Thirty years after the birth of the 401(k) plan, the retirementplanning landscape continues to evolve. Employees now have more sayin how they manage their retirement savings than ever before.Individuals are directly responsible for securing a comfortableretirement—or not. However, various studies show employeeparticipation in company-defined contribution plans remains lowdespite employer attempts to change this behavior.

Part of the problem is plan participants are not always armedwith the tools or education they need to succeed. Insight frombehavioral finance research shows there are three main roadblockspreventing individuals from making critical decisions aboutretirement plans during the time of enrollment:

• They are overwhelmed with the complexities of enrolling
• They don’t know how much they should save
• They are confused as to how and where they should properlyinvest those savings

Each of these saving and investing decisions involvesindividualized assumptions based on life expectancy, health status,income flows and asset returns, to name a few. It’s theseintricacies that force plan participants to make less-than-optimaldecisions. Additionally, plan sponsors often mistakenly add tothese existing challenges by hosting long and confusing enrollmentmeetings. The hefty literature handed out in the meetings onlyintimidates people further.

That’s where brokers can help. These five tips will enablebrokers to help their clients overcome these roadblocks and planfor a successful enrollment. In turn, deploying these strategieswill help put participants on the path to meet their retirementsavings goals and properly plan for their future.

1) Simplify the enrollment meeting

Enrolling in a plan should be as headache-free as possible foreveryone involved. For many companies, the enrollment meeting is anafterthought. Planning and preparing in advance can make theenrollment process much smoother in the long run.