With so much talent in the workforce applying for jobs these days, it is becoming increasingly important for a business to offer competitive benefits. And as a business, you are only as good as the people who work for you. Beyond the salary, a benefits package can persuade a great candidate to choose you, rather than your competitor.
A key component of any benefits package is a company’s retirement plan. The retirement plan lets employees know that you care about their futures and want to see them succeed beyond work. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses have found themselves paying for a retirement package that doesn’t seem to offer any tangible benefits. Perhaps you are finding yourself devoting too much time to communications surrounding the benefit. Perhaps it feels like you are spending an awful lot of money without getting much in return. Indeed, retirement plans may appear to be costly on the surface – but here are five ways in which a high-performing retirement plan can help your bottom line.
1. Lower Your Employee Turnover Rates
Hiring and training a new employee can be very costly for employers. Keeping new hires (and talent!) around is very important to your bottom line and profit margins. Don’t let your new hires leave for greener pastures because of a sub-par retirement benefit.
2. Increase Team Productivity
A good retirement plan lets your employees know you are thinking about them and care about their futures. It also creates financial wellness within their personal lives. It is no secret that happy employees and great overall employee morale create productive teams that care about the work they do. Productive employees have a direct impact on your bottom line so don’t sell them short!
3. Save Valuable HR Time
Is your HR director fielding questions about the retirement plan website, what investments an employee should be in, and how much an employee should be deferring? This is all too common in the 401(k) and retirement plan space. Good retirement plans almost always have a financial advisor or wealth manager fielding these questions – a person who schedules regular visits and who the HR team knows to trust. In the long run, a high-performing retirement plan will save countless hours that your HR or operations manager should be using for higher-level business development tasks.
4. (Finally) Attract The Talent Your Company Needs
Attracting top-tier talent is a priority of any company. Did you know that 80% of employees would rather have a job with great benefits over a significantly higher paying job and no benefits? A quality retirement plan benefit may be just what an employee prospect is looking for. To stay competitive, it is important to differentiate your retirement benefit from the rest of the pack. After all, it’s that top-tier talent that is going to make your company grow faster than the competition.
5. Executive Time
As your business and retirement plan grows it becomes increasingly important to monitor many aspects of the retirement benefit. Business executives that try to take this on themselves end up wasting countless hours trying to evaluate investments, deciding on which vendors to use or if changes should be made. Oftentimes the wrong decisions for long term efficiency get made. Plan design questions and investment decisions are best made in consultation with professionals who devote their careers to these issues. Don’t waste time and valuable executive’s attention; hire professional help and save money!
In summary, don’t overlook a top-notch retirement plan benefit for your employees. Time and time again businesses push off evaluating their 401(k) or other plan types because it’s not a priority. While “set it and forget it” works for cooking a turkey, the stakes of getting your retirement right are a bit more significant than Sunday dinner. The truth is your retirement plan needs to be a priority if you have plans to grow and build an amazing team behind your product/services. A great retirement plan with a solid team of experts behind increases your team’s overall efficiency, helps you reach your goals of growth, saves you valuable time, and creates a team environment that employees truly want to hang onto for a long time.
Thinking of adding a retirement plan? Find out which one is best for your business by filing out our employer retirement plan questionnaire.
Please contact our office at 207-761-4733, email retire@iisfinancial.com, or schedule a call for more information about setting up a 401(k) or to review your current plan.