Retirement Benefits and Planning

Introduction

Retirement is a significant area of concern among the employees. These schemes are of great concern among companies that deal with employees regardless of the numbers. This area has become one of the greatest issues among the employees as most companies do not offer retirement benefits for their benefits once they grow of age and are released from the companies. The greatest challenge is with young companies, where no retirement offers to their employees. However, concerning the same issues, most operational plants are mandated by the local or state government's laws to offer retirement packages or pensions to all employees. Commonly, organizations offer themes plans (retirement) to help their employees to save for their retirement. Over the recent years, most of the organization fails in the execution of the retirement process and thus hired Human Resource specialists, who are knowledgeable on how organizations and employees can benefit from the schemes set by the organization.

The benefits should be made eligible for both employees working in profiting and non-profiting organizations. The latter profiting organizations commonly enjoy 401k plans and 403b for non-profiting organizations, both known as contribution plans. In some companies where there are no sound retirement schemes, individual employees are at times forced to look outside their employers to supplement their personal retirement schemes (Krishnan et al., 2017). Some common forms of the supplement include personal investments or the formation of employer-sponsored retirement where the employee opens accounts that they contribute to purposely to be used upon retirement. This paper is a retirement plan proposal as a Human Resource (HR) practitioner in the Walmart Inc. Company.  The company is a multinational retail corporation that operates department stores and hypermarkets, whose head office is situated in Bentonville, Arkansas, United States. The reason behind the selection of this corporation is due to its huge number of employees worldwide. According to a report by CNN Business in 2020, the company was found to have about 2.3 million employees. Thus, a big danger if these employees would retire without a profound retirement or pension plan. This proposal is a comprehensive structure of the retirement plan that can best suit the employees of the Walmart Inc. Company.

Assessment

Based on the selected company, it is essential to assess to examine the existence of a retirement scheme. From this examination, we can generate a robust understanding of areas of the plan to initiate as HR practitioners in the organization. Initially, one of the central concepts that we need to keep in mind is that Walmart Inc. is a profit-oriented company, which will guide the investigation of the nature of this plan and its success. Meanwhile, identifying whether the 401k is adequate to ensure that all the employees enjoy the best retirement benefits. From the Walmart checklist on retirement, getting ready with retirement encompasses an exploration of insurance options. Upon retirement, regular benefits and coverages come to an end. The retired individuals are left with medical, dental, and temporary vision coverage offered by the COBRA, but in this case through WageWorks (Trumbull, 2014). With the 401k in place, after retirement, the employees are entitled to contact Merrill, from where they can check their 401k account, where they learn how to withdraw their money from the retirement income.

Additionally, employees are entitled to get health insurance from Medicare. This is primarily an insurance company that offers health covers for individuals regardless of age and employment status. To check for qualifications and apply for this cover, US citizens are entitled to visit the Medicare website and then proceed with the application. This is not part of the Walmart retirement benefit; however, before retirement, these individuals enjoy support on life challenges such as support, encouragement, financial planning, practical tools, and guidance on the retired and the family in the process of coping with the transitions. Although some efforts are seen with the company's retirement plan to help the retired person, these strategies are still not comprehensive enough. It is important to note that the company withdraws coverage once an individual retires from the company. There is, therefore, a need to come up with strategies that will offer the employees total coverage upon retirement. However, this should only consider the individual who is retired by meeting the age limit of the company, which is usually 55 to 65 years Dufour et al., 2021). These benefits are essential as they ensure that these fellows do not suffer from mental problems associated with old age. We can, therefore, conclude that Walmart Company needs to refine its retirement scheme to make sure all the employees live a reasonable life even after they stop working.

Design

A good retirement plan needs to be considerate of all the ex-employees and ensure that they live a good life. The work of the HR practitioner on retirement would thus ensure that the plan meets all the requirements of the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). This body has a central concern on ensuring strategic plan and achieving set visions and goals. In this context, our mission would be to ensure the retirees live a reasonable life even after they quit the job market. The purpose of these strategies would thus ensure that they produce a stronger society, whose imprints can be felt globally. Its influence and contribution impact organizational success.

Jackson (2015) published in the HR magazine adequate evidence for the importance of Human Resource departments. The role of HR is to ensure that the organization is strategic, which he highlighted is not optional for organizations. Primarily, HR should work as a link between the International Human Resource Management and the SHRM. Similarly, Walmart Company should embrace this collaboration between the international and local HR departments to ensure that there is a set of retirement benefits that suits it. In this strategy, the SHRM competency model, which served as a path whose aim was to ensure a more strategic leadership. The model realized great progress by helping the HR professionals and teams assess their strengths and opportunities (Jackson, 2015). Walmart should thus have a strategic design for its retirement plan. This includes making a 401k plan which is comprehensive and favors the employees. One of the best firms that the company should ensure that the plan adequate enough to sponsor the employees and make money available for withdrawal at the retirement age.

Implementation

Once the company has realized how to design a practical and strategic retirement scheme for its employees, it should now proceed to the implementation process. This is the most critical step in the entire task; it entails incorporating all the needed tools and materials, which aim to offer the best retirement plan. Indeed, this is the process where the HR practitioners point out the plan or benefit to offer to its employees. Commonly, one of the promising retirement plans that stands out as an essential plan for both the employer ad employees is the self-funded, where employers benefit by attracting and retaining quality associates. This benefit is mutual as the employees also benefit from deferring more pre-tax dollars from retirement. This is the importance of the 401k plan for the employees that would affect the employees at Walmart.

However, the process of implementation is complicated and entails various steps. For this process in the company, the company should ensure these steps are keenly adhered to; the first step is to choose where various plans are reviewed and determine which among the available options suits benefits the company. Having it in mind that Walmart is profiting and with millions of employees, 401k and plan will be effective to meet the needs of the retirees (Carlin & Davies, 2015). The next step is always the implementation, where a written plan, with an arrangement on the transfer of funds to notify employees to have a close track on their retirement option and keep records. Thus, this step is followed by the actual operation, where the employee makes a contribution, stays updated on retirement laws, manages the plan, and distributes benefits. It is always important to ensure the retirement plan is active and renewed constantly.

Evaluation

Evaluation is an assessment done through judgment on the progress of a project or plan. In this context, this is the assessment based on the 401k retirement plan to assess the fund lineup works effectively across all the employees. More importantly, the evaluation would help discover how the employees can keep a constant track of the retirement goals. Based on Fisher, the evaluation should meet the framework for evaluating retirement plans. The framework entails responsibilities, expenses, tracking, investment solutions, resources, and engagement (R.E.T.I.R.E). The evaluation should assess the capacity and how the employees have learned to meet their financial and legal requirements, more importantly, understanding how to maximize the plan benefits while reducing personal risks (Krishnan et al., 2017). This is done by examining how the employees can analyze, assess and monitor plan fees.

Additionally, in the evaluation, the 401k plan has to assess the resource and engagement. Besides, to ensure the efficiency of this plan, it is essential to measure the ability to manage the overall 401k plan. Also, this evaluation would serve as a tool to examine the mastery of common terminologies and benchmark ways for a personal 401k plan. Based on investment evaluation, it is important to seek to understand the biases that make it difficult for employers and advisers to get a complete picture of each option for a complete comparison of funds for others. This evaluation is commonly used for reviews on employees’ investment options for 401k plans. The purpose of this evaluation is to ensure that all investment biases are overcome through making sound decisions for both the employers and the employees. Moreover, the evaluation also incorporates enrollment of the 401k plan, where the employees are offered an opportunity to get started with saving for retirement. Comprehensively, the enrollment is one of an essential strategy which focuses on various tips. These tips include scheduling 401k service, with a primary role to ensure a constant meeting with employees. Enrollment also constitutes a reminder to employees on support available, interest on savings and participation, review of the investment options, and knowledge on personal 401k plan fees.

Compensation

Based on a 401k retirement plan, many risks might arise. Some of these risks arise from the limitations associated with this plan, especially on constraints concerning withdrawal times and the amount they can contribute. With this plan, there are potential risks that can even lead to loss of money. To start with is the lack of guarantee for future results based on past performances. Additionally, investments with securities involve risks, thus susceptibility to money loss upon investment with these securities. Another source of losses includes asset allocation, rebalancing, and diversification, where profits or protection are not assured against losses that are faced during the declining markets (Yen, 2018). It is thus advisable that before making financial decisions, consultations are made to ensure that employees are well informed on these plans. However, this investment is deemed a retirement plan, but; at times, it is a guarantee that it is effective to support the needs of the retirees.

The majority of these risks are barriers to employees’ motivation. There is a need to offer benefits that are assured as opposed to the investments that these employees are entitled to and prone to fail upon losses. With this in mind, it is essential thus to offer pension schemes, which serve as a retirement account where the employer maintains to give their employees a fixed payout once they retire (Andrioff, 2017). This benefit in the company should be guided by the number of years an employee has worked with the Walmart Inc. Company and the salary each individual earns. Once an individual retires, they can decide whether the pension will be awarded to them in a lump sum or monthly payment.

Philosophy Alignment

More importantly, the retirement schemes would be best if they align with employees' interests. This brings out the aspect of collaboration and cooperation in the decision of the best retirement to offer to the workers. The plan is only aligned with the interests after an informed consultation where each individual decides which form of benefit he would prefer at the end of the work period. However, in most of the stances, employers avoid taking into consideration all the employees' decisions but instead follow the organizations' retirement benefit philosophy. These philosophies are aimed at supporting employees, through the provision of sufficient income, throughout their retirement. The latter efforts are deemed inefficient as employees have varying needs (Topa et al., 2018). Most of these philosophies are grounded on the institution's goals, demographics, culture, financial constraints, and retirement needs of the employees. The latter base, which entails the needs of the employees, is the most critical aspect that an organization should consider when offering retirement benefits to their employees. In the plan of retirement, therefore, it is essential to engage all the stakeholders in a discussion on their priorities concerning retirement offers that would guide the plan and decision-making.

 

 

Legal Alignment

In order to qualify to operate in a specific country or state, companies have to comply with operation laws and regulations. These regulation take control of both private and public companies as well as the profiting and non-profit companies. The area of concern in this context is alignment with the set laws and Acts concerning employee retirement. This information is vital in examining the alignment of the Walmart Inc. Company to the United States laws and the agreed-upon United Nations (UN) retirement schemes. In the US, the retirement rights of employees are well regulated by the U.S Department of Labor, which formulated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) (Ciccone, 2017). The role of this federal body is to set minimum standards that industries should voluntarily provide protection for individuals.

Additionally, the Act is essential to provide participants with information on the plan, features, and funding. More essentially, offering fiduciary responsibilities for those who manage and control plan assets requires a plan to establish grievances and appeals when the employees are deprived of their retirement benefits.  The importance of law is to ensure compliance, where the employers and employees are all entitled to meet the preconditions set by ERISA to qualify in operation in the specified region. More critically, the ERISA also offers customer information on all the available retirement plans, and these plans are listed in booklets, sheets, and other information sought from the Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA). For operation, the Walmart organization should be bound by all these legal regulations.

Cultural Alignment

This is the conformation with the values of the organization. The importance of cultural alignment is to create an intuitive sense between the employee and the set organization's operation values. Organization where there is harmony between the stakeholders, mutual benefit is mutual, everyone wins. The plan on retirement should be pat f the organization's culture, that even employees get attached to the operation, they clearly understand the benefits that are offered by the company. There are vast advantages that organizations enjoy for setting up good working conditions, which is an important implication of the culture. Purposefully, this alignment is what defines the overall performance of organizations.  In the same way, Walmart should embrace a culture where all its employees feel important and part of the organization. Concerning retirement benefits, a good culture should align with the needs of the employees, putting into consideration the needs as highlighted in the SHRM (Davis, 2021). One of the most promising strategies by the SHRM is to leverage retirement savings and planning for benefits to either retain or recruit employees at all levels of their organization.

Workforce Preferences Alignment

Employees have their interests and preferences. Some of these preferences might force people to seek retirement even before the retirement age. Others decide to seek a late retirement based on personal interests; however, there has been a challenge to whether organizations have room to listen and offer the employees the chance to feel good. The challenge with these preferences is only for the employees whose delivery of services is not of great significance to the entire business. Late retirement may also be a complication as new college graduates might miss job opportunities, where old-aged individuals are long-retained in operation. Primarily, the concern on retirement should be rooted with the employees (Block & Goldman, 2015). Based on the history of the retirement benefits, retirement responsibility has shifted from employer to employee, seeking all possible measures that can be implemented to ensure employees retire smarter and more financially secure.

The alignment on workforce preferences concerning retirement in the present day generation should be assured of the best retirement plan. The alignment should be sought from the employees, indicating their will on both the 401k and pension schemes. With this knowledge in place, the Walmart organization has to offer the best retirement benefits for the employees. Thus, the company needs to examine employees' productivity and the impact on performance that the individuals can have on the company. Those with insignificant effects on production and demand for early retirement can be released and retirement benefits awarded.

Equity Alignment

One of the key issues on retirement is equity. The equity aspect addresses compensation on the requirement in the retirement portfolio that all the workers should be equally compensated. Retirement benefits on majority of the organizations favor employees depending on the employment positions; people on top positions have higher retirement benefits over those ranked lower in the organizations. Similarly, this happens with small businesses that share common experiences with those workers with little pay. According to Wolters Kluwer, there has been so much challenge with retirement savings, where only about half of the organizations offer retirement benefits for their employees (Davis, 2021). This fact has great, long-lasting impacts on the well-being of the employees. Our company of discussion Walmart Inc.,) though a multinational company has instances of inequality, some individuals enjoy hiring retirement and pension benefits over others. The HR department should thus work in collaboration with the institution to ensure that there are set conditions that offer acceptable and equitable plans across all the individuals. However, this should be considered of the period that an employee has worked for the organization. To minimize the gap of inequality, therefore, the institution has to offer equitable retirement benefits such as equal insurance covers and other health-related services.

Global Alignment

            The global alignment shows concern on the measures on retirement that are acceptable across all employees worldwide. These would primarily include the rules and regulations set by the Unity of Nations that govern all workers. In our case, we highlight the benefits that the Walmart firm has to adhere to, in conjunction with the United Nations. For retirement schemes, the UN has set aside the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), whose role is to control retirements of all kinds. Thus, our company should meet all the retirement needs of this body to ensure the smooth running of the organization. Walmart should then offer early retirement benefits to any employee who has worked for the company in the last five years, which is categorized as early retirement (Fronstin & Helman, 2015). Alternatively, observe keen procedures awarding un-reduced retirement benefits for those individuals who have reached their normal retirement age. Lastly, is taking into keen consideration the retirement individuals who have delayed retirement, especially those retained because of their productivity, should be entitled to better retirement and pension plans.

Diversity and Inclusion Considerations

It is a best practice to make a company competitively advantaged and retain employees. This has been made possible by embracing diversity and inclusion of all organization members in essential practices. A critical aspect that we cannot avoid is the aspect of retirement and pension planning. Making a good plan for employees for our organization will primarily include understanding, accepting, and valuing the contrasting bits, people the employees (Dufour et al., 2021). When making the plan, it is critical to take charge of the differences in race, ethnicities, genders, disability, religion, education, sexual orientations, skills, and knowledge. When making retirement plans, it is, therefore, essential to take note of the schemes that best suit each employee’s preferences. The latter can only be achieved if the organization adopts good communication between the employer and the employees.

Final Recommendations

With this reference to this discussion, we point that all employees should enjoy a form of retirement benefit or pensions. This is regardless of the nature of the organization, whether a profitable or non-profitable company and public or private. The nature of the benefits, from a majority of the profit-oriented companies, uses the 401k plan, where the employees need to invest for their retirement plan, the investment matures after retirement, from which the employee can decide to withdraw the amount in whole or in annuities. However, much challenge has been experienced when trying to implement retirement schemes based on various alignments. Some of these alignments include legal alignments, equity, work preferences, and global. Thus, to achieve success in retirement, the organization should consider the needs of the employees, incorporating them in the plans as they are the primary beneficiaries. A company that meets the majority of these strategies is subject to success.

 

 

 

 

References

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