Employee benefits have never been more important than they are today. The past couple of years highlighted the need for organizations to provide holistic benefits packages to attract and retain talent.

As we look to the future, it's clear that benefits will remain a fundamental aspect of the employer-employee relationship. With that in mind, we’re excited to invite you to our Annual Employee Benefits Symposium, where we'll be discussing the latest trends and innovations in this space. In this post, we will explore what to expect at our 2023 Employee Benefits Symposium:

One of the most important things you can do to help your employees is to encourage them to participate in their workplace retirement savings plan. October is National Retirement Security Month (NRSM), and it’s the perfect time to educate your employees about the significance of planning for their future financial security. In this blog post, we’ll discuss why NRSM should matter to your employees and how you can help them prepare for retirement.

As you might recall from our executive summary report, the SECURE 2.0 Act included several important changes to retirement plan rules. One of those changes, scheduled to take effect in plan years beginning on or after 01/01/2024, involves high-income earners making age 50+ catch-up contributions. Currently, anyone age 50+ can elect to make catch-up contributions as pre-tax or Roth. The Act requires catch-up contributions for anyone who earns $145,000+ in 2023 (indexed in future years) to be made as Roth contributions. There was also a technical error in The Act language that could inadvertently eliminate the ability of anyone to make catch-up contributions altogether.

For retirement plan employers, 401(k) nondiscrimination testing is one of the most critical functions of operating a healthy retirement plan—and it’s also an important mandate of ERISA. Here’s a look at some commonly asked questions and need-to-know terms and concepts, as well as how this important task affects your company’s retirement plan.

Reposted from 401(k) Specialist by John Sullivan, Editor-In-Chief

Understated isn’t a term generally associated with Alex Assaley, but he managed to pull it off when describing current market conditions.

“It’s been a really interesting year for investors and advisors,” Assaley, Managing Principal with AFS 401(k) Retirement Services, said from the floor of the Wealth@wor(k) conference in Las Vegas.

In today’s digital world, we all have a lot of data and personal information stored online – information like e-mails, phone numbers, personal contacts, and even financial asset values and information. Most of us trust companies (like banks, financial institutions, social media, and tech firms) to manage and protect this information and provide us with it in a matter of seconds. This raises some concerns about “who has access to this data,” and how can they protect it.

On August 16, 2022, the Retirement Advisor Council recognized Wiley|Wilson, as an honoree of its Financial Wellness Excellence Awards. This recognition was presented at the Retirement Advisor Council’s 2022 Annual Planning Meeting in Des Moines, IA. Connie Burnette of Wiley|Wilson accepted the award on behalf of her team and was recognized for her thoughtful leadership and dedication to providing the best possible employee financial wellness program to her organization.

We sat down with some of the team members of AFS and here's how they answered the following questions...

1. What advice would you give your younger self?
2. What's the worst piece of financial advice you're ever received?
3. What's the best piece of financial advice you're ever received?
4. What does AFS stand for? (wrong answers only)
   

Bethesda, MD — Alex Assaley and Kevin Phillips of AFS 401(k) Retirement Services recently participated as delegates to the National Association of Plan Advisors’ (NAPA) Annual DC Fly-In Forum, an exclusive gathering of the nation’s leading retirement plan advisors.

What is our Employee Benefits Symposium?

Since 2006, we have challenged our partners and clients to think differently about the employee benefits landscape.