One on One with Deloitte Consulting's Stacy Sandler

Deloitte Consulting's Principal Stacy Sandler's focus is assisting providers of retirement with their business issues and opening new avenues through which to differentiate their business offering. Deloitte's recently completed annual benchmarking survey examines the climate of 401(k) plans, and how economic pressures like rising healthcare costs, high personal debt and low savings are painting a less-than-rosy picture of the state of retirement readiness for millions of Americans. Sandler shared some of her insight on the results of the survey and more.

Consulting: Of the data points revealed about the state of the 401(k) world in Deloitte's benchmarking survey, which do you think is the most significant or telling in terms of the economic era we're in?

Sandler: The most significant data point is that only 15 percent of plan sponsors believe most employees will be financially prepared for retirement. The reason that this is significant is that it is relatively unchanged over the course of more than ten years that we've performed this survey. The picture is not improving, and we continue to see life expectancies increase, added uncertainty over the future of social security and the seemingly continuous rise of the cost of healthcare. In addition, when asked to rank the No. 1 top improvement that record keepers can help plan sponsors with—"Improve participant readiness for retirement"—this also validates the concern for employee financial preparedness—and the assistance that Plan Sponsors are longing for to help their employee population.