Red Wing Shoe Company

NOMINATOR COMMENTS

Red Wing Shoe Company’s iconic brands are all rooted in the same, powerful belief that what the company does makes a lasting difference in people’s lives. That same mission is evident in how the company manages its retirement plans. For RWSC, creating a culture that prioritizes retirement readiness is a responsible business practice vital to the well-being of its workforce. Its leaders understand they need to continue implementing strategies to help keep employees engaged and on track to reach their retirement goals.

For a few of those strategies, on a quarterly basis, it partners with its recordkeeper and adviser to educate employees on various financial wellness topics, and it provides them with free financial advice. This partnership also has produced award-winning video series and communication campaigns to better engage employees. During one of these campaigns, 19% of participants not previously contributing began saving.

Red Shoe additionally provides flexible investment strategy options. For one, it has an in-plan managed account service; it also has an advisory service, Managed Advice, which creates a personalized retirement strategy for the participant based on the principles of professional retirement advice.

Dave Riegelman, Retirement Plans Analyst, Red Wing Shoe Company

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.

Red Wing Shoe: We took a number of initiatives:

1. In 2023, we made a transition to a safe harbor plan and conducted a communication campaign to explain it;
2. We improved the overall participant experience as a result of implementing a more streamlined deferral election process;
3. In partnership with our financial adviser, SageView Advisory Group, we hosted several estate planning and financial wellness workshops. We also partnered with our “Lacing Generations” employee resource group to host conversations about each generation’s focus and how each group of workers’ views on saving for retirement differs;
4. Collaborating with Transamerica and SageView, we created a series of “Take a Step in the Right Direction – Let’s Talk About Retirement” videos, which covered multiple retirement planning and financial wellness topics. These included: “The Importance of Saving,” “Your RWSC 401(k) Plan,” “Enrolling in Your 401(k) Plan,” “Your Retirement Outlook” and “SageView Personalized Portfolios (Managed Advice).” Each video shared tools and resources and encouraged employees to meet with their SageView financial adviser. We ensure that all employees benefit from this education by making the videos mandatory in our Shoe U employee training platform; and
5. We worked with Transamerica to deploy a “Freedom to Save More” campaign around Independence Day last year. The goal was to encourage employees to take full advantage of the company match and to sign up for the automatic increase service, and the campaign garnered significant engagement.

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

Red Wing Shoe: Our retirement plan’s committee and staff meet regularly with our plan service providers to review plan metrics, employee communications, investments and any legislative or regulatory updates. In addition, we hold monthly calls with Transamerica and SageView to review ongoing administrative, compliance and communication tasks and projects.

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.