As any advisor knows, financial planning drives better financial outcomes. Access to planning tools and professionals that provide top-notch advice can change the future of our clients and their 401(k) plan participants.
However, most people don’t use them—even our own clients’ employees. Lack of education on how to use the tools (or lack of awareness that they even exist) can deter even the most proactive investors, costing both of you opportunities.
Why Advocating for Financial Wellness Tools is Worth Your Time
Financial wellness tools go beyond basic retirement calculators. They provide actionable guidance that empowers employees to make smarter financial decisions. When participants have access to educational resources, budgeting tools, and interactive financial tools, they gain a clearer understanding of their financial future and feel more confident about saving for retirement.
According to a recent survey from DCIIA, the top action item people were most willing to take to improve their financial wellness was creating and following a financial plan. This illustrates how much participants value guidance. When given access to user-friendly financial planning tools, they are more likely to take control of their long-term financial security.
The Advisor’s Role: Leveraging Financial Wellness Tools
As an advisor, you can use these tools to boost plan engagement and improve outcomes for participants. Financial wellness resources help:
- Encourage Increased Contributions: When employees can see the impact compound interest has on their contributions, they are more willing to increase their deferral rate over time.
- Drive Higher Participation Rates: When participants feel more informed, they are more likely to enroll in a 401(k) plan and start saving.
- Identify Consolidation Opportunities: Financial planning tools can uncover potential rollover opportunities, helping participants bring together retirement assets for a more cohesive strategy, allowing them to more easily manage their savings.
- Start a Holistic Conversation About Finances: By taking advantage of these tools as an advisor, you can expand the conversation beyond retirement savings to help participants optimize their financial future.
Financial advisors have an opportunity to leverage these tools to make retirement planning more engaging, interactive, and effective, further highlighting the value they bring to the table as the trusted advisor of the 401(k) plan.
How to Increase Participant Use of Financial Wellness Tools
Despite their alleged willingness to create and follow a financial plan, most 401(k) plan participants don’t. This can be due to many factors, including overwhelm or frustration over the amount of setup required to get started, or a lack of awareness about the tools available to them entirely.
I know this personally, as I’ve been in the financial services industry for thirteen years, working as a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™. My name is Savannah Bellamy, and my experience spans the world of comprehensive financial planning and working with thousands of 401(k) participants to plan for a better future. Throughout my work at firms like Lincoln Financial Group, UBS, Nationwide, and now 401GO, my key focus has always been financial planning and wellness.
I’m very familiar with how infrequently participants actually set up and use financial wellness tools, and I can say from experience: you will never have an easier time actually increasing participant use of these valuable tools than when you have a free, frictionless solution built into their existing 401(k) platform.
At 401GO, we believe that everyone should have access to a suite of financial wellness tools to help improve their financial future. That’s why we created 401Goals—a powerful set of financial wellness resources embedded in our platform, designed to support retirement planning, education, budgeting, and more.
It’s unique because:
- 401Goals is available and 100% free to all employees of the plans on our platform, whether they actively participate in their employer-sponsored plan or not.
- Using the tools is easy. Participants can fill out just a few fields (no uploads required!) and immediately get customized, valuable insights on their financial future.
- There’s no account setup. Participants can access 401Goals directly from their 401GO account.
Want to Become Even More Invaluable to Your Clients?
Built-in financial wellness tools are just the beginning of 401GO’s unique offerings to advisors and their clients.
- We give plan sponsors the option to grant access to their accounts to their advisor, enabling you to create retirement plans, adjust contributions, and make important real-time changes on their behalf.
- Our financial advisor portal allows you to structure your own pricing tiers and set up automated invoicing. Charging your own setup and monthly participant fees, which we invoice on your behalf, means you get to revenue immediately, consistently and effortlessly.
- We believe in the human experience, so when you, your client, or a plan participant contacts 401GO for support, a dedicated and proactive client success manager will be on the other line to resolve issues.
If you’re interested in using any of the above to strengthen your relationships, free up your time, and better serve your clients, book a time for us to speak.
Financial wellness tools are just one of many ways you can go above and beyond as an advisor, creating mutually beneficial solutions for yourself, your clients, and their employees.
