2023 RPAY – Sean Bjork, Bjork Asset Management, Inc.

Business at a Glance as of 12/31/22

• Plan assets under advisement: $491 million
• Median plan size (in assets): $5.2 million
• Plans under administration: 31
• Total participants served: 7,742

PLANADVISER: Tell us about your practice and how you got into advising retirement plans.

Bjork: My start in the retirement plan world came immediately after my undergraduate studies, taking a job with Great-West Life, now Empower, and covering the New England market out of the Boston office. Fast forward five years, and I remember being in a finals presentation, thinking to myself: “I can totally do this adviser thing,” and I promptly proceeded to live in my parents’ basement for about a year and a half until I got a handle on things and was able to move out with a much more refined sense of humility. I then began night school at the University of Chicago while slowly building what has now become my practice. Having my own practice has allowed me to focus on finding the right clients who together have a passion for truly helping participants.

Presently, we’re a small independent advisory practice serving roughly $500 million in qualified plan assets and approximately 8,000 plan participants.

PLANADVISER: As a retirement plan adviser, what do you take the most pride in?

Bjork: In my role as a plan adviser, the thing that gets me going in the morning is the opportunity to make a measurable difference in the financial lives of the 8,000 participants we serve. I feel incredibly fortunate to love the many layers of this role, from nerding out with a committee on their mid-cap value fund to diving into the subtleties of plan governance and committee structure. However, making a connection with a participant and helping them toward a path that allows their future self to retire with dignity and pride on their own terms is, for me, the most rewarding part of this role. Having the opportunity to get to know participants, their needs and how to best support their retirement journeys is a true privilege. The individuals I find particularly meaningful to work with are those the financial services industry might otherwise overlook or, worse, poorly serve. In expanding the role of participant services in our practice, it’s amazing to hear what types of strategies and investment products are being recommended to investors when they approach us after meetings or web events. Having the opportunity to help guide participants toward a path that suits their long-term financial best interest is tremendously rewarding.

PLANADVISER: How do you grow your business? What changes to your practice or service model are you planning for 2023 or 2024?

Bjork: Our practice grows primarily based on referrals and committee members moving to new roles with new organizations. In the last several years, we’ve embraced digital marketing and social media to help drive value and brand awareness beyond our immediate circle of clients.

Last year, we built out in-house financial planning and wealth management capabilities, which was not only asked for, but we found was a significant need for both plan sponsors and participants. Because we also had plan sponsors express concern about potential conflicts, we partnered with an independent, stand-alone financial wellness benefit (including digital and human coaches), which has really been the glue to bring all of these conversations and components together. We now have the ability to serve all participants (and those not yet participating) with the goal of reducing financial stress, helping build financial resiliency and also providing, to those that are ready, private wealth management services and financial planning.

We’ve had >8% of participants engage thus far, and for a practice that’s primarily difficult to reach populations—i.e., manufacturing—this has been a great start. Given the difficult-to-reach nature of these employees, we decided to shift to weekly, bite-sized tips in participants’ inboxes and have seen very strong engagement, with more than 30% open rates on weekly “Quick Tips” emails. Better yet, the results have been nothing short of amazing. The majority of participants have taken at least one action to improve their financial health within 10 days of participating in the program. 40% of those actions are related to improving their cash flow.

We found that 72% of participants are in unstable, crisis or struggling phases and need help with the basics (cash flow, emergency savings, etc.) to relieve some financial stress, which will ultimately allow them to focus on retirement.

Live coaching results:

• 100% NPS
• 100% of survey respondents feel better prepared to make a financial decision

What participants like best about their coaching session?

• ‘No pitch’
• ‘Very easy to talk to and he listened’

For 2023 and beyond, our goal is to continue building and innovating upon our robust participant services experience for all 8,000 participants we serve and to help each of them toward a path of financial resiliency, retirement readiness and, ultimately, financial security. Our business has the opportunity to positively impact the financial future of thousands of American workers, and I’m excited about taking on that responsibility.

PLANADVISER: Why do you feel it is important to work individually with plan participants?

Bjork: Counterintuitively, I’ll first share why I previously thought it was not important to work with plan participants!

For nearly 20 years, my practice and business model were purely committee-facing and institutional only. In my role as a purist RPA, my belief was firm that by utilizing plan design and auto features, we could most effectively help employees toward reaching their retirement savings goals. In many ways, at the time, this belief was “right” and impactful. As early adopters of auto-enroll and auto-increase, implementing AE at 6% and AI to 15% across nearly our entire book, we were able to positively change the retirement savings trajectory for many of the 8,000 participants we serve.

What changed? I realized that the numbers and data are great (and we have lots of that in this industry!), but they only tell part of the story. Working with individuals keeps me close to the everyday needs of participants beyond the numbers. I don’t want to guess what people are feeling and experiencing; I want to know. For this reason, I’ll always make the effort to spend time with plan participants.

During the beginning of the recent pandemic, one of our plan provider partners began offering free one-on-one phone/Zoom support and coaching for front-line workers and impacted service industry employees. Concurrently, we had begun piloting a scalable financial wellness platform across our book that allowed us to connect directly with plan participants, schedule calls and provide advice and guidance at scale beyond the plan.

Inspiration for the complete and abrupt 180 toward participant services in my practice came while working in my volunteer role as a firefighter/EMT in my community in the early stages of the pandemic, when I was taking a participant call regarding a CARES Act distribution and realized that the questions we were hearing and the challenges participants were facing went well beyond the plan. By looking at my role through only the context of the retirement plan, I was essentially wearing blinders to the important financial challenges that participants are facing in their lives, especially the resiliency items that were preventing them from planning for their retirement. At that time, despite the fears and the element of the unknown, I knew I needed to expand my knowledge and the focus of my practice to do the most good and be as impactful as possible.

PLANADVISER: What are the biggest challenges that plan participants face today and how are you helping to address them?

Bjork: If the last couple of years has taught us anything, it is the importance of financial resilience: the ability to bounce back from an unforeseen financial challenge.

A lot of people suffered unduly over the past several years because they were underinformed and/or underprepared financially. Today, inflation has added an additional layer of financial strain, putting a spotlight on the importance of ‘financial wellness.’ I’m working hard to address this by remaining relevant to my plan sponsors and participants, helping them understand the impact inflation is having on businesses and American workers and what they CAN control in the process. The financial stress felt by the average American worker, and a desire to alleviate it, is why I’m so committed to integrating financial wellness solutions and why they are such a big part of the growth strategy for my practice. Lastly, the financial services industry still has a trust issue and bit of a black eye. Americans are still less trustful of advisers, banks, etc., and building back that trust with my clients and plan participants has been an absolute game-changer in helping lead to better retirement outcomes and truly laying the foundation for financial success.

Securities offered through LPL Financial, Member FINRA/SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Global Retirement Partners, LLC, a registered investment adviser. Global Retirement Partners, LLC and Bjork Asset Management are separate entities from LPL Financial.