Connecticut employers don’t lack for retirement plan options. What they lack, often, is clarity. Tax credits, auto-enrollment rules, SECURE 2.0 enhancements, and the state’s MyCTSavings program have changed the ground underfoot. Add in fiduciary liability, fee benchmarking, cybersecurity expectations, and anxious employees who want guidance without conflicts, and it becomes obvious why an experienced retirement plan consultant can be a difference-maker.
I’ve sat across from owners in New Haven who just crossed the 50-employee mark and HR directors in Stamford who inherited a 401(k) they barely recognize. The best outcomes share a throughline: they paired with a consultant who understood their business model, their workforce, and the unique demands of operating in Connecticut.
This guide lays out how to find and evaluate a retirement plan consultant, what to expect from the relationship, where the biggest mistakes hide, and how to keep your plan aligned with both compliance and culture.
What a retirement plan consultant actually does
Titles blur in this industry. Some advisors sell investments, others deliver plan governance, and a few handle day-to-day administration. A retirement plan consultant is the coordinator and catalyst. They sit between your company and a web of service providers: recordkeeper, third-party administrator (TPA), custodian, auditor, payroll, and investment manager.
Core responsibilities tend to fall into four buckets. First, plan design: eligibility thresholds, employer match formulas, safe harbor vs. traditional designs, auto-features like enrollment and escalation, and profit-sharing allocations like new comparability when owners want targeted contributions. Second, investment oversight: creating or updating an Investment Policy Statement, selecting and monitoring fund menus, and evaluating target-date series. Third, fiduciary governance: meeting minutes, fee benchmarking, vendor RFPs, and education on your duties under ERISA. Fourth, employee outcomes: education programs that improve participation and savings rates without pushing products.
Good consultants translate rules into behavior. Instead of reciting a regulation, they show how changing an eligibility rule from six months to immediate affects turnover-heavy teams in hospitality, or how a QACA safe harbor can stabilize testing for a manufacturer with a top-heavy ownership group.
Connecticut’s context adds wrinkles you need to address
The state requires most employers without a qualified retirement plan to either offer one or enroll employees in MyCTSavings, Connecticut’s auto-IRA program. If you have five or more employees paid more than $5,000 in a year and no plan, you’re likely on the hook. That rule pressure-cooks decision making: do you accept the default IRA with limited employer involvement, or design a 401(k) that offers richer benefits, tax advantages, and employer discretion?
A retirement plan consultant with Connecticut experience understands MyCTSavings timelines, enrollment communications, and the practical differences. Auto-IRAs reduce employer administration and are easy to launch, yet they cap contributions lower than 401(k)s and prohibit employer contributions. A 401(k) requires more governance but can be structured to meet your budget and talent goals, and employer contributions are deductible. In Fairfield County, where wage competition is fierce, a 401(k) with a credible match still moves the needle on hiring. In seasonal sectors along the shoreline, a consultant might steer you toward eligibility rules and match formulas that don’t over-reward short-tenure staff but still pass nondiscrimination testing.
State rules aside, Connecticut’s tight labor markets in healthcare, biotech, and professional services demand benefits that retain mid-career professionals. That influences everything from vesting schedules to adding a student loan repayment match under SECURE 2.0. A local consultant has seen the patterns and can show you what’s working across peer employers.
Fiduciary roles, plain and simple
Many employers misunderstand the terms 3(21), 3(38), and 3(16). Those numbers refer to sections of ERISA and the Internal Revenue Code, and they matter because they define who carries liability.
A 3(21) fiduciary provides investment advice while you retain decision authority. A 3(38) investment manager accepts discretion for selecting and monitoring funds. A 3(16) fiduciary handles plan administration functions such as approving loans and distributions, often reducing the risk of late deposits or botched notices. A retirement plan consultant may operate as a 3(21) or 3(38), and in some cases partner with a 3(16) administrator. The mix you choose should reflect your internal bandwidth and risk appetite. A small HR team in Hartford may prefer to delegate investment decisions to a 3(38) to reduce committee workload. A larger employer with a benefits committee may want to keep 3(21) advice so they stay close to the investment lineup.
Ask for these roles in writing. Your service agreement should specify fiduciary status, scope of services, and exclusions. If you do not see the relevant ERISA sections called out, you are likely working with a non-fiduciary broker.
Fees and the signals they send
Price is never the only factor, but it reveals incentives. In Connecticut markets, consultant pricing commonly appears in three forms: flat project or retainer fees that scale by headcount or assets, asset-based fees expressed in basis points, and in some legacy cases, commissions embedded in fund expense ratios. The last category tends to correlate with conflicts and opacity. Look for fee transparency that separates consultant compensation from recordkeeping and fund expenses.
A typical small-to-mid 401(k) plan might see a consultant fee in the range of 5 to 25 basis points, or a flat fee from roughly $8,000 to $40,000 depending on plan complexity, participant count, and scope of services. Outliers exist, especially for professionalized committees needing on-site education, custom analytics, and formal RFPs. In exchange, you should expect a documented annual review, investment monitoring, a fiduciary calendar with deadlines, and tangible support during audits or Department of Labor inquiries.
One Hartford manufacturer discovered they were paying a bundled asset-based fee that looked modest but hid revenue sharing from funds. The consultant unwound the arrangement, moved to a clean share lineup, and introduced a flat fee. Total plan costs dropped by 30 to 45 percent, and the employer gained clarity on who was paid for what.
How to evaluate a retirement plan consultant when you’re busy running a business
You want depth without getting bogged down. A practical evaluation starts by looking at focus. Consultants who primarily serve individual wealth clients may be excellent planners, yet lack the infrastructure for plan governance and vendor management. Ask about the size and profile of their retirement plan book: headcount ranges, industries served, and whether they lead or merely support plan design.
Next, assess process. Do they operate a fiduciary calendar with recurring tasks like fee benchmarking, testing review, and cybersecurity audits? Can they run or guide a recordkeeper RFP every three to five years, or sooner if service degrades? Do they have a method for measuring employee outcomes beyond participation and average deferrals, such as savings rate by tenure or projected replacement ratios?
Third, judge independence and negotiating leverage. Consultants who routinely run searches know which recordkeepers can handle complex payroll feeds, multi-state payroll harmonization, prevailing wage considerations for construction, and HIPAA-sensitive data for healthcare. Leverage matters when you need service-level improvements.
Finally, look for people skills. In Connecticut, many employers have multigenerational teams, from twenty-something lab techs to sixty-something supervisors. Good consultants translate the same concept three different ways: a short video for new hires, a lunchtime session for mid-career managers, and one-on-one strategy for executives with deferred comp.
Plan design choices that separate average plans from effective ones
Plan design is where strategy meets budget. Employers in Connecticut frequently need to balance generous benefits with steady cash flow, especially in service businesses with variable hours. A consultant can model trade-offs in plain numbers.
Safe harbor designs are common because they eliminate most nondiscrimination testing headaches. The trade-off is a required employer contribution, either a match or a nonelective. For employers with uneven participation across pay bands, safe harbor protects the plan and often feels worth the cost. In contrast, some employers opt for a traditional design with discretionary profit sharing layered on top. New comparability allocations reward owners and key employees while staying within testing limits. This approach demands careful annual analysis, which a capable consultant and TPA can run within a couple of weeks of year-end.
Auto-enrollment and auto-escalation deserve special attention. Plans that start employees at 6 percent and escalate 1 percent a year up to 10 or 12 percent generally outperform plans at 3 percent with no escalation. Connecticut employers with seasonal staff sometimes hesitate, fearing opt-outs. Data from recordkeepers shows that higher default rates do not spike opt-outs materially, provided communications are clear and employer match designs are aligned. The consultant’s role is to present your historical opt-out data, your workforce demographics, and make a recommendation you can test for a plan year.
Roth features are no longer niche. Younger professionals in Stamford, West Hartford, and Norwalk ask for Roth 401(k) access, and SECURE 2.0’s Roth treatment of catch-up contributions for higher earners complicates the picture. A consultant who can explain when Roth makes sense, and how payroll systems should handle Roth catch-up for employees above wage thresholds, saves your HR team errors and rework.
Student loan matching is another area where the right consultant earns their keep. Under SECURE 2.0, employers can treat student loan repayments as deferrals for match purposes. That’s meaningful for hospitals and biotech labs in New Haven where early-career staff carry heavy debt loads. The operational detail is non-trivial: payroll and recordkeeper feeds must reconcile loan verification, and communications must set correct expectations.
Vendor selection and what actually matters in an RFP
The recordkeeper you choose will shape the everyday experience for employees and the administrative burden for HR. A polished demo can dazzle, but support and integration determine whether your team spends hours on manual files or minutes on approvals.
A retirement plan consultant should run an RFP that compares apples to apples across pricing, service model, technology, and participant tools. Pricing should separate asset-based fees, per-participant fees, and any platform or wrap charges. Service model means named relationship managers, escalation paths, turnaround times for distributions and loans, and who handles signature-ready Form 5500 preparation. Technology covers payroll integrations with ADP, Paylocity, UKG, Paychex, and others common in Connecticut. Participant tools include managed accounts, financial wellness content, Spanish-language support, and features like retirement income illustrations.
Cybersecurity deserves a seat at the table. Connecticut employers have become more vigilant after industry-wide account takeover incidents. Ask vendors about multi-factor authentication defaulting to on, automatic 2FA on distribution requests, IP monitoring, and their process for freezing and unfreezing accounts. The consultant should have a short due diligence questionnaire and a way to document the vendor’s responses for your fiduciary file.
Employee education that respects time and improves outcomes
Education works when it’s targeted. The mistake is Retirement plan advisor blasting a one-size-fits-all slide deck once a year and calling it good. A consultant who knows your workforce will propose a cadence and formats that fit. In a unionized environment, pre-shift briefings may outperform webinars. For professional services, short, on-demand videos and targeted emails around merit increase season drive action. Many Connecticut employers see success with new-hire onboarding: a five-minute sign-up walkthrough, a default deferral at a meaningful rate, and a follow-up at 90 days to encourage Roth consideration or deferral increases.
Executive education is a different track. Senior leaders often need coordinated guidance across the 401(k), HSA, nonqualified deferred compensation, and equity grants. A retirement plan consultant who can convene your executive participants for a focused session, without turning the plan into a wealth management pipeline, strikes the right balance.
Compliance, testing, and the annual cycle
Even well-designed plans stumble on operations. Late payroll peps retirement plan provider deposits, incorrect definition of compensation, and missed required notices are the common culprits. Connecticut employers relying on multiple payrolls or frequent off-cycle payments are especially vulnerable. Your consultant should maintain a fiduciary calendar that tracks key dates: safe harbor notices, QDIA notices, blackout notices, Form 5500 filing, audit timelines for plans with 100 or more eligible participants, and SECURE 2.0 effective dates.
Nondiscrimination testing is where design meets reality. If your highly compensated employees fail the ADP/ACP tests, a consultant should have a playbook: implement or adjust safe harbor, introduce or raise auto-enrollment, recalibrate eligibility, or consider re-hiring exclusions where appropriate. Plans that adopt a QACA safe harbor can pair generosity with automatic features and preserve flexibility on vesting schedules.
When the plan hits the 100-eligible threshold, you will face an annual audit. A consultant familiar with Connecticut’s audit landscape can refer reputable audit firms, prepare the fiduciary file, and help your team gather documents quickly. Think of the consultant as the project manager who makes sure nothing falls through cracks when the auditor requests sample distributions or payroll reconciliation.
What to ask a prospective consultant, and why it matters
Use these questions to draw out substance rather than sales polish:
- Describe the last time you helped a Connecticut employer switch recordkeepers. What drove the change, and what did the first 90 days look like? Will you serve as a 3(21) or 3(38) fiduciary to our plan? Please show the exact contract language. How do you benchmark plan fees, including revenue sharing? How often will you bring us a formal fee review? Show us a sample fiduciary calendar and investment committee packet for a plan our size. How do you measure participant outcomes beyond participation rate?
Five questions, no fluff. The best consultants answer with specifics and artifacts. If you hear generalities and see no documentation, keep looking.
Case notes from around the state
A professional services firm in Stamford with 75 employees had a 401(k) that failed tests three years in a row. The prior advisor recommended refunds to highly compensated employees. The new retirement plan consultant argued for a QACA safe harbor with auto-enrollment at 6 percent and auto-escalation to 10 percent, plus a match set to reward deferral increases. Participation among rank-and-file rose from 62 percent to 90 percent in a year, testing stabilized, and total employer cost increased by about 0.7 percent of payroll, well within budget once turnover costs fell.
A manufacturing company in Bristol with 140 employees struggled with payroll integration. Their recordkeeper could not accommodate multiple pay groups and bonus definitions without manual uploads. The consultant ran a targeted RFP, moving to a platform that built an API-based integration with the employer’s UKG instance, mapped compensation codes correctly, and reduced HR’s weekly file work from three hours to 20 minutes. The fee analysis showed a neutral cost shift, yet the operational lift paid for itself within months.
A community healthcare provider in New Haven wanted to support early-career clinicians with student loan debt. The consultant designed a student loan match under SECURE 2.0, verified through the recordkeeper and a third-party aggregator, and ran an employee communication campaign that emphasized equity between loan match and traditional deferrals. Within six months, the average effective savings rate for eligible staff rose from 4.8 percent to 7.1 percent.
Avoidable mistakes that still trip up smart teams
The most common misstep is treating the retirement plan as a static benefit. Plans drift. Fees creep. Managed account services get turned on without a formal review, and suddenly participants pay an extra 30 basis points for a tool they don’t use. Consultants who set a review cadence keep those incremental decisions grounded in data.
Another pitfall is underestimating the definition of compensation. Excluding certain bonuses or overtime from deferrals while including them in match, or vice versa, creates testing issues and operational headaches. Payroll and recordkeeper alignment matters more than any glossy participant portal.
Finally, employers sometimes chase the lowest sticker price and ignore service quality. Paying a few thousand more per year for a platform that integrates cleanly with your payroll, offers proactive support, and protects against fraud is usually the cheaper path over five years.
How Connecticut employers can right-size the relationship
Match the consultant to your plan’s complexity. A 20-employee marketing agency might want a lean arrangement: a 3(38) fiduciary for investments, a modern recordkeeper with turnkey payroll integration, and annual meetings. A 600-employee multi-site healthcare group needs governance formality: a 3(21) advisor supporting a benefits committee, separate 3(16) administrative fiduciary, quarterly committee meetings, and deep-dive analytics on participant health metrics.
Expectations should show up in writing. A strong service agreement outlines meeting cadence, deliverables like fee benchmarks and IPS updates, decision logs, and support during auditor exams or regulator inquiries. It also names your day-to-day contacts and escalation paths. Turnover happens. You want continuity.
Getting from shortlist to signed engagement
After initial conversations, ask each finalist to complete a concise scope summary and fee schedule tailored to your plan, not a generic brochure. Invite them to meet with two audiences: HR or finance staff who will handle operations, and a smaller group that includes leadership focused on strategy. Watch how they engage with both groups. A real retirement plan consultant adapts language and goes beyond sales platitudes.
If you plan to run a recordkeeper RFP, decide whether you want the consultant to guide it before or after hiring them. There is value in having the consultant run the process, but you can also use a light RFP to hire the consultant first, then use their expertise for the vendor search. Either way, set a realistic timeline. A clean recordkeeper change usually takes 60 to 120 days, longer for plans with loans, brokerage windows, or custom investment options.
The arc you should expect over the first year
Month one starts with discovery: plan document review, fee mapping, data pulls from the recordkeeper, and a conversation about business goals. By month two, you should see an IPS draft, a fiduciary calendar, and any quick fixes to operational risks. Months three and four often include an employee education push aligned with payroll cycles and any open enrollment rhythms.
Once the basics are stable, the consultant should bring strategy: modeling whether a safe harbor design makes sense for the next year, projecting employer cost under different matches, and testing auto-escalation impact on savings behavior. A mid-year fee review sets the table for either renegotiation with the current recordkeeper or a full RFP if service or pricing lag.
By the end of the first plan year, you want a tidy fiduciary file, measurable improvements in participation and deferral rates, and fewer HR hours spent on manual tasks. That is how you know the relationship is working.
The bottom line for Connecticut employers
A retirement plan can be a recruiting tool, a retention magnet, and a compliance minefield, often at the same time. The right retirement plan consultant helps you navigate all three. Look for fiduciary clarity, process rigor, local experience, and a human touch that fits your workforce. Demand documentation, expect transparency on fees, and insist on a cadence that keeps the plan evolving with your business.
When employers in Connecticut take this approach, they end up with plans that employees trust, leadership respects, and auditors sail through. That is not luck. It is the product of clear roles, pragmatic design, and a consultant who does the quiet, unglamorous work that keeps the plan humming year after year.
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