Do 401(k) plan sponsors even think this belongs in their job description? – Carosa
If employees suffer from math anxiety, that could signal they're more vulnerable to fraud -- not to mention poor retirement planning.
Is it a bit patronizing to assume employees are too unsophisticated to understand how to invest their retirement assets? Does this actually enable bad behavior?
Think about it. If you are expected to make a mess of things, you don’t feel too bad when you make a mess of things. Lower expectations breed poorer results.
If this sounds familiar, chances are you experienced it in school. In 1968, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson published Pygmalion in the Classroom: Teacher Expectation and Pupils’ Intellectual Development. It describes how a preconceived notion can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy.
When teachers have low expectations of their students, those students tend to score lower on tests. Recent studies have confirmed the Pygmalion Phenomenon, especially in relation to the subject of math (see “How Math Anxiety Ruins Retirement – And What to Do About It,” FiduciaryNews.com, February 7, 2019).
Math anxiety likely leads to financial illiteracy. Financial illiteracy often leads to poor retirement saving habits. Much of the fiduciary burden placed on 401(k) plan sponsors derives from the assumption that employees tend to make poor decisions when it comes to their retirement savings. Like those teachers in Pygmalion, perhaps plan sponsors’ low expectations of plan participants encourage poor decisions. Worse, regulatory policies promote this environment.
We can debate and investigate the causes, but it may offer greater help simply to acknowledge the problem exists and strive for a solution.
You’d think plan sponsors might naturally take on this responsibility. Chances are, however, they don’t even realize it’s part of their job description.
And that could mean the difference between employees’ achieving or failing to achieve a comfortable retirement.
There’s a Yin and a Yang to employee math anxiety. Their fear of financial figures makes them more likely to seek advice and take it – without necessarily conducting the necessary due diligence on that recommendation. This lack of due diligence exposes them to lies, deception, and outright fraud.
But that only happens if the person they get advice from isn’t trustworthy.
Unfortunately, to confirm trustworthiness requires the very same due diligence that the employee’s anxiety prevents. How, then, can employees find a trustworthy adviser for their retirement assets?
Cue the retirement plan sponsor.
The plan sponsor is already on the fiduciary hook for selecting service providers for the plan. Why not add one more provider? (Or, to be fair, a whole gaggle of providers – a virtual stable of advisers all sporting the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on their finely tailored lapels. Let employees select the adviser of their choice.)
People who are intimidated by numbers have a problem because life is full of numbers – everything from calculating the tip one should leave at a restaurant to figuring out what you need to do to best prepare for retirement. Lately, restaurants have been making life easier for the math anxious by advising them on their bill with three difference tipping level options.
Shouldn’t plan sponsors be doing something similar to help their employees make retirement planning decisions?
READ MORE:
Get them addicted to saving — Carosa
Would rank-and-file 401(k) retirement savers benefit from working with an advisor?