Employees participating in financial wellness programs sponsored within their workplace are more engaged in, loyal to and satisfied with their daily grind.

They are also more productive and in the end, their employers believe that offering a financial wellness program boosts the company’s bottom line.

A report from late 2015 by Bank of America Merrill Lynch surveyed employers of various sizes regarding their use of financial wellness programs for employees. While the survey revealed that less than half of all employers were actually utilizing such programs to educate employees regarding financial choices, including investment in 401(k) accounts and other retirement savings programs, a full 90 percent of surveyed firms indicated a belief that employee financial education will become a significant feature of their benefit packages within a decade.

This attitude is good news to Manuel Negron, the founder of GenWealth Advisory Group based in West Jordan, Utah. For years, he has been sharing his concern that today’s employee receives far too little financial education.

“One of the hardest things for an advisor such as myself is finding access to those employees to help guide them during the decision-making process when signing up for employer-sponsored plans,” Negron said. “What I gather from many of my clients is that when they were or are employed, they don’t get adequate counseling regarding the financial impact of the 401(k) and other investing choices they are offered.”

Negron said that far too often employees meet with the employer’s plan administrator just one time during the year – usually during open enrollment when there is only one agenda item – showing employees how to fill out the forms correctly.

That, in Negron’s opinion, simply isn’t enough.

He believes employers offering investment options to employees ought to provide mandatory lessons or classroom time during which employees can have access to professionals such as himself, who can guide them through the myriad choices available.

Doing so would eliminate the conversations he often has with retired clients that feature questions such as, “Wow, how come I have never heard this?” in terms of how a 401(k) works during the accumulation and distribution phase, what the tax implications of various investment choices are and the fact that most likely a seven percent match from the employer isn’t going to be enough to fully fund a retirement lifestyle.

“Even at age 65, I have clients for whom retirement investing is a still a mystery, because they were like horses running on a racetrack with blinders. They were just socking and socking and socking money away in accounts they did not understand the workings of, and their employers never let them know what the true ramifications were,” Negron said emphatically.

He is concerned about the state of retirement savings in America today. The headline that most Americans are not saving enough is quite familiar, but the lack of personal savings becomes a far graver crisis when combined with a general lack of understanding regarding the workings of the retirement savings accounts people do have.

It’s no secret that the rules governing investing and the fees associated with investment transactions are like a foreign language to most Americans. Moves by the federal government in the past decade to increase the transparency of these fees are welcomed by Negron, but he believes more work is still ahead before the knowledge of the general investing public even begins to catch up to that of the financial professionals guiding them.

“It is a step in the right direction,” Negron noted. “But it still is not all figured out yet. I do not think the current disclosures are enough.”

Negron thinks that greater details – such as the reasons why certain fees are associated with various transactions, and explanations of why certain investments carry certain types of fees – ought to be mandatory inclusions. He believes that such information will create more prudent investors and begin to reduce the number of investors who have no idea what is included in their portfolios.

He’s advising his clients who are in a position to do so, to buy into an annuity that will provide a fixed, stable and reliable income source for the future.

“I think the beautiful thing about annuities is that these create reliable income for retirement that can supplement or fill in the gaps,” Negron. “For the right person, I believe it is an incredible tool to get the job done.”

So, what does an investor do when they’ve come to retirement planning later in life? Negron doesn’t necessarily see the late investor as a failure. “At least, they have taken the first steps toward creating a savings for retirement,” he said.

“There is an ancient Chinese proverb that says the best time to plant a tree was yesterday,” Negron explained. “But the next best time is today.”
He points to the mathematical facts contained in the concept of compound interest.

“It is an incredible miracle that people forget about, but even if you start late, you can still give money the ability to grow over time,” Negron said. “You just have to get in the game.”

Learn more about Manuel Negron and GenWealth Advisory Group online www.genwealthadvisory.com