For people to take full advantage of their group benefits and retirement savings plans, addressing the lack of education and awareness is crucial
This article was produced in partnership with iA Financial Group.
The pandemic altered everything about our working lives, acting as a catalyst for organizational wide change – especially where employee wellbeing is concerned. Where once wellbeing was looked at through a segmented lens, separating the mental, physical, and financial, employers are now realizing that total wellbeing is about interconnectedness.
Group plan members, just like the general public, do not always take the full measure of their benefits, and how they work. As a result, they are not fully engaging with their group benefits and retirement savings perks. Why? A lack of education and awareness around what exactly is on offer and how to take advantage of it.
An essential early step in any successful program is deploying a skilled team of education experts, pleads Kenrick Hopkinson, Director, Plan Member Wellness and Education at iA Financial Group.
“Plan sponsors are still trying to understand this new [post-pandemic] world around them,’’ he says.
‘’There’s a lot of information out there. Everyone has an opinion, everyone has a solution, everyone is giving them the best way to do things. An employer [may have] a program in place that wants to do well for their members, but it's a challenge because they don't know exactly what to do.”
This is where iA Financial Group comes in. Hopkinson says it is their responsibility to help with any messaging, any cost concerns, and any additional queries. At the end of the day, iA’s goal is for every plan member to have all the information and support necessary to make informed decisions.
It is about having boots on the ground, being there for plan members and providing them with the information they need, in the manner they need it, and when they need it.
“It's important to for plan sponsors to allow providers to come in with their experts to connect with their employees,’’ adds Hopkinson.
‘’I know that it's hard sometimes, but do your best to get people on the ground and in your offices to have real conversations, because there's still a demographic that want to have that human connection with people.”
Access to simple and user-friendly resources is key to help plan members acquire better financial knowledge and develop healthy habits to manage their overall wellbeing. In order to help facilitate this, iA also provides an educational website that showcases bite-sized information on all aspects of group plans. They also host on-demand webinars and comprehensive education campaigns around issues such as financial literacy and mental health.
And, with research showing that promoting wellbeing is actually a source of employee satisfaction, it is high time employers started taking the benefits of these plans more seriously. Especially considering their role in improving retention, attraction and morale.
“We’ve heard from our plan sponsors that people are coming into the office and specifically asking about the programs they offer,’’ adds Hopkinson. ‘’And if those programs aren't up to par, then you're not going to retain the talent. [These plans also] enhance job satisfaction, reduces turnover, improves work life balance, and enhances employee engagement.”
But investing in these plans is not where the journey should end –gauging the successes of these programs is a main priority for both Hopkinson and iA in general.
“For us, [measuring] is particularly important. It's not just about saying and doing, it's about showing the impact of the programs and how they're working. For example, when we do an initiative, there are some metrics behind the scenes where we're looking at engagement: how many people are utilizing certain items, are they actually reading documents, how long are they spending reading certain pages. All that information is taken and given to the plan sponsor to show engagement.”
Hopkinson also believes it is important for plan sponsors to be an active participant in the process–because checking in with your employees is a crucial component of overall success.
“[It’s about] creating a space to make sure that they're getting what they should,” he says.
‘’As a plan sponsor, it is important to regularly check in with your membership and ensure that they are receiving the necessary education. If there is a gap in this regard, you should reconnect with your provider and hold them accountable to provide the services that you are paying for –specifically, engaging your members to help them understand their benefits and gain a comprehensive understanding of their overall benefits package.’’
Essentially, changing employee expectations, coupled with a societal shift in how we perceive wellbeing, led to a revolution of sorts in the benefits space. iA has wholeheartedly embraced this change, opting to take an all-encompassing approach to wellbeing.
Because if an employee is unwell and unable to work, it can affect not just their physical health but also potentially their financial health and, in the long term, their mental well-being.
This is why taking a preventative rather than a curative approach to your group benefits and retirement savings plan is so important in 2024 and beyond.
‘’There's so much work that can be done prior to [illness] that goes back to literacy as a whole,” says Hopkinson. “Not necessarily financial, but literacy and teaching people what they need to know.”
