Reimagining participant engagement in a digital-first era

Bridging traditional and digital engagement

Participant engagement has long evolved in fits and starts — shaped by demographics, technology adoption and regulatory requirements. The coronavirus pandemic accelerated the shift, pushing nearly all communication into the digital realm.

Today, the conversation centers on how emerging artificial intelligence (AI) tools and data integration can bridge the gap between traditional in-person education and scalable digital delivery. Advisors agree that while the old approaches — town halls, group meetings and whiteboard sessions — are harder to execute with remote and diverse workforces, new tools can provide timely, personalized insights that meet participants where they are.

1. Participant engagement strategies have shifted from traditional in-person education to digital, data-driven and, increasingly, AI-enabled approaches.
2. Advisors and sponsors face the challenge of meeting participants where they are — balancing broad education with personalized guidance.
3. Measuring engagement and addressing lifetime income needs are emerging as critical priorities for retirement plan communication.

Workforces are remote, participants have vastly different educational and technological needs, and attention spans are shorter. But technology allows us to deliver more information, in more formats, than ever before. The question now is how to turn that into actionable personal insights.

Meeting participants where they are

For Brittany Smith, Managing Partner with Wealth Partners Alliance, the challenge comes down to balancing broad education with personalized, targeted guidance. “Advisors want to meet participants where they are,” she explains. “Sometimes that means general education for a group, but if someone is changing life plans or if they are a high-net-worth participant, those needs can be very specific. We have to balance both, while still making sure we’re reaching everyone.”

Smith’s firm has adopted a tool that plugs directly into payroll and HR systems to deliver customized nudges. “It pulls in a bunch of datapoints and then gives participants little tidbits of financial wellness. For example, if they’re at a 4% contribution rate, it suggests bumping it up. If they’re not using their health savings account (HSA), it shows them how much they could contribute tax-free. It helps guide behavior toward better outcomes in a way that feels natural and not overwhelming.” Petrone says his team has gone a step further in making digital tools more tangible. “Our financial wellness platform takes employee responses and generates a simple three-page financial plan. It’s high level, but individualized. It lays out what they need to do to get to the next stage, and then we pair them with a financial coach to help guide them. Could that coach be AI someday? Sure. But right now, people still want the reassurance of a real human being on the other end.”

Sarah Keibler, Vice President and Retirement Plan Advisor at Alliant Retirement Consulting, believes tailoring messages by life stage is essential. “We don’t need to talk to younger people about Social Security. They need help with getting out of debt and building savings habits. At the same time, we don’t want participants saving 18% in their 401(k) if it means they can never buy a home. Balance is key, and that requires working with service providers who can deliver a package of solutions that meet people where they are in their financial lives.”

Phil Senderowitz, Managing Director with Strategic Retirement Partners, underscores the need for flexibility in communication channels. “Not everyone has a home computer, but nearly everyone has a smartphone. So our participant communication has to be mobile optimized. We just need to get them to engage in any way we can. If they want to know how to change a beneficiary or pay off a credit card, that’s an opening. But we also have to recognize that a lot of people just want to live their lives. They don’t want to spend their free time talking about retirement plans. That’s where automated features can help. As an industry, we can’t shun participants who aren’t eager to engage — we have to design systems that support them anyway.”

Measuring engagement in a digital-first world

Measuring engagement has become one of the greater challenges of modern retirement plan communication. With well-built websites enabling participants to self-serve, sponsors and advisors often receive fewer direct requests. Keibler says this shift has led to new opportunities. “We’ve become much better at tracking behavior — how many IDs have been created, which users are logging in, which resources are being used most. That’s the information we need to capture and measure. It tells us not only who is engaging, but how they are engaging.”

Smith sees the client journey as a powerful way to demonstrate value. “Two years ago, we held an in-person session just helping participants get logged in. About a year later, one of those attendees inherited several million dollars and reached back out, remembering the help we gave them at the start. A year after that, the same person was on their firm’s inclusion committee, and we ended up presenting to the entire committee on building a financial wellness program. That one log-in session grew into an institutional relationship. That’s proof of the value we provide.”

For Petrone, regulation can be a natural catalyst for engagement. “When SECURE 2.0 came out, it opened the door to conversations with plan sponsors about emergency savings and other plan options. We were able to analyze the participant base and say, ‘Here are 50 people who need help with this specific issue.’ What we learn at the participant level ensures we’re addressing the real root cause, not just treating the symptoms.”

Senderowitz takes a similar approach, using participant behavior to guide future communication. “We look at what people are searching for — Roth vs. traditional, tips for new savers, retirement readiness checklists — and track those patterns quarter by quarter. Then we produce new materials specifically for those segments and reach out directly. That’s when you see engagement really take off.”

Educating participants on lifetime income

The next frontier in participant communication is lifetime income, an area where interest is high but understanding remains limited.

Keibler has noticed a generational split. “There’s a barbell effect. Older participants who grew up with pensions and annuities are more confident talking about income replacement products. Younger participants, who may not have even been working for ten years, struggle to conceptualize a retirement income stream that could last decades. They’re also more risk averse and focused on protecting against volatility.” Senderowitz agrees that engagement on lifetime income has to be more deliberate. “A lot of people assume lifetime income is already inside their plan. It isn’t. As they get closer to retirement, we need to educate them so they know what options are out there. And plan sponsors need to be part of that conversation. If you ask participants,—‘Would you like a guaranteed income stream for life?’ the answer is always yes. But they can’t ask for something they don’t know exists. We have to bridge that gap.”

Petrone believes technology will help make lifetime income conversations more concrete. “There are a dozen factors that go into retirement readiness. The real challenge is: how do you take all those datapoints and generate a realistic scenario for each individual? That’s where AI will have to play a role. As these tools become more prevalent, people will engage with them in new ways and start to understand the trade-offs better.”

Smith says participants are already looking for guidance. “They’re leaning on us, and sponsors are leaning on us, asking how to communicate about lifetime income and pushing for more education. The demand is there — we just have to deliver it in a way that makes sense for both participants and plan sponsors.”

Elevating engagement across all plan sizes

Despite the challenges, advisors agree that engagement has to remain a top priority. Senderowitz summarizes the industry’s responsibility well: “Big plans and small plans are different animals, but they deserve the same kind of care and opportunities. We need to get the features of bigger plans into smaller ones so participants have the same advantages as everyone else.”