In today’s ultra-competitive labor market employers need every edge they can find. The ability to offer a 401(k) retirement plan can be the difference in whether a worker joins one company or another. But for businesses with tight profit margins, cost of providing retirement plans can be prohibitive. It doesn’t have to be.

The Business and Industry Association, New Hampshire’s statewide chamber of commerce and leading business advocate, is providing its member companies an opportunity to join a Multiple Employer Aggregation Program that can make 401(k) plans more possible, easier to administer and less expensive. BIA is partnering with member firm Alpha Pension Group of Boston to offer the group option.

Trade associations, chambers of commerce and other kinds of affinity groups can offer multiple-employer 401(k) plans to member companies following a 2019 U.S. Department of Labor rule. Individual retirement plans are seen as critical for workers as a supplement to their Social Security benefits.

What is a Multiple Employer Aggregation Program? It’s a retirement program that multiple unrelated employers can join through their membership with an offering organization. The plan gathers and centralizes each plan’s administrative, record-keeping and investment services to be overseen by a third-party administrator, reducing cost and time spent managing the plans. 

“We are thrilled to be partnering with BIA on this retirement program,” said Rich Cawthorne, senior vice president – Retirement Plan Services, with Alpha Pension Group. “We are an investment advisory firm and exclusively work with companies to help them manage their retirement plans and we are very excited to deliver this program.”

BIA represents more than 400 members, large and small, in a variety of industries. Member firms employ 89,000 people throughout the state, which represents one in seven jobs, and contribute $4.5 billion annually to the state’s economy.

A multiple-employer 401(k) plan extends the retirement plan option to more businesses, particularly small businesses with little to no administrative responsibility. Owners want to focus on running their business, not being 401(k) experts. It makes it possible for more employers to offer this attractive benefit as part of an overall compensation package. 

A Multiple Employer Aggregation Program provides benefits of a larger pool but allows employers to maintain their own plans that work best for them and their employees. Costs of providing those plans can be reduced through collective purchasing, reduction in administration time and less fiduciary responsibility and risk.

For more information on the Multiple Employer Aggregation Program, call Cawthorne at (877) 449-4015 or (617) 916-0335 or email rich@alphapension.com.