Pension Protection Act Blog

Communicating with employees about the retirement plans available to them can be an exercise in boredom and frustration for everyone involved. The employee whose eyes are more glazed over than the donuts being served at the enrollment meeting will be the same terminated employee two year later who will fail to understand why they are not receiving the non-vested portion of their profit sharing account balance. The Dept. of Labor has a booklet posted on their website designed to cover the retirement plan comprehension gap.

With the catchy title of “What You Should Know About Your Retirement Plan“, the booklet walks the reader through some basic information about plans. Written in an easy-to-read format, each chapter contains an explanation of a plan-related subject along with action items for the employee to complete. For example, the first chapter explains what defined benefit and defined contribution plans are, provides a chart of the characteristics of both types of plans, and gives the reader the action item of obtaining a copy of the Summary Plan Description and reading it.

Another benefit of the booklet is that it is available electronically, and can be easily posted on a company’s intranet using a link to the DOL’s webpage which contains the booklet.

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