FINANCE
Take Care
of Your
Employees
How to boost your employees’
retirement fund without
additional company costs
IBy Paul Forer, B. Comm., RBC Dominion Securities
f 2020 has taught us anything, it’s that amazing and resilient employees
are the backbone of great companies and it’s important to retain
them. So how can you acknowledge that and help enable the retirement
that your employees deserve, without breaking the bank?
Now more than ever, the key is to dive in and engage your retirement benefit
provider to bring their horsepower to the table.
The real path to retirement success lies in “hands-on” financial planning
that grows with you. No single message or plan will resonate with every person
across their various life stages. Someone who is just starting their career
in their 20s needs a certain type of advice, and as an employee moves through
their career, that advice must change accordingly. A cookie-cutter approach is
never going to add the value that employees truly need to achieve their best
retirement. The problem? Many providers of retirement benefits in Canada
specialize in that cookie-cutter approach, under the guise of simplifying administration
or lowering costs, leaving employees to secure a proper retirement
almost by accident, at best.
Employers can focus on a few key areas to increase value for employees
and demonstrate that the long-term financial success of staff is a priority for
the company:
1. Invest in small amounts of time to provide
exponential employee benefits
Many organizations invest three, four or five per cent or more of an employee’s
pay into a retirement savings plan for employees but are hesitant to allocate
time for a single one-hour meeting per year to have staff meet with a
retirement professional. For an employee who works 2,000 hours per year,
this represents only 0.05 per cent of that same employee’s wage – but it adds
significant benefit to their retirement. Furthermore, if the employer takes
the lead on this activity, it shows employees that the company cares and is
One Way
to Retain
and
thinkbigmagazine.ca | Quarter 1 2021 | Think BIG 43
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