There is sea change going on in the corporate retirement plan market, so we are going to take a short break from our recruiting series.

This change is going to dramatically alter the way companies deal with plan responsibilities and drastically reduce the time needed to manage a successful plan.

It all started with Secure 2.0. This legislation included a revision to the multiple employer plan regulations. You no longer have to be in the same industry or sector to be part of pooled plan structure that allows the pooled plan provider to run your plan.

While the old version of pooled plans were designed to be cheap and simple without a lot of options, now that these are open to everyone they allow all the design features of best in class plans; advanced profit sharing, safe harbor, auto enroll, self-directed brokerage. They are all available in today’s Pooled Employer Plans (PEP).

What hasn’t changed, thankfully, is the transfer of responsibility from you as plan sponsor to the Pooled Plan Provider (PPP). That means no more

• Tracking eligibility
• Responding to participant calls for help
• Tracking 401(k) payroll issues
• Worrying about sending out required notices and disclosures
• Allocating hours of team manpower to audit and tax issues (more on that below).

The Pooled Plan provider takes care of everything as a 3(16) co-fiduciary. Your investments are managed by a 3(38) co-fiduciary. All you have to do as plan sponsor is upload payroll, provide year end census and review the plan provider annually. All the rest is taken care of for you.

What’s more, you are also no longer responsible for the 5500 or the plan audit if you have over 100 employees. That’s right – both the 5500 and the audit are handled by the PPP. That is time and money.

Why do we believe this is a major sea change for plans? Retirement plans are a classic example of regulatory creep. What started out as a great alternative to pension plans back when ERISA was created, has become a fiduciary, regulatory, legal, time consuming, profitless headache. Imagine if your health care plan was run this way and the HR department was responsible for the day to day issues of claims, disputes, approvals.

It’s time for the retirement plan to grow up. Now you can design a plan that is right for your recruiting and retention needs and let someone else – a co-fiduciary expert – run it for you.

The RBC DSG Pinnacle PEP is a joint effort of our award winning retirement plan team here at RBC together with Voya Financial as recordkeeper and The Finway Group, nationally recognized 3(16) Pooled Plan Provider. To learn more about how the PEP will maximize your fiduciary support and minimize your teams responsibilities, please contact me via email at bruce.gelfand@rbc.com or by phone at 212-703-2272.