The first six months of 2020 have provided the retirement industry with a decade’s worth of activity and a new perspective on supporting employee needs. Fourteen years after the Pension Protection Act of 2006, the industry has been digesting the implications of new legislation, from the SECURE Act to the CARES Act, all while living through the unprecedented times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has highlighted the importance of both (i) health and (ii) financial wellbeing. Similar to how investors who lived through the 2008 global financial crisis invest their savings with those events in mind, living through this experience will affect how companies, plan sponsors, and business leaders make decisions about supporting the wellbeing of their (i) communities and (ii) employees. Given these transformative events and as we look toward the second half of 2020, we consider which trends may gain momentum as companies emerge from the pandemic.