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.

The intersection of health and wealth are steadfastly becoming a hot button issue in the employee benefits world. With the cost of healthcare on the rise and the aging of the workforce, this causes a problem for both employer and employee. Ryan Tiernan, Senior HSA Consultant with Access Point HSA and speaker at our upcoming Employee Benefits Symposium takes a look at how Health Savings Accounts may be part of the answer to this issue. 

 If you are responsible for overseeing your company's retirement plan, then you know that a key measurement of success is employee participation rates. Of course your plan's participation helps employees save as much as they can for retirement, but it also ties directly to passing nondiscrimination tests. You may think that you're doing everything the right way when it comes to your plan by providing a broad range of investment options, having a match in place, and being in compliance with agencies such as the DOL and IRS. These factors alone do not ensure your employees will enroll and save. This begs the question: What good is a retirement plan benefit if people aren't using it? If you're wondering why your numbers aren't where you'd like them to be, here are a few problem areas you may consider modifying.