HCBeck Ltd.

HCBeck Ltd.—doing business as The Beck Group—was founded in 1912. With approximately 700 employees, in offices across the U.S. including the Dallas headquarters, it provides architectural and construction services. Projects range from commercial and academic buildings to health-care facilities and religious centers.

According to Elizabeth Haynie, The Beck Group’s health and wellness benefits manager, the company emphasizes participation in the retirement plan, right down to the summer interns and nonunion weekly employees.

Haynie explains that the weekly nonunion employees are primarily on-site craft and trade workers such as carpenters and laborers, and this group can have unique needs. “Many of these employees haven’t begun saving for the future, and, for many, English is their second language,” she says. “We’re focusing on helping this population feel confident managing their money and [helping them] begin saving for retirement. We’re utilizing the Spanish-language materials from T. Rowe Price and have a bilingual financial consultant from Creative Planning to help present content in both English and Spanish.”

According to David Altimont, managing director, and Meredith Moore, senior consultant, both with adviser firm Creative Planning, The Beck Group has consistently adopted innovative plan designs. Creative Planning has worked with the firm for 20 years and witnessed its evolution. In 2004, its plan was one of T. Rowe Price’s first plans to conduct a re-enrollment. The plan began using automatic enrollment features in 2007 and, in 2017, increased the default deferral rate to 6%.

The Beck Group provides participants with multiple financial wellness and literacy resources. Haynie says the firm offers Waysaver™, a savings app from T. Rowe Price, SmartDollars from Ramsey Solutions and a financial wellness program from Lockton Retirement Services, an offering of Creative Planning. The sponsor promotes the resources through multiple channels. “We also tie financial wellness into our efforts for mental health education and support,” Haynie says. “Finances can be stressful, and by providing our people with tools to help them manage their finances, we hope to also help promote a healthier mental well-being.”

Haynie explains that The Beck Group’s culture drives the plan’s offerings. “Our overall cultural belief and our overall philosophy is that people are our most important asset, and we want to make their lives better,” she says. “We want everyone to feel like they’re fulfilled here at work but also that they’re supported at home. It’s really that simple—it’s just part of our philosophy and how we want to care for our people.”

Creative Planning’s experience with the company supports Haynie’s assertion. Altimont and Moore report that, over these two decades, the plan committee has always spent a significant proportion of quarterly committee meeting time discussing how to improve the plan for its employees.

“As a result,” Moore notes, “the plan has always had a strong orientation toward offering a wide range of communications to employees explaining the value of the plan’s benefits, which have historically included a full range of both written and in-person communications.”

—Ed McCarthy