The Hire thru Retire Podcast

Lessons Learned in Higher Ed with Jennifer Addleman of Rollins College

• Voya Financial • Episode 11

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Higher education is an industry that undoubtedly has seen an impact from the COVID-19 pandemic, but one that even prior to the pandemic has focused on the importance of expanding financial wellness needs. In this episode, Bill and Heather talk with Jennifer Addleman, who oversees benefits and wellbeing at Rollins College, and Voya’s own Brodie Wood, who leads our healthcare and education practice. Jennifer and Brodie speak to the developing holistic financial wellness needs that are top of mind right now within the higher education industry. 

 

Bill Harmon is a registered representative of Voya Financial Partners, LLC (member SIPC). Brodie Wood is a registered representative of Voya Financial Advisors, Inc. (member SIPC).

 

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Speaker 1:

You're listening to hire through retire, a health and wealth podcast with four year leaders, bill Harmon, and Heather LaVale tackling all things from 401ks to HSS and everything in between. We're talking to the best and brightest in the industry to bring you the latest in health, wealth, and investment trends in the workplace. Come along with us on our journey to help all Americans become well-planned. We'll invest it and we'll protect it.

Speaker 2:

Hi, I'm head Alabama. And welcome back to hire three retire, a health and wealth podcast. We've launched this new series to bring you the latest news and insight around the broader workplace trends. I'm here today with my friend, colleague and cohost bill Harmon. Hey

Speaker 3:

Bill. Hey Heather. Thanks and happy to be back with everyone today. We recently launched this podcast and so far we've had some really interesting insights shared from an incredible line of a guest while we fit on a number of topics and plan to continue to do so. One thing that seems to come across in every episode and understandably so is the impact of COVID-19 and really what has had on reshaping segments in our industry. And most recently expanding opportunities for financial wellness and broadly what financial wellness means. As we know the definition is truly unique.

Speaker 2:

You know, that's where bill and a one interview we haven't touched on is the world of higher education at one that undoubtedly has seen impact from the pandemic, but one that even prior to the pandemic has been focused on the importance of expanding financial wellness needs. You know, so I'm so incredibly excited today to introduce you, our guests who are going to join us in our conversation and share their insights with you today. So with that, I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the show to Jen Edelman, who oversees benefits and wellbeing at Rollins college and our very own Bridie wood who leads our healthcare and education practice employer. Uh, Jen Brody. Welcome.

Speaker 4:

Thank you. Happy to be here. Thanks for having us

Speaker 2:

Well, we're super excited. And, um, so you know, Jen, I'm going to start with you and again, thank you so much for being on our show today. We've seen some recent data through our own research at Voya that shows the majority of institutions of higher education offer financial wellness programs. And, uh, with really robust features that focus on planning for retirement investing and budgeting, but still over half are looking for support and want help from providers with improving their overall financial wellness for their employees. So I'd love to hear what you're seeing and hearing and, um, you know, from your own offering and where your employees are needing the most support.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I'm happy to talk about that. And I think it's safe to say that employees know that they need to save for retirement, right? But I think the problem is that oftentimes we all get overwhelmed by where do we start? And research does show that just a little more than a third of higher education employees have really even looked at when they'll be able to retire, but then also about the same number have given thought to even what they're going to do and how they're going to spend their time in retirement and research further shows that women are less confident than their male colleagues and their retirement readiness and investment strategies, even though they're likely to live longer three tire mint. So there's multiple dimensions that you have to think about when it comes to preparing for retirement. Employees not only need help with the financial planning aspects, but they also need to determine, you know, whether they're going to do in retirement, retirement is a big deal, especially for faculty and staff who might be at the prime of their careers at the time, they might be the experts in their careers and they not only need reassurance that there'll be financially ready to retire, but they also need help with life planning and they need help reflecting on if they're psycho-socially ready to retire, how are they going to spend their time in retirement? What activities will they participate in? So they remain mentally engaged and do they have a sense of belonging in their community? And going through these exercises might actually help employees realize that they're more prepared to retire than they thought. And that's where we appreciate the support of retirement plans and the partnerships that we have, where we can offer programs and resources to help the employees assess their financial and social retirement readiness. You also need help providing programs that allow employees to evaluate investment strategies and help make appropriate adjustments. So that they're confident going into retirement. You

Speaker 5:

Alluded to this indirectly, but I want to ask you more specifically, do you find faculty, especially are often reticent to want to retire and with some of this life planning, it maybe helps them realize they can. I mean, can you unpack that a little bit? I know that's a common challenge across the country.

Speaker 4:

It very much is, especially when you're looking at a tenured professor who has dedicated their whole career on becoming top of their field. In most cases, they've worked at just one institution, if just a couple. And so they've dedicated their whole lives and careers to that one community and not only at their institution, but even out in their field of study. And so sometimes that could be a sense of loss for them as they look into retirement and they may not have as much of a sense of purpose. So we also do try to help talk to faculty about maybe not pulling back entirely, but maybe how can they slowly go into retirement. So maybe it's not making that huge leap from being full time to fully retire, but still making an impact in the community by still teaching. Even if it's part-time

Speaker 3:

No, that's so great. I'm glad that you put such a focus on it's. Many people put a focus on being financially ready to retire, but so many times we've said the support as well. It's beyond that it's being emotionally ready to retire and you you've talked BP socially ready to retire. And I think that's something that gets overlooked. You know, one thing that we've read a lot of articles about people as they've gone through the pandemic, has it really changed their view on retirement readiness and what's important to them. And so on. Would you say that the pandemic shifted or changed any of the priorities that you've just set for? Cause it certainly looks like you put a lot of thought into this.

Speaker 4:

Oh, so much has changed with the pandemic. Absolutely. And that goes for the expectations for retirement as well. And I'm part of Coupa HR, and they recently did a survey across institutions and evaluated how faculty especially are feeling about being able to retire post COVID and their results showed that about 40% of full-time faculty now expect to retire later because they are less confident that they're going to have enough in savings. And they are concerned about the volatility of the market. And this is especially true of faculty that are in their fifties, that thought they were just starting to get ready to prepare. And now they're a little bit more cautious and hesitant now, but on the flip side of that, the research also found that about 10% are planning to retire sooner than they were expecting before the pandemic. And I think some of that is due to the burnout. A lot of us have been through a big ordeal in the last year. A lot of us have faced budget cuts. We've had to change work environments, technology environments, um, the way they teach and the methods they teach have changed quite a bit. But also our priorities might have shifted a little bit more towards our personal lives and balance outside of the work-life experience.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So true. I think obviously a lot of time reflecting, you've been kind of working from home for a very long period of time and think about your future already having to turn it over to you, uh, you know, being on the provider side, what shifts have you seen or, or even implemented to address these needs over the past year and particularly in light of the shifts needed due to COVID and the new environment. And even with this new thinking that we're talking about, well,

Speaker 5:

You talked about financial wellness and there is an increased appetite from plan sponsors for help from providers. I, you know, you go back five or 10 years. It wasn't so much, but now when you think about student loan, there's a high percentage of employees who have student loans and just debt, things that are getting in the way of even saving, they're looking for providers to help. And then if you have maybe juxtapose on top of that, COVID obviously the shift has been what you used to be. In-person onsite meetings, that's shifted to zoom or webinars, or even on demand videos. And even there's even a mix like in between, we have a lot of institutions that say, Hey, let's schedule one-on-ones, but let's let's, preschedule it virtually that takes a mindset shift for years and years. A lot of faculty and staff are like, I want to see someone face to face, understand my situation. And COVID, I think has made all of us much more likely to comfortable with doing that virtually, but still doing a one-on-one conversation. So I think as things will do normalize, there'll be a, a mix. Right. I, I don't think we're going to go back to the same and Jennifer, I love your comments on people's interest in in-person education versus virtual, but I think there'll be some type of mix on ongoing with, with those two times.

Speaker 2:

Maybe I'll give, uh, Jen an opportunity to, to respond Brody to your, to your thoughts. And then I'll pivot my, uh, my next question for Jen.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, I agree. Brody, I think, um, especially in higher education, the demands of not only students, but our own faculty and staff have changed over the year of the pandemic where I think a lot of students and faculty and staff wanted that in-person connection, they wanted that one-on-one experience. They wanted those office hours. They wanted to be able to just pop in and ask their questions. And I think what the last year shows has shown is that we've all become very adaptable in, in this new environment. It might not be the preference full-time going forward, but I think we've all learned to be able to make the most of the technology and the resources that we have. I think employees are more comfortable with going online using virtual tools. Now I think employees are starting to search more on their own and use the tools rather than just pop in and ask the question first. And I think the students have, have shown that too, that they are more adaptable to technology and, and getting help and assistance in a virtual way, rather than expecting, you know, 24 hour support from a faculty member or a staff member to help.

Speaker 2:

And thank you for that. And speaking of support, I'm going to pivot over to a little bit more specialized support, um, you know, concept around investment advice. And, uh, we know that this is something we're hearing a little bit more areas of interest. Can you, um, give us your thoughts, you know, especially in a year where we saw the market volatility, I think with what we're seeing right now, you've got a low interest rate environment and people trying to figure out where, where they can go to maximize the returns. So just curious your thoughts around, uh, investment advice and being an area of interest for your faculty and staff.

Speaker 4:

Yeah. I think anybody who's watched the markets over the past year, I've had some trepidation about investing and they're looking for guidance on what to do. Some of these folks that have been investing their whole lives and they don't want to risk their life savings over the markets. And so there has been some concern in that, in that area with our plans help, I was able to send out a communication very early on in the pandemic and that helped alleviate some of the stress. And it helped remind employees that retirement investing is a long-term strategy. Even through retirement. It's not just getting to retirement, but you have to invest through retirement. So it's not just a quick game, it's definitely a long-term game. Um, if you want to call it that in the investment area, employees remain somewhat concerned still about how much they're investing, where they're investing and the market volatility. But overall I'd say savings rates have remained pretty steady in the plan because there is education behind it, especially when employees have that meeting with a financial counselor or they're using their online tools. And they're saying that their investment strategy is sound or maybe get some suggestions on what kind of changes they should make, make it fit where they're targeting for retirement. Um, I think they become a lot more confident that they are on track to save for retirement. Even if the market might drop a little bit and there will be some short-term volatility in the long run. I think they are more confident that they're where they need to be.

Speaker 2:

And I love that word choice, 10 competence. Um, you know, it's something we hear is that if people feel confident that there's just a different kind of mental outlook around that Brody, you want to pivot to you. I'm just thinking about the exposure you have, you know, across the industry is investment advice, something you are seeing more clients asking for out in the industry advice.

Speaker 5:

Yes. In addition to just straight investment advice, you know, Jennifer alluded to people needing help transitioning to retirement. So what type of advice or guidance can you give people with how to do that? A good sign though, if you could go back to COVID we saw very little panic selling. We saw very short-term drop in savings. And so what we'd hoped would work in terms of people not panicking through COVID, it worked, people stayed, stayed engaged, and, and as we saw the markets return quite quickly over the last several months, the vast majority of people didn't make a bad decision, which is the fear of all of us I will add. So if you think about advice, think that the eyes of a plan sponsor, right? So think of Jennifer and other people on investment committees within higher education and the research we did recently specific to higher education plan sponsors side of their number one challenge was keeping up with fiduciary and regulatory changes, right? So you have people who, who are fiduciary, but that's not a full-time job. And that's always a concern and they're looking for help. And so two, two trends there. One is we assume a market increase of committees, hiring third-party planning, consultants and advisors. Many of whom are fiduciary is to give them advice around investment options. They're offering. The second one is some guidance and advice around how do we, what do we shift off to our provider to do versus having HR do it? So if Jennifer and her or her HR department financially, there's a challenges there is, are there things we can shift off to the provider to do more? And then they're looking really for a third party to give some advice in that area. That's another area of opportunity. Heather,

Speaker 4:

Bernie, I'd say that you just summarize pretty much everything that I've been looking for in the last year. Not only with you have an election year, you have a pandemic, where is legislation going to go? What is it that plan sponsors need to do from a fiduciary standpoint and trying to keep up with all of that. It is a challenge. And that is definitely where we look to the help of our retirement brand partners on what's coming down the pipeline, what do we need to be prepared for it? And then how do we execute those changes rapidly? In some cases that's where we really have leaned on our partners for support

Speaker 3:

To come back to something Jen, that you said about kind of consuming information. And, you know, you'd mentioned that so many people just at Rollins were so used to going in person and meeting with the professor and all of that. And I could consume information in that way. And that's what humans, we're very accustomed to doing it yet with COVID we all had to become accustomed to consuming information differently. And so, you know, digital, how does that play a role in, in these kinds of wellness or investment offerings? And what, what solutions do you think are available out there that you think have really helped?

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we always do try to offer a variety of resources to help meet the needs of the employees. Some do want to be hands-on themselves and utilize digital tools and resources without hardly needing any in-person intervention. Some need to go to their tools or resources, but need more direct guidance from them to tell them, are they on track for retirement? How are they going to make changes so that they can be better prepared for retirement and their financial strategies and some just need that one-on-one support. But what we are finding is in this age of social media and posts and videos, it can be, it can be difficult to break through the noise of everything that's out there. So online content has to be very user-friendly. It has to be extremely intuitive so that an employee can go on there with just a few minutes. It can quickly see, are they on track in retirement savings where what adjustments need to be made. And then with this few clicks as possible, how can they make those adjustments? And so that is definitely something that we've been seeing more and more of is tools getting more enhanced, more user-friendly, um, less clicks. And even the videos that are out there are helpful too. They're short, concise, they provide information, um, because it is hard to keep attention. Now in this digital age of an Instagram post is just a few sentences. And, uh, you know, video is only a few, a couple seconds. It's hard to keep attention, but digital content is what employees are becoming more comfortable with for sure.

Speaker 2:

Short, concise, and straight to the point is, is most important. Um, well, I, I know that our time is coming to an end. I wanted to say, uh, both to Jen and Brody. It has been an absolute pleasure talking with both of you, um, as always, we appreciate your time. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4:

Thank you for having me appreciate being here. Thank

Speaker 3:

You to our listeners for tuning into today's episode. If you want to keep hearing more from us, remember to go to our show page and subscribe, to be notified on each new episode.

Speaker 2:

Thank you all so much for coming along on our journey today. Stay well.

Speaker 1:

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