Posts about Employee Retirement Benefits

If you’re a small business, offering a SIMPLE IRA plan as a retirement benefit can be a great way to attract and retain employees. For you, the employer, it is low-cost and easy to set up and administer. As an added benefit, matching is a tax-deductible business expense. For employees, a SIMPLE IRA allows them to save more than with a personal IRA and enjoy the benefits of a matching plan.

But if your business is growing, it may be time to consider switching from a SIMPLE IRA plan to a 401(k) plan. Here are some indicators to help assess if it is time to change plans:

Deciding on the right retirement plan to offer your employees can be a challenge; there are countless factors that go into determining which type of plan is right for your business and its employees, including the size of the contribution you're able to make and how these contributions may affect your taxes. One retirement plan option to consider that often goes overlooked is that of the cash balance plan, which allows employees to accelerate their savings while maximizing tax deductions for the company.

Great employees are hard to find. When you’ve got them on board and working in your company, the last thing you want to do is lose them. Employee turnover can be extremely expensive: some studies say that replacing an employee can cost up to 6-9 months’ salary on average.  What can you do to retain your best employees and create a win/win situation for them and your company? Here are five strategies to keep great employees happily working for you:

If you are in start-up mode for your company, the last issue at the forefront of your mind may be looking into a 401K plan as a benefit for your employees as you grow your business. Your employees are likely younger, willing to take more risk for the potential of reward, and interested in compensation in the form of stock options, commissions, or other types of short-term, growth-related revenue. Your focus is on how to keep your company profitable, or in the case of venture funding, how to establish your business and achieve positive results in the short-term.

However, if you’re not considering a 401K plan as part of your benefits package, you should be. Why? The positives of offering a 401K far exceed any perceived drawbacks. Below are four reasons why your startup will thrive by offering a 401K plan, and how we at Richard Brothers can help:

As a business owner, you want to keep and attract the best people for your company. One way to do this is to offer your employees a quality retirement plan. But how do you determine what retirement plan to go with? And as the fiduciary for that plan, how do you know you and your employees are paying reasonable fees and expenses relative to the value received from the plan?

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), you are responsible as your company’s fiduciary to act prudently and solely in the interest of your employees and their beneficiaries when managing a plan. This includes ensuring that service provider fees are “reasonable.” In order to do this, you must evaluate all the information in the plan regarding fees to make sure you are not overpaying for the services you are getting.