Event Details

Best Practices for 401(k) Plans

Qualified defined contribution plans, which frequently are offered as 401(k) or 403(b) plans – are complex. Employers encounter serious challenges as they offer them to recruit and retain employees.

A key issue that confronts employers today is how to best structure their plan to help employees build toward financial security in retirement. With the decline of defined benefit plans, questions regarding the future of Social Security and the decline in home equity values, employees must save adequately for their retirement, and this has become a concern of employers.

A second issue that confronts employers is what they must do to ensure their defined contribution plansare fully compliant under ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

By the end of the presentation, attendees will be able to:
● Understand the challenges of helping employees plan and prepare for retirement and the strategies that are most effective in encouraging participant behaviors that lead to greater retirement readiness.
● Identify plan design features that have a demonstrated ability to increase plan participation and utilization.
● Learn about effective enrollment and education programming to create better financial literacy and effective retirement planning.
● Consider plan investment options that help participants place themselves easily in the investments that will best fit their goals and life situation.
● Have a basic understanding of the history of ERISA and its requirements for the management of defined contribution plans.
● Learn about recent court rulings on defined contribution plans.
● Understand employers’ obligations under the US Department of Labor rules – 408(b)2 and 404(a)5 – which took effect in the latter half of 2012.
● Understand the role, obligations and potential liability of defined contribution plan fiduciaries and how to mitigate fiduciary risk.
● Review a defined contribution plan compliance checklist and learn ways to document plan compliance.

Meet our Speaker

Laurie Wieder 
Vice President, Qualified Plans 
Alliant Wealth Advisors

Laurie Wieder heads the Qualified Plans Division of Alliant Wealth Advisors.  She works with employers to design and manage innovative 401(k) and 403(b) plans that meet organizational goals and employee needs.

Laurie’s expertise as a professional retirement plan consultant is backed by 30 years’ experience as a consultant, a business owner and an organization executive. This combination makes her a uniquely qualified advocate and partner for her clients.

Laurie has a longstanding passion for strategic business planning and management. Her concerns in the retirement plan area include both helping employees build toward successful retirements, and helping employers mitigate their risk as plan fiduciaries. Her special areas of interest include strategic plan design, plan management and compliance.

Prior to joining Alliant in 2011, Laurie served for a decade as the chief executive of one of the largest chambers of commerce in the Washington, D.C. area. She has consulted with multiple other organizations and, early in her career, helped found the planning and marketing department of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Laurie received her bachelor’s degree from The College of William and Mary in Virginia. She is certified as a Professional Plan Consultant™ and holds the IOM designation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for Organization Management.

She is active on numerous regional boards of directors, including the Industrial Development Authority of Prince William County, the Prince William Society for Human Resources Management and the Prince William Historic Preservation Foundation. She is a graduate as well as a member of the founding Board of Directors of Leadership Prince William.

Laurie lives in Virginia with her husband and Edgar, her Labrador Retriever. She enjoys hiking and traveling and is a voracious reader of biographies, histories and murder mysteries.

Thank You to our April Sponsor:
AKRON, Inc.  

AKRON, Inc. is a data analytics and survey research organization with a twenty year history of developing and conducting compensation and benefits surveys for organizations, associations, and private companies.  Having begun as a software consulting organization in 1997, our experience with robust yet adaptable technology solutions allowed us to pivot quickly and within a few years built a core compensation survey platform that today provides the basis for our HR survey solutions.  Our dedicated team of professionals and consultants are experts in their fields of technology, data analytics, and compensation and benefits, and employee engagement. For the last 10 years, AKRON has been the administrator for the most trusted Compensation & Benefits Survey in the Washington, DC region.