across the organization for both broad-based employees, as well as executive groups. 

Our geographically dispersed Financial & Retirement Services teams are backed with the support of in-house CFA charterholders, certified financial planners, enrolled actuaries, ERISA compliance attorneys, financial well-being consultants, financial literacy educators, chartered life underwriters and chartered financial consultants, allowing us to offer the experience needed for any type of retirement plan and workplace financial well-being solution while delivering locally and with a personalized touch. 

The teams view retirement plans as a component of an organization’s overall financial well-being proposition. Our goal is to make sure the structure of the plan(s) are sound: fiduciary governance, diversified investments, reasonable fees and with the right vendors managing day-to-day operations. 

At the same time, we aim to build a comprehensive financial well-being strategy that helps all employees—no matter where they are on their journey—feel more confident about their financial well-being, from budgeting to saving or planning for retirement. Our approach is illustrated in the graphic provided below.