The university was honored with an Arbor Special Tribute Award during the Arbor Awards for Excellence ceremony at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
The award was presented on March 8 in recognition of improvements made to the university’s retirement savings plan. Changes include an electronic enrollment process, a default investment that uses target retirement date funds and reduced investment fund management fees.
Lower fund management fees charged by the investment companies result in more money staying in each individual’s retirement savings account, which gives account balances more earning potential as each participant keeps a higher percentage of the returns generated by the funds in their portfolio, university officials say. The lower-fee funds were rolled out in September 2010.
In addition, the electronic enrollment process has reduced entry errors, staff time required to reconcile errors and paperwork. The revised plan eliminates more than 500 hours of staff time and 11,000 pieces of paper, and saves the university thousands of dollars annually by eliminating copying and shipping costs.
Steve Sindlinger, assistant director, Benefits Office accepted the award on behalf of the university. Sindlinger was presented with a plaque by Joan Moore, president of the Arbor Consulting Group, and David Mielke, dean, College of Business, Eastern Michigan University.
“The only way to have enough money for retirement is to save,” Sindlinger said. “Previously many university employees said they did not have the time or knowledge to make decisions about investing for retirement. Now, new target retirement date funds automatically rebalance the portfolio holdings depending upon an individual’s time until retirement. And with the introduction of reduced-fee funds, more money goes into each participant’s retirement savings account.”
The Arbor Awards for Excellence recognize best practices and innovation in human resources and are sponsored by The Arbor Consulting Group Inc., a human resource management consulting firm, and the Eastern Michigan University Master of Science in Human Resources/Organizational Development Program. Other Arbor Award recipients were Valassis, St. John Providence Health System and Polk.
For more information on the U-M Retirement Savings Plan and the new lower-fee funds, go to benefits.umich.edu/plans/retire.
