WAVE STRENGTH PODCASTHow do Employees Feel About Retirement? Pacific Life’s Kristin Brooks Explains

What are empathy interviews and how do they help plan sponsors and employers understand participants’ retirement-planning needs? Pacific Life’s Kristin Brooks stops by The Wave Strength and unpacks how empathy interviews can help reveal how plan participants feel about retirement, and what they need to make informed decisions to become retirement ready. Catch it now, on The Wave Strength.

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Voiceover: Welcome to The Wave Strength: Innovative Solutions for a Secure Retirement. Presented by Pacific Life.

Jim Breen: Hi everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Wave Strength Podcast. I'm your host, Jim Breen, Head of Marketing for Pacific Life's Institutional team. And with us today in the studio is Kristin Brooks, a Senior Sales Associate with Pacific Life's Institutional team. Kristin, thanks so much for coming on out and being with us for today's show.

Kristin Brooks: Thanks, Jim. I'm so happy to be here.

Jim Breen: Kristin was with us for episode 13, and in that episode, we discussed empathy work. And maybe you can give a little recap to our listeners today about that episode, which today's episode is a continuation of that content. But let's set the stage a little bit.

Kristin Brooks: Sure, Jim. So, the empathy work that we did was taking a deeper dive with our Pacific Life employees as plan participants. Coming on board, I am leading the DCLI initiative for our sales team and really trying to get a better understanding and background of what plan participants' needs are while they're planning for retirement leading up to that point. So, we decided to utilize our PL employees as guinea pigs, so to speak, and really dive in deep with them to find out what their needs are, what their concerns were, what their obstacles are so that we can kind of help fill those gaps and figure out a solution that will help everyone because no one size fits all.

Jim Breen: And that's awesome. And there's so much to unpack with the content that you just laid out there. So, before we get to that shameless plug, I want to encourage our listeners head over to YouTube, Spotify, and Audible and go listen to episode 13 with Kristin, that we did some time ago. I think it was about four or three months ago or so. It's a great episode, and you really do a good job of explaining the why, why we did that, and why it was important that we looked within our four walls at Pacific Life to work with our HR team to learn more about our employees. Really start at the core for us in terms of what we can do to help participants in the future looking at this empathy work. So, I encourage everybody head over there, look at that episode, and don't forget to like and subscribe. But let's dive deeper into the thoughts that you shared a moment ago. Looking at our four walls, Kristin, I mean, it's kind of one of those moments where we get so caught up in our day-to-day where we're trying to bring solutions and a positive outlook for participants and helping folks with education, etc. We sometimes forget that, "Well, wait a minute, a lot of us are in the same boat." A lot of our employees within our four walls are nearing retirement or perhaps just joined the workforce and they don't know the first thing about retirement planning. And what a great idea to start in our four walls looking within Pacific life for those resources.

Kristin Brooks: Absolutely. You being a plan participant yourself, you know that our plan we have great benefits; it's very robust. And for those that have been employed with Pacific Life for a long time may have even forgot what's within those plan documents. So, it is very important for us to continue that awareness around what benefits and options as an employee we have within our plan. And so that was the overall goal. And one of the things that we pulled from those empathy interviews was that the awareness was lacking. No one knew that this benefit was out there. No one knew. But once we advertise it and made it known, someone even used the word; they love the word "guaranteed" because it gave them a fuzzy feeling. Just kind of those comments of guaranteed lifetime income, things like that really helped set the stage of, "Okay, we know we have some work to do; we know we need to educate people to get them to a point where they're ready to start working towards their retirement goals." So, what we realized from these empathy interviews is that the awareness is needed, and that is going to help people go towards their retirement goals. But first, they have to know what those retirement goals are. So, I really think that with these empathy interviews, that got people thinking like, "Okay, I'm not going to be 65 for some time out, but I better start thinking about this now." And why not think about it while you're employed, while you have some extra income to help start saving towards your retirement in the future? So, again, going back to that awareness, and it's not just an awareness of, "Oh, Pacific Life! What options they have available for their employees?" But the awareness at an individual level of this is something they need to start thinking about now.

Jim Breen: So, Kristin, with the work that you did with our team and HR, did you perhaps find a deeper understanding or a new sense of how important education is? You know, like the Alliance for Lifetime Income (ALI), which Pacific Life's a charter member, we've seen that there is a deep need for participant education. And a lot of the examples that they show, a lot of the information that's provided is just difficult to understand for the average participant. In these empathy interviews and the work that you've done, you know, did it uncover a deeper understanding for you about that need for education?

Kristin Brooks: Absolutely. I say that because we actually work very close to it. Pacific Life, we are within the insurance industry, so we have a little bit of a knowledge to know. Imagine the ones that don't have the background in insurance that we have; it can be very overwhelming and daunting. So, the fact that when I was speaking with the employees during the empathy interviews and these folks have that insurance background, but still there is still that longing for guidance and education, being able to make a right decision for themselves shined a light on the fact that this is something that we need to hone in on because not everyone feels comfortable working with the financial advisor. Some people want to make the decisions themselves; they just need to know what decisions they need to make and how to get there. And so having that type of guidance, I think, is essential. So much so that we actually have a brand new area that was created for participant education and financial awareness starting at a very young age up until our ages. So, absolutely, I think the empathy...

Jim Breen: I'm still young. We are a very young age.

Kristin Brooks: You are, Jim.

Jim Breen: I'm still young, you're still young. We're very young.

Kristin Brooks: But we're ahead of the game a little bit further in our years.

Jim Breen: Yeah. I guess in relation to what, you know...

Kristin Brooks: Coming out of high school.

Jim Breen: Yeah. Coming out of high school. You know, coming out of elementary school, you know.

Kristin Brooks: Absolutely. And I say that because I'm right now trying to teach my daughter the importance of financial responsibility and knowing how to save and how to spend money and the value of the dollar. It really starts at a young age. But once we start to get older, we're set in our ways, we've lived life, we've, you know, accumulated all of this, all of these expenses and additional things that we probably don't need or, you know, that we do need. I think that education is going to help regroup the mind that, "Okay, it's not just living for the moment." But we have to kind of think beyond that and how we're going to get there. So, it really unmasked the importance of participant education. Education, period, around finances.

Jim Breen: You mentioned a moment ago education. And you also alluded to the need for not just education but planning, right? Because we can provide that education, but without proper planning over time, because unfortunately, this isn't something that you can tackle at one point in your retirement planning life span where ten years before retirement, "You know, I'm going to start retirement." Which a lot of people do. A lot of people do. But wouldn't it be best if you had those tools and you had the education, you had the planning and resources to start the moment you enter the workforce, even if it was just the amount of a daily coffee, you know, that you're putting into that retirement fund or whatever the case may be, starting small but starting early, right? And I remember you bringing up some examples from, I think, the empathy work. There was mention of some folks in your work where you had a very different perspectives from some of the folks from within our four walls. You had some folks that were nearing retirement, and at an early age started an Excel spreadsheet, for example, where they were line item, I mean, columns, everything was broken out. They knew exactly where they were going, how they were getting there, and what time they would arrive. But then you also had folks at that same age bracket who had never really sat down to plan, you know, because we're people, we're humans; life gets in the way. You know, you get that first job, you get married, the kids come, and then you're how am I going to drive them to school or paying tuition or, you know, making sure you can get to the soccer game on time. So many things that take that space, unfortunately. And it pushes kind of kicks the can down the road a little bit.

Kristin Brooks: Absolutely. We had the pleasure of speaking with a lot of different individuals when we did the empathy interviews ranging from folks that were just starting out in their career, fresh out of college, folks that, like you said, are kind of in that middle stage of life where they have their families, they're purchasing homes, they're living for the right now, maybe not thinking about the future. And then we also have the pleasure of speaking with recently retirees. And those are the ones that we gleaned from; they didn't really have the tools and resources that they needed, so they were creating their own. And not a lot of people have that capacity to be able to do that. So, we want to be able to provide those tools and resources no matter what stage you are in your career because we need to start thinking about the future more and not the right now. So, the more that we can help provide that education up front, right when they're starting their career or whenever they're ready to start thinking about that, I think that will set the stage for a successful future.

Jim Breen: Absolutely. And it really is when you think about it, it makes perfect sense. You know, I have four kids, and I heard this statement one time, and I use it often with my kids when they feel maybe they have a failure; they feel like they're not doing their best at something. And I say, "You know, how do you become an expert? You start as a beginner.

Kristin Brooks: Right.

Jim Breen: You can't just start as an expert. You have to learn; you have to take those baby steps in anything and be prepared for a little bit of failure or humility along the way. But you will get better if you try and if you continue down that path. And look, I mean financial acumen, I mean to try and understand all of the financial terms, and it's daunting for many people. And I get it. I understand that. And that's why the work that you're doing is so important. And I really feel, especially from a marketing standpoint, that it has provided us with a deep understanding, a great knowledge for next steps, and a real good understanding of where these people are in their process.

Kristin Brooks: Absolutely. I'm glad you said next steps because we didn't just want to talk to people just to talk. It was great meeting, you know, fellow Pacific Life employees.

Jim Breen: Sure.

Kristin Brooks: But we want next steps. What's going to come from this? What's going to manifest from this? And one of the things that I had mentioned earlier was bringing that awareness. A lot of the folks that we talked to didn't know that these benefits were out there relating to their retirement plan within Pacific Life. So, one of the steps that we took immediately we found an opportunity to partner with our HR team and utilize our PL products website to get our lifetime income 401(K) solution out there so it can be known. And when I tell you when it launched, it exploded. We were inundated with inquiries from Pacific Life employees asking questions, wanting quotes. A lot of the folks that we were getting those responses from weren't ready to retire, and that let us know that there is an opportunity to start having these conversations sooner because no one knew that it was out there. And the excitement of it, the fact that you can continue to have a paycheck after you've retired, and it's going to last for the rest of your life, I mean, that's an awesome thing to think about. And the fact that your employer is going to provide that to you is even better, you know? So, we knew immediately after that page went out that there's some work to be done; we would like to continue to add to it and providing educational resources and tools for our own Pacific Life employees. And essentially, what's that's going to help us take that out to our external clients to say, "Hey, look, we've done this empathy interviews. We heard that the awareness and the education is needed. These are the steps that we've taken to do it, and we're going to continue to build on that."

Jim Breen: Now, Kristin, for our listeners... I'll back up just a little bit because I think the page was launched since we've done the last podcast, I think, or when the last podcast, I think you were right about to launch the web page.

Kristin Brooks: Yes.

Jim Breen: So, perhaps you can shine a little bit of light for our listeners on how you went about that process. And I know there were many people involved, but I'm thinking about our HR folks listening right now, the folks who are, "Wow, this is interesting. I would love to bring this education or these offerings to my fellow employees." How did that communication happen? How did that connection happen to where, you know, you did the empathy work, and then you realize, "Okay, we need to ingrain this into a web platform of sorts to make it easily accessible for these participants."

Kristin Brooks: Great question. So the PL products Web page was already in existence, and it had solutions out there from across the organization that was available for all employees. But what was lacking was the 401(K) Lifetime Income Solution. And so, after the empathy interviews, we realized that this is a great opportunity to take that first step in creating that awareness. So, we reached out to our HR contacts; we had a small brainstorming session of many great minds coming together to pull the content together that made it simple to understand, easy to understand, immediate questions answered as soon as possible, and contact information where you can get more information and take a deeper dive. So, it was a great team to work with, and we, again, partnered with our HR team in really making sure that we honed in on what's important for our employees to know. And then, the page was launched. And so, once that announcement went out is when we realized that having that awareness out there again is needed because it was immediate responses to how the page was put up and the interest in that it garnered from it.

Jim Breen: I want to call out both your work and the work with our HR team. We have a great HR team.

Kristin Brooks: We do.

Jim Breen: And they, sitting in some of those meetings with you, I mean, they were just so interested to learn more, right? And because it was kind of a different request, I think, when everything started. "Hey, we want to reach out to employees to ask them personal questions." But, and, you know, when you talk to HR, you know, "Wait a minute. Hold on!" And we got...

Kristin Brooks: Right.

Jim Breen: But once they realized they were so interested and they really wanted to do this deep dive with you and the team. And it's a lot of work went into this all the way through our internal comms team to HR to our Institutional Division, working with each of those various groups. But a lot of work from a lot of different people.

Kristin Brooks: Absolutely. It's a partnership.

Jim Breen: Good partnership.

Kristin Brooks: Yes. Great partnership. Our HR team has done their own empathy interviews with a different direction, but I think this kind of took a unique direction. And they realized that there is help needed once an employee reaches that retirement age. We actually had an opportunity to meet with our HR partners a couple of weeks ago, and we got some great information that we're going to be summarizing over the next several weeks and essentially taking that out to the market because whatever pain points and obstacles that they're trying to help solve for employees, another plan sponsor is; our external clients are. So, if we can come at that angle and come with something that they can relate to, I think is going to be great. And it's a win-win; we get to work with our HR team, we get to work with creating this awareness around this great benefit that's going to help people past their employment. And also, we get to take that out in the field and use that as an example.

Jim Breen: Why is this important? Why is it important to have access to HR, and communicate with them and look internally?

Kristin Brooks: I think this is an exciting opportunity to take our listeners on the journey with us to figuring out solutions that will help long term our employees. We started with the empathy interviews, talking with our plan participants, you know, within own four walls, partnering with HR to do that. Now, we're talking with HR, we're partnering with them and taking a different angle and looking at the world of a plan sponsor. And it's exciting to take our listeners on this journey.

Jim Breen: Working with HR, like, you know, what were your initial thoughts when we started working with HR? Were you, like, nervous? Were you worried that, you know, they're not they're going to shoot me down, or they're not going to want to work with us, or they're going to be a little restrictive of what we can do in terms of connecting with employees?

Kristin Brooks: I actually surprisingly, I was not nervous with working with HR because we actually partner with them quite a bit within our own solutions team, with employees reaching out to them directly to learn more about our retirement and incentive savings plan. And so, I actually had built a really good rapport with the HR team and the benefits team because we help with those live inquiries that have been trickling in from here and there, and they turn them over to us. So, when I reached out to them to say, "Hey, we actually want to do this," they were very inviting to it. And I think building that rapport and just helping out with the background that we've already had with them kind of help set the stage for those conversations and continuing them because I have a great relationship with the two ladies that I'm working with HR now.

Jim Breen: What was, maybe, what was the most impressive thing that you saw or witnessed working with the employees and the intern doing those interviews internally? What was the most surprising thing for you?

Kristin Brooks: That no one knew it was out there. No one knew that this benefit and this great option was available. That was the most surprising thing. We've had this available for 30-plus years, and we knew that there were only a handful of people who have taken this option up at retirement. And so that was the most surprising thing to me because with this particular benefit, there's no commissions, there's no fees. You can use all or just a portion of your 401(K); It's just that flexibility to be able to pick and choose what you want. And so, just the fact that no one knew about it was very surprising to me. It's one thing not knowing about it, but it's another thing knowing about it and still deciding not to want to go that direction, right? So, I think we'll have a bigger uptake once we start having that awareness out and building more solutions for them to choose from.

Jim Breen: Excellent. Excellent. This has been a great update. Kristin. Is there anything you'd like to share at all about, maybe future plans or anything? You know, what's next, what's new?

Kristin Brooks: So, we would like to, love to continue these conversations with our HR team, continue to build a focus around creating an awareness from the beginning of employment to the very end and beyond. And again, we would like to take that out and to utilize us as an example because we haven't figured it out yet either. But we are taking a lot of individuals within the organization to kind of help us get there, and that's going to help create that awareness externally when we start going out to the marketing and talking to people. So, more to come on these conversations. We look forward to continuing those conversations with HR and thank you for allowing me to come in and give this update.

Jim Breen: Cool. Kristin, thank you. We would love to have you back, especially in the next couple of months, to hear about the progress that I'm sure you're going to, the great progress you're going to make here in the future with those future conversations with HR.

Kristin Brooks: Absolutely. I would love to come back and share.

Jim Breen: Thanks, Kristin. And to our listeners, thanks so much for spending your day with us today on The Wave Strength podcast. I want to encourage you to head over to YouTube, Spotify, and Audible. Like and subscribe our content, so you can stay current with the most recent episodes. Thanks again, and have a great day, everybody.

Voiceover: This has been another episode of The Wave Strength presented by Pacific Life. Don't forget to catch us on YouTube and make sure to subscribe. Although this podcast is presented by Pacific Life, the opinions and views expressed are those of the hosts and participants and do not necessarily reflect Pacific Life's views on any of the topics discussed. Pacific Life is a product provider. It is not a fiduciary and therefore does not give advice or make recommendations regarding insurance or investment products. Pacific Life, its affiliates, its distributors and respective representatives do not provide any employer sponsored qualified plan administrative services, or impartial advice about investments, and do not act in a fiduciary capacity for any plan. Pacific Life refers to Pacific Life Insurance Company, (Newport Beach, California) and its affiliates, including Pacific Life & Annuity Company. Insurance products are issued by Pacific Life Insurance Company in all states except New York and in New York by Pacific Life & Annuity Company. Product availability and features may vary by state. Each insurance company is solely responsible for the financial obligations accruing under the products it issues. This podcast was recorded on August 4th, 2022.

Jim Breen: Thanks for joining us on today's show. We'd love to hear from you. Join the conversation below and leave a comment on your thoughts on what the industry can do better for participants as it pertains to lifetime income solutions. And if you'd like more interesting content, click one of these links over here.