Question: We are thinking of launching a series of financial wellness webinars with a goal of increasing employee engagement with our workplace retirement plan. Is there any recent research on this?
Answer: The Employee Benefit Research Institute issue brief, “Field of Dreams? Measuring the Impact of Financial Wellbeing Initiatives on 401(k) Plan Utilization” summarizes the extent to which the attendance of financial wellness webinars affected 401(k) plan participant behaviors.
According to the report, participants’ estimated increase in 401(k) contributions after attending any financial wellbeing webinar was between $649 and $988, depending on age and initial contribution level.
Use of a budgeting webinar was positively related to increased employee 401(k) contributions for all participants. And for younger and lower contributing workers who attended a budgeting webinar, average contributions went up $3,284. In addition, participants’ contribution levels increased after workers used nine of 10 of the webinars.
