Principal Financial Group recently came out with their Best Practices in Retirement Benefits based on the practices of The Principal 10 Best Companies – 2007. Some of the suggestions they made include:

• Diversification
• Automatic enrollment
• Use of a single provider
• Consider adding a Roth 401(k) option
• Educate your employees
• Make sure your education materials are appropriate for the age of your employees
• Use incentives to increase contributions
• Offer investment choices, but not too many
• When educating employees, don’t just concentrate on participation but discuss other aspects of retirement such as rebalancing and increasing contribution amounts
• Offer Lifecycle or Lifestyle funds, also known as Target-Dated funds.

As noted in the article, implementing these practices can pay off with higher retention, lower training costs and more motivated employees, not to mention helping your employees be more prepared for retirement. NADART has been providing these “best practices” to our plans at some of the lowest costs in the industry. If you’d like more information on our features, such as automatic enrollment, the Roth 401(k) or Target Dated funds, please call (800) 462-3278, ext. 7161 or e-mail nadart401k@nada.org.