Global trends, Canadian reality: The future of plan design

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Hi everyone, and welcome. Today we're diving into what's shaping the future of

 

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retirement plan design and, more importantly, what we can learn from other

 

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markets to apply here in Canada.

 

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I'm joined by Jason Jagatic  who leads the Fidelity Investment Workplace

 

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Research and Thought Leadership in the US.

 

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His team studies trends of workers and employers around the world

 

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but has a deep focus on the US market where Fidelity services over 30

 

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million members and 30,000 employers.

 

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This industry leading dataset gives Jason and his team unique

 

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insights into what people are actually doing when it comes to retirement

 

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savings and many of the lessons are directly applicable to Canada.

 

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As an added bonus, Jason himself is a Canadian so he has firsthand

 

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experience with our retirement system.

 

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Jason, delighted to have you here with us.

 

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Before we jump in tell us a bit about your work and focus areas.

 

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Thanks, Stéphanie, thanks for having me.

 

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It's nice to be home.

 

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What I do is, as you mentioned, I lead our Strategic Research

 

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and Thought Leadership team in the workplace business where we're looking at

 

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broad trends that are impacting the workforce, both from an

 

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employer and an employee standpoint.

 

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We have this really talented team

 

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of experts in a number of key topics, behavioural scientists,

 

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additional researchers. Really, we take their expertise to take

 

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a look at that data set that you mentioned and we also conduct additional

 

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primary research to understand what people are doing,

 

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why they're doing it, what that could mean for others, and

 

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to share that information to them.

 

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What I mean by others there, we'll then take those insights and share them with

 

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employers, consultants, advisors, policymakers,

 

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and many others to share the story and to give that broad representation

 

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of what we're seeing.

 

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This year we've packaged a number of those key findings into a document that

 

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we call the Workplace Outlook Report that really focuses on 11 of the big

 

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trends that we're seeing.

 

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Quite impressive. Can we say a bit more about that?

 

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Is the  focus on plan design for employers?

 

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Exactly.

 

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The focus is on plan design and that's very intentional.

 

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Over the past few years we've seen the employers shift in terms

 

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of where they're focusing.

 

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If you go back to before the pandemic and during the pandemic we

 

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saw this period of employers really being aggressive in offering additional

 

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benefits, additional capabilities.

 

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It's not just about retirement or health care or emergency savings, there's

 

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a big focus on things like mental health and other benefits as well.

 

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There's real strong push into a number of key areas.

 

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What we've seen over the last couple of years is that employers are really

 

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starting to take a look and focus on the benefits that matter most that are

 

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driving the most significant outcomes for their workforce.

 

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More specifically, we're seeing in some cases what we call a back to the

 

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basics, where people are going back to their core retirement plan

 

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to look at the fundamentals and to understand what's really working, what's

 

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impactful, are there opportunities for efficiencies to streamline the

 

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employee experience and to really focus on what matters.

 

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So 11 trends in total, not all of which are applicable to Canada, we'll

 

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focus on the ones that actually matter for us.

 

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Let's level set, what is this report really about and why should

 

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Canadian plan sponsors care about this?

 

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What the report is about is really what's happening

 

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in the marketplace overall. I think the reason that Canadian plan

 

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sponsors should care about this is because it's really a great

 

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test bed. One of the things when you take a look at the

 

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US marketplace, it's a very large market, it's much more DC dominant, and

 

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employers have a lot more flexibility and influence over

 

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their plan design. That gives you a very

 

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large framework to see different strategies

 

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and tactics in action so that you can take a look to see what actually matters

 

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and what matters most overall.

 

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I think that's where some of the core opportunities are for the

 

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Canadian market is to see what's working, what's not, what are some of those

 

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core principles and can we apply them here?

 

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Let's start with our first theme.

 

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One of the biggest ones is, essentially, the power of auto features and

 

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behavioural science. What can you tell us about that?

 

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That's a great point. The number one thing, and one of the things that we've

 

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seen in the US market, is really the benefit of both auto enrollment and

 

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auto increase programs.

 

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Just to level set on those, for those that may not be as familiar with them,

 

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when we talk about auto enrollment that is for someone who is new

 

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to an employer they will automatically be enrolled into a defined

 

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contribution plan.

 

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Then they have the option of opting out of that.

 

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It's up to them. They're not forced to stay in that plan but the default is

 

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to get them into that program.

 

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An auto escalation or auto increase program, similar in concept but

 

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what it does is every year, typically, it ratchets someone up by a small

 

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increment. The purpose there is to really get

 

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them to a target level over time so they don't feel the

 

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impact to their lifestyle and they can absorb those changes over

 

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a greater time set.

 

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Those two concepts have proven to be very successful in the US

 

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marketplace. To the point when we take

 

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a look at what that means to employees overall from our data set we see that

 

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the average American on our platform is saving 14.2%.

 

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That 14.2% is a combination of both employer

 

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and employee contribution. Two-thirds of that is the employee and

 

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then the employer's often matching that.

 

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That's what we're seeing after a generation of having some of these

 

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capabilities in the marketplace, people have ratcheted up to those target

 

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levels over time. That's been a very effective part of the strategy.

 

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I think that one's also interesting just with some of the recent changes in

 

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B.C., specifically. I imagine that we'll

 

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continue to see more activity in that market and in other markets with regards

 

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to auto enrollment.

 

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I'd say the other plug around why those programs are good is

 

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nothing can replace time in market.

 

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If you have a new employee, they're often overwhelmed.

 

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They've got a number of things going on in their lives, the last thing

 

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they might be thinking about as a 22-year-old new to the workforce employee

 

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is have they set their retirement savings rates.

 

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By defaulting them into a plan, by the time they get around

 

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to really starting to think about their retirement and to think about the needs

 

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they will have benefited from oftentimes many years in the marketplace which is

 

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just really powerful.

 

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Absolutely. Given that, and I'm going to say, unfortunately, Canada doesn't

 

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broadly mandate

 

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auto enrollment as well but auto escalation more so, what can plan sponsors

 

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do in that case?

 

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There's a lot that plan sponsors can do in that space.

 

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This is an area that our team has recently been doing some additional studying

 

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on as well.

 

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First off, I think the first step here is to really set a strong default

 

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contribution rate.

 

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The more that you can get people started from a strong base

 

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that can be really powerful as a starting point.

 

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Also, you'll want to think about what the appropriate investment

 

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option is for them and if you're using a default investment option.

 

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In the US about 95%

 

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of employees default into a target date fund.

 

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That's a solution that works for many because

 

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its asset allocation adjusts over time and it matches the risk profile as

 

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the individual changes over time. It's something that you ...

 

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it's a set it and forget it type of solution is the language that we often use.

 

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That's sort of a core building block there.

 

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The other piece, and this is what some of our behavioural scientists have

 

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uncovered, it's about simplifying the match structure.

 

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Matching your employees' contributions can be very powerful.

 

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Who doesn't like free money, right?

 

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What we've seen is in some cases employers will say, I'll

 

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match you dollar for dollar or up to 3%.

 

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Others might say, I'll match you 50 cents on the dollar up to 6% as an

 

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example. The goal there, the reason some employers go with that second

 

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option is because they're hoping to push their employees

 

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to save more and get them to aspire to the next level.

 

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What our data actually shows is if you just go for the simple dollar for dollar

 

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target level, those that have gone with that approach we see higher

 

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participation and contribution rates from the employees because it's

 

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a simplified approach. That's

 

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sort of the core offering.

 

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Just coming back to that escalation piece, again, that's really powerful.

 

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Trying to talk to an employee to say you have to go up to 10% or 15%

 

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or whatever the target, that can be a lot for someone to absorb in a specific

 

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year. But if you start them out at 5% and then next year they're at 6

 

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and then 7, they often can't feel that in their day-to-day

 

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lifestyle but they will get that benefit longer term.

 

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Those are some of the core building blocks.

 

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Probably the most important or key part of this is communicate,

 

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communicate, communicate.

 

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What I mean by that, again, many employees don't understand the space,

 

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they're often intimidated by the space, they don't understand everything that

 

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you're providing to them as an employer, so it's really important

 

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that you spend time to make sure that they're aware of what you're offering

 

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them and that they know how to take full advantage of it.

 

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That will help drive adoption and

 

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drive the success of your program for your business as well.

 

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So power of inertia and power of auto escalation, I would say.

 

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Yes.

 

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Let's move on to financial resilience.

 

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Can we talk about day-to-day expenses and emergency savings?

 

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Yes, please.

 

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Great topic. I think this is a real area of focus.

 

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I speak to employers regularly and this is a topic that

 

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people are very focused on.

 

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I'd also say societally what we're seeing is a generation ago it was a lot

 

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easier to talk to people about a retirement 20, 30, 40 years into the future.

 

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Now people are really focused on their near term needs, their near term

 

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expenses. There's a real focus on the

 

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overall financial well being there.

 

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One of the things that I think is interesting in this space, just learning from

 

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the US system, there's been new legislation that passed

 

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last year called Secure 2.0, or passed a couple of years ago, sorry,

 

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it was just being implemented last year.

 

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It's a really interesting bit of legislation from my perspective because, to

 

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me, it's an example of the government being

 

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very innovative.

 

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What I mean by that is there are a few provisions in there that are targeted

 

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towards the financial wellness and financial well being of workers,

 

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very specifically.

 

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A couple that I find interesting are the ability that now employers

 

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can match contributions to emergency savings, or match

 

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contributions to student debt.

 

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What that means, in the US it's not uncommon for a worker

 

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who's starting out, or even someone who's well in their career, to have

 

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a large amount of student debt. People often have it for their grandkids and

 

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their kids as well. They can have massive amounts of student debt or

 

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they may not have enough just for emergency savings and liquidity which,

 

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to employers, creates a real risk. If your car breaks down and you can't

 

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afford to fix your ca you can't come to work.

 

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Employers were struggling with both of those concepts

 

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and what was happening is employees were choosing to pay their

 

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near term bills instead of saving for retirement.

 

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That was leading to a double whammy because they were not saving for

 

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retirement and they weren't getting the match.

 

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They were losing out twice.

 

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What some of these changes do is it incents the worker

 

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to still pay for their emergency savings or their student debt but then

 

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the employer can match those contributions to those items to

 

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a retirement account. They don't lose out on both of

 

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those elements and it's a great way of engaging someone in topics that are most

 

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pressing to them.

 

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The reason I go to that example is I just think that's a a great way of

 

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thinking about the problem a little differently. We know that society

 

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is much more near term, short term focused and now we alter

 

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some of our systems to get people engaged even earlier.

 

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I'd say that's sort of one of the key

 

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things that we see there.

 

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The other thing, though, that we've seen is the Secure 2.0

 

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has introduced some more access opportunities

 

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to make it easier for them to tap into their retirement savings.

 

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This is still one, candidly, that we're watching very closely.

 

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One of the things now is people can more self-certify

 

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and take withdrawals much easier from their retirement accounts.

 

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What we've seen is two things.

 

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One is we've seen a growth in the number of withdrawals that are happening from

 

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these accounts, which is concerning to employers, but the average transaction

 

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size is down dramatically.

 

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It's more that people are taking more frequent small amounts.

 

229

00:14:00,906 --> 00:14:04,944

The reason I bring this example up is this really sort of highlights the need

 

230

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for liquidity on the part of workers, and that's why the legislation

 

231

00:14:09,081 --> 00:14:12,718

is also pushing emergency savings accounts more because we know

 

232

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if you do not have sufficient emergency savings you're five times

 

233

00:14:22,695 --> 00:14:25,898

more likely to make that withdrawal from your retirement account.

 

234

00:14:25,898 --> 00:14:30,202

The point here is the legislation and some of the changes that we're seeing is

 

235

00:14:30,202 --> 00:14:34,073

really about expanding the view to tackle the problem more holistically.

 

236

00:14:34,106 --> 00:14:37,877

I think it's very reassuring because I know a lot of plan sponsors here in

 

237

00:14:37,877 --> 00:14:42,548

Canada are thinking about potentially introducing flexibility in their design

 

238

00:14:42,548 --> 00:14:46,485

but are concerned, in fact, to your point regarding withdrawals and the amount

 

239

00:14:46,485 --> 00:14:47,453

of those withdrawals.

 

240

00:14:47,453 --> 00:14:48,020

Exactly.

 

241

00:14:48,020 --> 00:14:51,657

So early days but nonetheless it is still a departure from the typical

 

242

00:14:51,657 --> 00:14:55,794

traditional pension plan but we do also need to meet probably the

 

243

00:14:55,794 --> 00:14:57,997

younger generations where they're at in terms of their needs.

 

244

00:14:57,997 --> 00:15:01,000

Exactly. That's one of the takeaways.

 

245

00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:05,504

While it is often started with the younger generations, all generations

 

246

00:15:05,504 --> 00:15:07,606

are facing this issue so it is a broad issue.

 

247

00:15:10,075 --> 00:15:14,213

What can we do if we're a plan sponsor here in Canada, we don't

 

248

00:15:14,213 --> 00:15:15,814

have access to those features.

 

249

00:15:16,916 --> 00:15:19,018

You do have access to a number of other tools as well.

 

250

00:15:20,052 --> 00:15:23,055

I think there's some exciting ones there.

 

251

00:15:23,055 --> 00:15:27,626

I think taking advantage of some of the tax advantaged accounts here,

 

252

00:15:27,626 --> 00:15:31,664

whether it's a TFSA or an FHSA,

 

253

00:15:31,664 --> 00:15:35,367

those are, I think, really important tools overall.

 

254

00:15:37,536 --> 00:15:42,007

The wellness and flexible spending programs that you can provide

 

255

00:15:42,007 --> 00:15:44,910

to your employees can really help encourage some of the right types of

 

256

00:15:44,910 --> 00:15:48,647

behaviours and help them with some of their key needs.

 

257

00:15:48,647 --> 00:15:51,951

It also signals to your employees that you care about them when you focus on

 

258

00:15:51,951 --> 00:15:55,254

things like wellness. That's something that our data has also shown.

 

259

00:15:58,791 --> 00:16:01,260

I talked earlier about communicate, communicate, communicate.

 

260

00:16:01,260 --> 00:16:05,497

A big part of that is education, educating them about the

 

261

00:16:05,497 --> 00:16:07,967

importance of emergency savings, how much they should have,

 

262

00:16:09,635 --> 00:16:13,572

and where possible, helping them to think about having that liquidity

 

263

00:16:13,572 --> 00:16:15,474

outside of their retirement plan.

 

264

00:16:17,309 --> 00:16:21,246

You don't want to create behaviours where they're always looking to

 

265

00:16:21,246 --> 00:16:24,984

tap their retirement resources, that they're budgeting elsewhere.

 

266

00:16:24,984 --> 00:16:28,020

Excellent. So auto features, financial resilience, let's

 

267

00:16:29,321 --> 00:16:33,158

shift to another area of the report which is investment menus and target date

 

268

00:16:33,158 --> 00:16:34,159

funds.

 

269

00:16:35,394 --> 00:16:37,496

This is such a great area.

 

270

00:16:38,630 --> 00:16:42,634

When it comes to investments and target date funds we're seeing a

 

271

00:16:42,634 --> 00:16:44,870

number of trends here.

 

272

00:16:44,870 --> 00:16:47,740

we may be at an inflection point.

 

273

00:16:47,740 --> 00:16:51,243

What I mean by that is what we've seen over the last 10 years, if we look at

 

274

00:16:51,243 --> 00:16:55,314

our data from 2015 to 2025 is when we cut the data, we

 

275

00:16:55,314 --> 00:16:59,685

saw that plan  sponsors of all sizes, whether you're a small plan

 

276

00:16:59,685 --> 00:17:03,622

sponsor or one with over 5 billion in assets, overall the number

 

277

00:17:03,622 --> 00:17:06,792

of funds in their plan lineup has been shrinking.

 

278

00:17:06,792 --> 00:17:09,495

That's for a whole host of reasons, simplifying

 

279

00:17:10,796 --> 00:17:15,134

an overwhelming plan lineup, looking for economies of scale or efficiencies

 

280

00:17:15,134 --> 00:17:19,104

or other factors, but we've seen that trend and that is what the data

 

281

00:17:19,104 --> 00:17:23,042

shows. However, some additional research that we've done

 

282

00:17:23,042 --> 00:17:26,445

when we're surveying a number of plan sponsors are indicating that many of them

 

283

00:17:26,445 --> 00:17:29,615

are looking to actually just start increasing the number of funds in their

 

284

00:17:29,615 --> 00:17:29,715

lineup.

 

285

00:17:29,715 --> 00:17:34,253

That one had us puzzled for a moment because it was

 

286

00:17:34,253 --> 00:17:36,755

anti to what we're seeing in the data.

 

287

00:17:36,755 --> 00:17:40,225

When you look at that a little deeper, what that was really showing us is that

 

288

00:17:40,225 --> 00:17:44,663

... and when we spoke to some of them, many of these plan sponsors are

 

289

00:17:44,663 --> 00:17:49,034

often looking to increase because one, they are

 

290

00:17:49,034 --> 00:17:52,337

looking to provide more personalization capabilities in their platform, whether

 

291

00:17:52,337 --> 00:17:56,408

to support a managed account or more diverse workforces, so

 

292

00:17:56,408 --> 00:18:00,379

giving different building blocks to support different workers'

 

293

00:18:00,379 --> 00:18:04,316

needs and adding some funds there selectively can

 

294

00:18:04,316 --> 00:18:08,253

help. Two, there are some topics that

 

295

00:18:08,253 --> 00:18:11,356

a number of plan sponsors felt that they were underrepresented in, like

 

296

00:18:11,356 --> 00:18:15,294

inflation. That's been such a hot topic over the last few years that many

 

297

00:18:15,294 --> 00:18:19,531

employers have been looking to provide more on

 

298

00:18:19,531 --> 00:18:20,532

that front.

 

299

00:18:23,135 --> 00:18:26,805

I'd say that's sort of one of the macro themes that we saw when it comes to

 

300

00:18:26,805 --> 00:18:31,143

overall plan lineups. We're also seeing a strong focus on

 

301

00:18:31,143 --> 00:18:35,147

retirement income, as well, part of that is they're looking at their overall

 

302

00:18:35,147 --> 00:18:39,218

plan lineups and looking towards options of maybe providing more guarantees

 

303

00:18:39,218 --> 00:18:42,921

to workers. We're still seeing a number of solutions in that place, no

 

304

00:18:44,656 --> 00:18:46,725

specific clear winner there.

 

305

00:18:46,725 --> 00:18:50,629

I would say that we're noticing the same thing here in Canada, where there is a

 

306

00:18:50,629 --> 00:18:54,666

focus, especially for target date funds, on rethinking the default

 

307

00:18:54,666 --> 00:18:58,704

option. Where, historically, plan sponsors were focused on performance

 

308

00:18:58,704 --> 00:19:03,108

and fees, particularly with the revised CAPSA guidelines, what we're seeing is

 

309

00:19:03,108 --> 00:19:06,478

a focus on the actual design of the glide path.

 

310

00:19:06,478 --> 00:19:10,582

Things like how does it align with how Canadians are actually retiring, or

 

311

00:19:10,582 --> 00:19:14,553

exiting the plan if they're not retiring from the plan, risk management, how

 

312

00:19:14,586 --> 00:19:18,790

perceived versus true diversification can lead to meaningfully

 

313

00:19:18,790 --> 00:19:20,759

different returns, essentially.

 

314

00:19:21,860 --> 00:19:24,329

I would say, finally, there is a focus on outcomes.

 

315

00:19:24,329 --> 00:19:26,331

We're hearing more about outcomes.

 

316

00:19:26,331 --> 00:19:30,802

How does the shape of the glide path lead to different outcomes, and

 

317

00:19:30,802 --> 00:19:35,107

how is your target date fund manager potentially increasing the probability

 

318

00:19:35,107 --> 00:19:36,642

of retirement success?

 

319

00:19:36,642 --> 00:19:39,711

That's, I think, a key theme that cuts across so many things,

 

320

00:19:40,913 --> 00:19:44,683

outcomes from an investment standpoint maybe more clear cut in some ways.

 

321

00:19:44,716 --> 00:19:48,153

I think I touched on it a little bit earlier as well, outcomes of your broader

 

322

00:19:48,153 --> 00:19:52,090

benefits and your retirement savings, everyone is looking at what

 

323

00:19:52,090 --> 00:19:56,094

actually matters so that they can focus their resources and their offering

 

324

00:19:56,094 --> 00:19:56,995

on the things that are most needed.

 

325

00:19:56,995 --> 00:20:00,365

Absolutely. I think you have a pretty good catch phrase, I like to call it this

 

326

00:20:00,365 --> 00:20:04,303

way, defaults drives outcomes. Default investments really matter.

 

327

00:20:06,305 --> 00:20:09,975

Maybe one more quick one, and you mentioned it, in-plan retirement income

 

328

00:20:09,975 --> 00:20:13,912

solutions are actually gaining some sort of interest, not

 

329

00:20:13,912 --> 00:20:15,347

across the board.

 

330

00:20:16,415 --> 00:20:20,419

What are you seeing in your part of the world that is sort

 

331

00:20:20,419 --> 00:20:21,520

of evolving in that direction?

 

332

00:20:23,121 --> 00:20:25,257

I'd say we're seeing a few things.

 

333

00:20:26,325 --> 00:20:30,295

Overall, massive amounts of interest from employers

 

334

00:20:30,295 --> 00:20:32,864

that are looking to offer these solutions.

 

335

00:20:34,333 --> 00:20:36,835

I think they're recognizing as their workforce ages and more ...

 

336

00:20:36,835 --> 00:20:40,939

we often see more employees staying

 

337

00:20:40,939 --> 00:20:43,709

in the plan, particularly in the first couple of years after separation, so

 

338

00:20:43,709 --> 00:20:48,013

employers are looking for more options to support those employees in

 

339

00:20:48,013 --> 00:20:50,015

that phase of their life.

 

340

00:20:51,183 --> 00:20:55,420

We're seeing strong adoption numbers overall of

 

341

00:20:55,420 --> 00:20:58,857

different solutions by employers, or at least conversations about adopting

 

342

00:20:58,857 --> 00:21:03,095

them. Now we're moving into the phase to see are we gonna have that

 

343

00:21:03,095 --> 00:21:07,266

same level of participant adoption, are people ready to sign up

 

344

00:21:07,266 --> 00:21:09,167

and to implement some of these solutions?

 

345

00:21:10,202 --> 00:21:14,306

Overall, a lot of different opportunities, a lot of interest, employers are

 

346

00:21:14,306 --> 00:21:17,943

starting to take action but it takes some time then to fully get all the

 

347

00:21:17,976 --> 00:21:20,679

employees and participants into the system.

 

348

00:21:20,679 --> 00:21:23,015

I would say even more so in Canada.

 

349

00:21:23,015 --> 00:21:26,485

There's so much that comes into play in terms of how our industry is built,

 

350

00:21:26,485 --> 00:21:29,955

still a lot of development for sure.

 

351

00:21:29,955 --> 00:21:32,457

Let's make this practical.

 

352

00:21:32,457 --> 00:21:35,961

If you're a Canadian plan sponsor watching this what are the takeaways from our

 

353

00:21:35,961 --> 00:21:36,962

conversation today?

 

354

00:21:38,597 --> 00:21:42,100

The number one thing is you wanna make sure that you're designing for the

 

355

00:21:42,100 --> 00:21:43,869

behaviour that you are looking for.

 

356

00:21:43,869 --> 00:21:47,906

We touched on this a little bit

 

357

00:21:49,541 --> 00:21:53,445

but employees and the workers that you're looking to target are overwhelmed.

 

358

00:21:53,445 --> 00:21:55,247

Everyone is distracted these days.

 

359

00:21:55,247 --> 00:21:58,116

Everyone is facing a lot of decisions and a lot of information.

 

360

00:21:58,116 --> 00:22:02,054

You wanna simplify things where you can but you also wanna make

 

361

00:22:02,054 --> 00:22:05,390

that you still preserve enough in there for the personalization.

 

362

00:22:05,390 --> 00:22:09,428

People are more diverse than they've ever been and populations are so

 

363

00:22:09,428 --> 00:22:12,964

you need to make sure that you have appropriate flexibility but you've

 

364

00:22:12,964 --> 00:22:15,667

simplified the decision making where possible.

 

365

00:22:15,667 --> 00:22:19,838

Two, and one of the easiest ways and best ways to get there, is by using those

 

366

00:22:19,838 --> 00:22:23,809

defaults that we've talked so much about. That's a really powerful capability

 

367

00:22:23,809 --> 00:22:28,013

because it doesn't

 

368

00:22:28,013 --> 00:22:31,950

prevent the user from making the decision but it helps them by getting

 

369

00:22:31,950 --> 00:22:36,388

them started in the process, they still maintain the choice that's

 

370

00:22:36,388 --> 00:22:37,923

there for them.

 

371

00:22:37,923 --> 00:22:40,325

The third piece, if you're in a region like B.C.

 

372

00:22:40,325 --> 00:22:44,363

or somewhere that allows it, or where there's opportunities, looking into auto

 

373

00:22:44,363 --> 00:22:48,333

escalation programs. Those are just really powerful because again, you

 

374

00:22:48,333 --> 00:22:52,304

can get people to the place where they need to be over

 

375

00:22:52,304 --> 00:22:56,241

time and you can help them do that in an automated way through

 

376

00:22:56,241 --> 00:23:00,112

setting it up up front. I'd say that's sort of maybe the first piece,

 

377

00:23:00,112 --> 00:23:04,182

considering that you're designing for humans, for workers, and taking

 

378

00:23:04,182 --> 00:23:08,019

into account some of those things to help support them there.

 

379

00:23:08,019 --> 00:23:11,490

Two, is you really want to think about meeting employees where they are, that's

 

380

00:23:13,058 --> 00:23:16,862

part of the communicate, communicate, communicate, but you want to make sure

 

381

00:23:16,862 --> 00:23:20,198

that you're getting the message out to them where they are but that you are

 

382

00:23:20,198 --> 00:23:22,401

also giving them the things that they need.

 

383

00:23:22,401 --> 00:23:26,438

You may want to help them on the retirement but if they're so focused just on

 

384

00:23:26,438 --> 00:23:30,275

the emergency savings piece or if that's a pressing issue, see if there's a way

 

385

00:23:30,275 --> 00:23:34,246

that you can support both of those options through helping

 

386

00:23:34,246 --> 00:23:38,183

them with some of those near term needs as you build towards the long erm

 

387

00:23:38,216 --> 00:23:38,784

as well.

 

388

00:23:38,784 --> 00:23:42,721

And leveraging things like the Tax-Free Savings Account, the FHSA, thinking

 

389

00:23:42,721 --> 00:23:46,825

about flexible design programs, start thinking about how this can

 

390

00:23:46,825 --> 00:23:49,327

better support your employees long term.

 

391

00:23:49,327 --> 00:23:52,931

Last but not least would be the investment menu, more specifically the target

 

392

00:23:52,931 --> 00:23:55,700

date fund review, revisiting.

 

393

00:23:55,700 --> 00:23:59,304

The glide path design, does it align with your beliefs, essentially, when we

 

394

00:23:59,304 --> 00:24:03,375

think about risk management and the realities

 

395

00:24:03,375 --> 00:24:06,778

of Canadians. Again, how and when are they retiring and does

 

396

00:24:08,313 --> 00:24:11,316

the glide path align with your employee population.

 

397

00:24:11,316 --> 00:24:13,318

Risk reduction, when is it happening?

 

398

00:24:13,318 --> 00:24:16,621

When are we starting to decrease, is it too early, too late?

 

399

00:24:16,621 --> 00:24:20,659

Last but not least, you mentioned that as well, longevity and

 

400

00:24:20,659 --> 00:24:24,729

inflation. How is that taken into consideration within the target date

 

401

00:24:24,729 --> 00:24:25,730

fund option?

 

402

00:24:27,165 --> 00:24:31,303

Lots of big messages here, any last words before

 

403

00:24:31,303 --> 00:24:32,304

we close?

 

404

00:24:34,005 --> 00:24:37,976

Overall, I think there are a number of key principles that I was sharing

 

405

00:24:37,976 --> 00:24:40,712

today. Even though they're implemented in the US, taking

 

406

00:24:42,314 --> 00:24:46,918

some of the core nuggets of the behavioural elements, those often

 

407

00:24:46,918 --> 00:24:50,622

are fluid across borders.

 

408

00:24:50,622 --> 00:24:53,992

Take some of those learnings from the system and consider them for your own

 

409

00:24:53,992 --> 00:24:56,728

plan is often a good place to get started.

 

410

00:24:56,728 --> 00:25:00,532

Ultimately, better design whether inside or around the plan will lead to better

 

411

00:25:00,532 --> 00:25:02,300

results and outcomes.

 

412

00:25:02,300 --> 00:25:05,370

Thanks for joining us. If you'd like to learn more please do reach out for the

 

413

00:25:05,370 --> 00:25:06,338

full report.