Dartmouth Health

NOMINATOR COMMENTS

Dartmouth Health has always prided itself on taking exceptional care of people throughout their lives, and that includes its employees. Dartmouth Health Chief Human Resources Officer Aimee Claiborne says that whether they’re new hires or have been with the organization for decades with an eye toward retirement, the employees and their families are truly the lifeblood of the organization. The retirement plan reflects that, with a design that supports participants’ individual needs and goals and makes financial well-being more easily attainable for all.

PLANSPONSOR: Please cite any noteworthy initiatives you have taken in the past 24 to 36 months that have produced results to improve your plan, and describe the results.

Dartmouth Health: Dartmouth Health’s recent hospital affiliations meant it had to convert more than a dozen qualified and nonqualified retirement plans from various recordkeepers into a single, harmonized plan for its diverse employee base. Working closely with its new recordkeeper and consultants, Dartmouth Health was able to streamline the plan design, fund lineup and payroll, all within a compressed time frame. The result: an eased administrative burden, improved decisionmaking and an enhanced participant experience.

PLANSPONSOR: Is there anything else you would like to share?

Dartmouth Health: It was crucial that everyone working on the switch understand our diverse workforce and their varied needs so that we could create communications tailored specifically to them. This multi-channel strategy included emails, newsletters and webinars during and following the conversion to ensure that all employees were aware of the changes, as well as the financial wellness services now available in their plan.

Looking forward, as Dartmouth Health continues its award-winning work to improve the lives of the people throughout northern New England, it will also stand by its commitment to attracting and retaining diverse talent and offering a plan design that supports participants at every stage of their careers and beyond.

This year, for our Plan Sponsor of the Year profiles, we are publishing Q&As based on the finalists’ applications and nominator comments. Responses are edited and may be paraphrased. In cases where the finalist self-nominated or, on its application, referred judges to the nomination for the answer, we have attributed those nominator answers to the plan sponsor.