Ward Transport & Logistics Corp.

NOMINATOR COMMENTS

At the heart of what makes Ward Transportation different is the way its retirement committee has embraced aggressive plan design and complemented that with high-level financial education across multiple channels. While the growth in its numbers alone is impressive, I find them even more impactful when compared with industry peers who typically struggle boosting participation and deferral rates.

Over the past three years, on average, 600 Ward employees annually have attended in-person financial education sessions, conducted at 27 separate Ward locations. Since Ward launched its financial wellness site in June 2023, company employees have made more than 1,400 visits, with more than 670 unique individuals accessing a plan or financial educational video. Those are outstanding numbers, especially when compared with the other 200 Henderson Brothers retirement plans utilizing this program.

According to Principal’s retirement wellness score, the percentage of participants now on track for a 70% or greater retirement income replacement ratio increased to 25.6% as of November 30, 2024, from 17.6% in 2019, while the industry average declined to 9.9% from 11.6%.

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.

Ward Transport: In 2022, we implemented our employer match—50% of the employee’s elective deferral contributions up to a 6% deferral. We also ran a request for proposals for a plan adviser. This resulted in the hiring of HB Retirement.

A target-date fund and investment lineup analysis resulted in the plan shifting to the BlackRock LifePath Index target-dates and utilizing more lower-cost collective investment trusts. During this exercise, we also eliminated revenue sharing from funds and moved to a levelized fee structure, ensuring transparency of fees for all participants and that the lowest-cost option was being utilized. The investment, target-date and adviser-change updates resulted in the lowering of average all-in fees to 0.38% as of the end of 2024 from 0.63% in 2022—a fairly dramatic drop of 25 basis points for the average participant.

HB Retirement conducted a recordkeeper RFP and plan design benchmarking. Both affirmed Principal Financial Group as recordkeeper, and the benchmarking confirmed that a best-in-class plan design was already being utilized, with automatic enrollment, automatic increase, annual re-enrollment, Roth conversion, short eligibility period and only one loan available, etc.

The Capital Preservation Fund was also reviewed in depth in 2022, and a 12-month put was placed on an underperforming fixed fund that had an interest rate of about 1.5%. The replacement has consistently been greater than 4.5% since it was added in October 2023. This was a major bonus to the participants, who have about $5 million invested in this fund.

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

Ward Transport: Other initiatives we’ve taken on but haven’t implemented yet include a study of the potential impact of adding a safe harbor match, a match true-up and an emergency savings program.

Ward Transport & Logistics is a family-owned company and has been in business for more than 93 years. The Ward family recognizes that our employees are our most valuable assets, and we strive to provide them with competitive and generous benefits. Through our partnership with HB Financial and Principal Financial, we have been able to offer a best-in-class plan design while reducing fees. Our goal is to equip our employees with financial resources and education to empower them and prepare them to retire with dignity, on their terms.

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.