Advanced Capital Group
Delivering Holistic Financial Wellness Programs

Financial wellness, when done right, can make an organization a partner in their employees’ financial security. Granted that it is difficult to substitute the gold watch, the monthly pension checks, and fully-funded retiree medical benefits that used to mark retirement and secured employee loyalty for decades. But financial wellness is the next best thing! It’s also a major indicator of a company’s culture and commitment to its employees and the glue that drives how employees use their compensation and benefits to achieve their financial goals and retire with confidence.

In the same vein, every employer must attend to the needs of a broad range of demographic cohorts, from millennials to baby boomers and everyone in between. Employers need to empower this broad range of participants with a spectrum of tools and services that appeal to them and increase engagement in retirement planning. At the same time, it is crucial to stimulate participant interest through promotional materials and incentive campaigns on an ongoing basis to get consistent, increased, and sustainable participation. When financial wellness is delivered and measured through an enterprise-wide program, the metrics speak for themselves.

Now, will all that being said, having an effective wellness program in place is no small feat. So, how can organizations move the needle on the overall financial health of individuals so that they derive maximum value from their benefit plans and retire securely? While the answer might not be simple, expert investment advisors like Advanced Capital Group (ACG) can always help. “We are a fee-only investment advisor focused on the management of corporate retirement plans, which ranges from corporate and non-profit defined contribution plans, defined benefit plans to non-qualified plans,” says Charles Langowski, Principal and CEO of Advanced Capital Group. “We engage with clients across the spectrum of different plans, functioning as a plan fiduciary, investment consultant, and participant education consultant to ensure complete financial wellness.” ACG’s expert team uses a proactive and collaborative approach that enhances financial results for organizations and individuals, with a specific focus on Institutional Investment Consulting, Participant Financial Wellness Services, Institutional Investment Management and Individual Investment Management.

Comprehensive, Customized Financial Strategies

For ACG, the path to implementing a wellness program begins with a three-pronged evaluation to review a plan sponsor’s investment processes, administrative processes, and participant outcomes by creating a “compass report.” Since a robust investment process combined with a sound administrative process helps improve participant outcomes, ACG focuses on a holistic assessment of all three aspects. While the participant outcomes are driven by a plan’s features, and designs, which are evaluated in the plan administration piece, participant success is also evaluated in the context of investment processes. “As such, the compass report serves as a guide for our clients to understand how we manage their plans, and it enables us to get a clear picture of their goals and develop the right roadmap. This sets the pace for the dialogue and gets everything going,” comments Dan Schroeder, Principal and Director of Retirement Plan Consulting at Advanced Capital Group. ACG assigns both an investment consultant and day-to-day relationship manager to oversee their relationship with clients while focusing on the outcomes and administration aspects. This allows the company to refine the services they deliver further.

ACG is also able to develop an internally developed WellCheck Report for clients based on the demographic feed collected from their record keepers on an ongoing basis. It then looks into participant saving rates, distributions from plans, and overall asset allocation to develop a scorecard measuring the effectiveness of the existing education programs. With this metric, the company can focus on the right areas—be it the savings rate of a group, asset runoff, or more. At the same time, ACG evaluates the cost of the ineffectiveness of a wellness program. “What this means is if participants fail to reach retirement age whole or don’t have enough money to retire, what is the cost incurred by a company of having such employees? Based on the study, we work closely with clients to determine how to improve the retirement preparedness of such participants using either employer or employee savings. Our goal is to ensure a secure and healthy retirement for employees,” Schroeder adds.

ACG’s premier advisory services are backed by a team of seasoned industry experts who hold over 15 years of experience.

At the center of ACG lies its retirement plan consulting division along with the wealth management group, which is an integral part of the retirement planning group.

In addition, the company also houses an institutional asset management group that manages high-quality fixed income portfolios through individual securities on a day-to-day basis. This, in turn, provides ACG’s consultants and wealth managers with an incredible opportunity to not just pick amongst pooled products for their programs, but also continuously interact with asset managers who work daily in the market buying and selling securities. Langowski notes, “ACG is driven by the mission to help a plan sponsor have a successful plan in whatever way the plan sponsor defines the term success. And, we have the experience, the education, and the resources to make it happen.” ACG creates its investment performance reviews and writes commentaries based on the direct conversations of its staff with investment firms, investment managers, instead of relying on external aggregators.

A Testament to Exemplary Service

Back in 2015, ACG implemented its very first fully-customized, 24x7 online wellness program for one of its clients. The program was integrated with all of the client’s corporate benefits, messaging, current wellness program, and was branded to them. While implementing the program, the company’s Director of Benefits stated that they wanted to see at least 20 percent participation in a year or the program was not reaching the desired goal. ACG implemented the program and put in place multiple incentive programs during the year on a routine basis. For a company with 11,000 employees, ACG was able to achieve a 54 percent participation rate. And this is an outstanding achievement considering the wide distribution of employees from C suite executives to an employee who runs a convenience store in a town of 50 people in North Dakota. Some of the client’s employees only had access to cell phone; they didn’t access to a computer or email. As such, building a program that communicated to such a broad range of demographics and personalities was definitely one of the biggest challenges for ACG. However, ACG’s electronic, fully deliverable, and fully communicated, incentivized program was a huge success with a high level of participation. “We noticed an increase in their savings rates because the client was able to focus their educational program where they really needed help, especially short-term debt. The next step for us is to integrate one-on-one services across the organization to deliver a more personal and customized service to their employees,” mentions Langowski.

The emphasis for ACG is on expanding the reach of its CFPs by adding more services and making them broadly available. The company is continually reevaluating its digital content to offer better and easier ways to connect with employees. Schroeder highlights, “We are also looking to promote our brand further on social media to reach more people. Simultaneously, we are adapting to the remote working culture enforced by COVID and focusing on providing more technology-oriented services along with our in-person meetings.” While technology continues to gain a stronghold over the industry, ACG understands that at the end of the day, it is the personal communication that matters the most. However, the efficiency in delivering services and communicating with participants can certainly be enhanced with technology. As part of our financial wellness program, ACG is developing an enhanced assessment tool that will offer a better profile of all participants in the assessment program along with their specific needs. “We leverage certain technology from a large aggregator that provides robust services to their affiliated advisors for practice management and evaluate our digital content on an ongoing basis. We are also looking to incorporate artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to provide participants with tailored content that would encourage engagement,” ends Langowski.