Reaching a ‘Mobile’ Workforce

Retirement readiness is “collar blind.”

LearnLux, a financial well-being program provider, has just celebrated the fifth anniversary of its partnership with Messer Construction Co., a Cincinnati-based construction manager and general contractor. The partnership reflects how employers with frontline and dispersed workforces, like Messer, are helping employees build wealth, strengthen their retirement readiness and maximize the benefits available to them.

Since 2020, Messer has offered LearnLux as a part of its employee benefits experience—providing personalized financial guidance to its 1,400 retirement plan participants, who are spread across six states. Roughly half of Messer’s workforce is skilled-trade professionals and is, at any time, working on up to 25 projects across 12 or 13 different cities.

“[We have] a very mobile workforce,” says Nick Apanius, senior vice president at Messer. “Just like we protect the physical safety of every employee, we are equally committed to supporting their financial security.”

Apanius and Rebecca Liebman, CEO of LearnLux, spoke with PLANSPONSOR on how LearnLux works and how it has cultivated financial wellness and retirement readiness across a diverse, widely distributed blue-collar workforce.

Personalized Planning

“Some people come to LearnLux with a one-off question that’s just going through their head in the middle of the day,” says Liebman. “And some people come to LearnLux and say, ‘I want to work on a holistic financial plan and a retirement drawdown strategy.’”

The LearnLux program blends digital financial education with personalized tools and one-on-one access to Certified Financial Planner professionals. Messer employees can explore topics including budgeting, debt and retirement planning using digital tools, including interactive financial lessons, or by speaking with a planner. The program also offers tailored education around Messer’s benefits, including an hourly employee retirement plan (HERP), and an employee stock ownership plan, in which about half of the company’s skilled trade workers participate.

“Even though [this is] a workforce that is on the go—a craft force that is on sites all over the country—and a group that is not necessarily sitting at their desks all the time, [Messer] has been able to let them know about the benefits it offers, [through] LearnLux,” says Liebman.

She says employees can engage with LearnLux before work in the morning, at a lunch break, after work or even on the weekend—whatever best suits their schedule.

Educating Trades Professionals

“At Messer Construction, we really try to take a balanced approach to health and well-being,” says Apanius.

He explains that the company pays attention to several “pillars” of health, including finance and mental health, in addition to physical health.

Back in 2019, it looked at what it was offering to help its workers improve their financial picture and found “very low participation [in those offerings] across the company,” Apanius says. To address this, Messer recognized it needed to be open and willing to “really dive in and understand who our workforce is … not just the administrative folks who sit behind desks and computers, but our trades professionals [who] are working … with their hands, building.”

Apanius says LearnLux was willing to work with Messer on creating e-learning materials specific to the retirement benefit plans the firm offers—the HERP, the ESOP and a traditional 401(k). Employees may not contribute their own funds to the HERP and ESOP, but they may to the 401(k)—without an employer match, however.

“Both sides [were] very open to thinking about ways to solve age-old problems, maybe differently,” Apanius says. “[One] thing that sold us on LearnLux [was] their willingness to take their product and adapt [it to us].”

Liebman says the partnership helps Messer employees to stay safe when working.

“[Messer saw] that if people were distracted with finances or money, they were more likely to get injured on the job,” she says. “So, they wanted to bring in a solution that could relieve financial stress, build financial confidence and make sure people could focus on their day-to-day job … [while] making sure everything at home was right.”

Outcomes

As of June 30, 53% of Messer employees had registered for the LearnLux platform, planner calls or webinars, according to LearnLux. Among those registered, 67% had completed a financial checkup, 93% set a financial goal and 39% took a lesson on the platform.

The most popular topics employees engaged with were debt, taxes and retirement. Employees indicated their top financial goals were preparing for retirement, investing and building savings. The most common lessons accessed involved custom benefits education concerning Messer’s ESOP, financial foundations and budgeting income.

“Messer is setting a new standard in the construction industry by investing in financial wellbeing as a pillar of workplace safety and performance,” Liebman said in a statement. “[Its] leadership shows what it truly means to support employees, not just at work, but in their everyday lives. We’re honored to be part of their story.”

PLANSPONSOR asked what advice Messer would give to peer plan sponsors looking to elevate employees’ financial wellness.

“You can’t forget who the [employee] is,” says Apanius. “How are [you] communicating with them? How are [you] talking to them in a way that is meaningful and [makes an impact on] them, and providing them with resources they need to make well-informed decisions?”

According to Apanius, Messer’s next financial wellness priority is to get its employees ready for this year’s open enrollment. He says many employees may be comfortable with defaulting to the benefit elections they made in the past, but sometimes, defaulting might not be the best option.

Research published by Voya Financial in October 2024 revealed that during open enrollment, employees tend to select the benefits they previously enrolled in. And nearly half (49%) of benefits-eligible American employees spent less than 20 minutes reviewing information related to their workforce benefits during their employer’s open-enrollment period.

“We’re trying to understand, ‘How do we help our employees make good decisions [about] their benefit elections?’” Apanius explains. “How [do we] better support them?”

He says he has felt comfortable asking LearnLux to help Messer with evolving goals and needs it has developed over the past five years.

“The response has always been, ‘That’s a great idea. Here are some thoughts and ideas we have,’” he says. “[They have a] willingness to roll up their sleeves and work with us to figure out the best answer.”