Employees Want Retirement Planning

Significant Amount of Unmet Needs About Retirement Planning

Making available annual Retirement Planning meetings is the most powerful driver of satisfaction with the employer.

Mathew Greenwald & Associates and KK & Company have released a detailed national survey of DC participants' education and product needs.

"The Second Annual DC Participant Experience Study provides retirement planning insights," said Mathew Greenwald, Ph.D., President of Mathew Greenwald and Associates. "Plan participants want to do a better job of using their defined contribution plan to accumulate enough for retirement. A carefully designed communications/education program that is personalized as much as possible is needed."

"Similar to last year's findings, only about a third of the participants are satisfied with the support they receive from their plan sponsor regarding their retirement plan," said Kendall Kay, LLIF, President, KK & Company. "It would be useful to 'teach' plan sponsors what they can do to help drive up their participants' satisfaction with and support of the DC plan. This study provides those insights."

The 2010 study showed that:

• 60% of Participants want more personalized and effective communications, especially using current technologies such as websites, pro-active emails, mobile, or on-demand videos,
• Almost 80% of participants are interested in pro-active analysis and messaging that recommends how they could improve their retirement plan savings,
• Over a third are interested in an investment option that would produce monthly income for life,
• The majority of employees want specific retirement planning assistance.

Information was gathered through a 17-minute interview with a total of over 1,002 participants in July 2010 and 1,049 in August 2009.

Through regression analysis, product ideas, unmet needs and possible solutions were evaluated.