Jennifer Rayner's love of talking to participants led her to offer 401(k) plan advice. That interest of hers is evident in her latest venture, a financial engagement workplace program aimed at helping people with the emotional side of money.
“We are an engagement tool,” Rayner says. “We don't do financial consolidation, we don't do budgeting, we don't do coaching, because as far as I can tell, there's a lot of that out there… It’s about supporting the mental health side and helping people feel better, more confident and emotionally engaged with their money.”
Mr. Rayner has worked with plan sponsor clients and participants for approximately 20 years at The Retirement Consulting Group, a husband/wife owned registered investment advisory firm. When her owner decided to retire, she bought the company. As a company manager and owner, she became increasingly aware that participants were not interested in topics like deferred interest and retirement income options, but had real-world, practical concerns. I did.
“People wanted to talk to me about the fact that they were still living with their parents, but is that a bad thing? Or they were going through a divorce and needed advice,” she says. “I realized I wasn't trained for that. I couldn't be a therapist.”
To support such participants, Rayner began searching for superior financial engagement and education solutions. But she couldn't find anything that fit her needs. So she dove into the world of financial psychology, which ultimately led her to the conclusion that she needed to create the program herself. From there, she partnered with PhDs and technology experts working in the field to found her company in 2020 and launch its first text-based engagement service in 2022.
Last year, Rayner brought on another retirement planning advisor, Lauren Loening, a partner at Retirement Impact, who he knew was passionate about educating participants. Ronning, who is passionate about behavioral research on participant engagement, brought both his expertise and his clients to the project.
healthy money
Mr. Rayner and Mr. Loehning have begun using the service for some of their plan sponsor customers, and in other cases have begun talking with workplace plan advisors about the possibility of using the platform for their customers. . Access to Moniwell costs $6 per participant per year, plus a $500 initiation fee.
The Moniwell program is a combination of written content, video and engagement tools aimed at “first content that makes you feel good,” and the company is working on a chatbot, Rayner said. Materials include tips and tricks on how to be more relaxed about money, links to the community, advice on best practices, and more. The product is white-labeled to the plan sponsor's specifications and linked to the sponsor's provider's tools, such as financial coaches and wealth advisors.
On top of that, there's a simple means of communication: text messaging. Since Moniwell does not sell services or products, participants can be pinged on their mobile phones. They say this tactic has very high visibility and engagement rates.
“95% of texts are opened and read within the first three minutes, which is a big difference from email and marketing campaigns where it’s about 20%,” Ronning says.
Of course, the use of text messaging can raise regulatory concerns for plan fiduciaries, and Rayner and Loening asked the law firm Boutwell Fay LLP to review this point under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. We requested the creation of a white paper. In a 23-page report, ERISA attorneys concluded that text messaging is an effective means of communication that allows qualified plans to comply with regulations and better meet their fiduciary duties to deliver educational materials to participants. Reached.
But the company also assures us that “the financial health educational resources and other tools provided by the program do not constitute investment recommendations or advice as set forth herein.” It also details the importance of setting up such a program. [Department of Labor] guidance. “
halo effect
Moniwell has been offered sponsorship plans through its advisers, but Rayner said the company is considering corporate options.
Rayner says the service is built to be flexible and adaptable to the demographics it serves, and text messaging allows it to reach employees who aren't sitting in front of a computer. Masu. It is also available to employees who do not participate in a workplace retirement plan.
“We made sure that the content was engaging and provided resources to someone without the employer having to provide anything,” she says. “A lot of employers are attracted to this because we call it a ‘show you care’ tool… Offer something without asking them to do something right away. If that’s the case, it’s just support, and it’s a halo effect on the advisor who brought it and the employer who brought it. There’s an immediate RIO from the first sentence.”
Ronning points to the American Psychological Association's annual survey, which finds year after year that financial stress is having a negative impact on American workers, with no end in sight.
“All these solutions that we're creating aren't creating enough change because they're not catching enough people at the stage of action,” she says. “That's exactly what we're doing, tackling the first part of money, the emotional part. If we can help build someone's confidence, there's an inherent need for an out-of-the-box solution. It motivates them to work on it.”