During the DC Plan Summit, participants broke off into small groups to discuss the major challenges facing plan sponsors. Here are some highlights of the sessions and key takeaways for participants:
Moderator: Janick Chouinard, vice-president, client relations and participant experience, Desjardins Insurance
Topic: New risks and the DC model
The shift to defined contribution pension plans has transferred the risk to employees and manypeople are now delaying retirement. As a result, employers are facing new workforce management challenges. Has the change exposed them to a new type of risk?
Key takeaways:
Workshop participants found the main purpose behind having pension plans is to be competitive in order to attract and retain employees.
Participants didn’t feel that having an older workforce is a problem or that older workers are less efficient than their younger colleagues. In fact, they can be helping when it comes to training younger workers.
It’s important to remember that pension plan members may not be delaying retirement for financial reasons only; there are emotional influencers at play as well.
While defined benefit pension plans would often help encourage employees to retire, workshop participants said they’re finding other ways to manage their workforce, such as phased retirement or providing other benefits to encourage retirement.