Diversified Holding Co.

NOMINATOR COMMENTS

Diversified’s 401(k) plan exemplifies excellence in plan performance, participant engagement and financial wellness education, making it a strong contender for Plan Sponsor of the Year. Through consistent innovation and participant-focused strategies—e.g., automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, eligibility after six months of service, discretionary bonuses, forfeiture reallocations, true-up matching contributions and more—the company has built an industry-leading retirement plan.

At the core of this success are robust educational initiatives, including monthly webinars—available live and on-demand—that cover critical topics; a bimonthly newsletter with actionable guidance on health and financial benefits; and a benefits website.

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.

Diversified: We’ve taken several steps to help our employees increase their savings. This year, we launched an open-access benefits website; this provides employees with easily accessible resources to help them understand and optimize their benefits. We also had remarkable success with our beneficiary designation campaign, increasing completion rates to 58% from 36%—a record-breaking improvement, according to our recordkeeper.

While we already have auto-enrollment, as required by SECURE [Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement] 2.0, this year we adopted optional provisions that allow for distributions for federal disasters, domestic abuse and a qualified birth or adoption. The new super-catch-up option will also be implemented, and the plan is increasing the maximum deferral election to 75% from 50% in 2025. We also introduced a high-deductible health plan paired with health savings accounts for 2025; first-year enrollment numbers were impressive.

A few plan statistics: Our plan participation rate, at 93%, is three percentage points greater than our top-performing peers’; 62% of participants have a 15% savings goal; only 9% of participants have an active loan, compared with a peer average of 16%; 83% of participants are fully digital-ready—10 percentage points greater than our peers—with a top 25% through 75% percentile cyber wellness score; and 90% of participants actively engage with our recordkeeper, Fidelity Investments, including 276 web users logging more than 10,000 sessions. Fidelity stated it had never seen such high engagement across its book of business. Last year, 93 participants attended live, Fidelity-led education workshops.

PLANSPONSOR: Please explain the ongoing governance efforts of those involved with the plan meant to ensure its compliance and effective operation.

Diversified: Fulfilling the duty of loyalty to employees is extremely important to us. The plan maintains an investment policy statement and a committee charter. Fee-leveling has been implemented, and we proactively benchmark funds, fees, service providers, cybersecurity protocols, the qualified default investment alternative and stable value offerings. Fees are now more than 20% less than the median when compared with peers, and that includes for the extensive educational offerings we provide.

The committee keeps current on fiduciary issues by collaborating with outside ERISA [Employee Retirement Income Security Act] counsel and the fiduciary adviser, UBS, whose representatives attend regular meetings. Fiduciary training and best practices are included in governance meetings. Additionally, members of our retirement plan committee have achieved the Certified Plan Sponsor Professional designation.

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.