Additional Communication Comments

Most of my sponsors are willing to adopt the new options to provide as much flexibility to participants as possible but not trying to encourage (i.e., promote) taking money from their retirement savings.

I believe they will allow those that need the options to take it, but not actively promote it. They know that if they do, it may lead to unnecessary distributions from the plan when their employees do need to save for retirement.

With all the notices and news already circulating, I don’t believe plan sponsors will actively communicate the changes. They want to have the availability in place in case in it needed by participants but not to encourage it.

My clients are not adopting the new options; they are leveraging employee assistance programs they already have in place.

Clients are reluctant to widely communicate because they are afraid of people taking the money just in case. They are happy to adopt the loan provisions but some are holding off on the distribution option.

I think they are going to communicate the new options where necessary; but not encourage or discourage the use of them.

Some are opting out, some are promoting via notices and some are osking the provisions but not proactively communicating.

For the most part, our clients seem to be handling 100 different things right now and aren’t actively communicating any of these provisions. We’ve had some email blasts directly to them and have had writeups and newsletters that have been sent directly to participants. But our experience has been that a handful of the "on the ball" sponsors are aware and know how to handle these distribution requests, and then the majority of the others just reach out to us when they’re presented with a request from an impacted participant. Seems to me that most are just handling what is immediately in front of them at any given moment, which was the PPP/SBA loan for the last few weeks.

Our client are 50/50 on even adopting the new options.

Most of our employers are not excited about the offerings and the early access to retirement accounts.

Most plan sponsors do not want a run on the plan but also want to make sure those impacted are able access funds. We are also working with plan sponsors on specific education which fits the demographics of their workforce.

I have so many different client situations that it’s hard not to check each box above.

Depending on their work situation, i.e. layoffs, cuts, etc., I think we’ll see a wide range of responses. We are promoting that companies only add the features if they need to, and if they do, communicate but discourage.

Clients are leaning on the RK’s to communicate, they aren’t actively communicating.

For those clients that have adopted the new options, we are working on FAQs that help the clients to know the options are available but also make clear the impact of distributions and loans from the plans. We are also making clear the importance of retirement savings and using these options as a last resort.

Most of ours are not drawing attention to it, but have it available if participants ask.

If had a good number of clients not adopt these provisions.

Over 80% of my clients still seem to be at 75% to full employment. None of them seemed to scream yippee we are going to promote these like crazy.

This is an employer by employer decision, driven by the employer’s response to the pandemic (more layoffs/pay reductions generally aligns to more communication around the 401(k) as a bridge funding source) and the employer’s ability to communicated effectively with the workforce (if you can send everyone a blast email, or post to an intranet, it’s easier to communicate new options than if you need to mail packets--particularly if your benefits staff has also been furloughed).

A very small percentage of our clients have reached out to us to have these options provided. Those that have are actively notifying their participants.

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