We’re our own worst enemies. Whether it’s Billy Beane and Bay-Area baseball, or the Patriots’ pick in the latest NFL draft, how well we recognize and resolve our inherent decision-making biases is very often the difference between success and failure. It’s particularly true in retirement saving and investing, a major reason for the rise of behavioral economics/finance.
Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, Shlomo Benartzi and others have made incredible strides in factoring human behavior into the processes and procedures to “make it easy.”
And now the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans is out with its list of the ways in which behavioral finance can boost retirement security.
“The insights of behavioral finance have the potential to help employers, plan sponsors and plan administrators make changes that can yield a substantial difference in the actions of employees and plan participants,” IFEBP says.
Here are 10 tips based on the principles of behavioral finance for helping workers achieve a secure retirement:
No. 1—Stress what could be gained or lost
“You get on base, we win. You don’t, we lose. And I hate losing, Chavy. I hate it. I hate losing more than I even wanna win.”
So said Oakland A’s general manager Beane, played by Brad Pitt, in the movie Moneyball. It applies to most everyone, and Nobel Prize winner Kahneman was first to note the pain of a loss outweighs the euphoria of a gain.
A chief tenet of behavioral finance, therefore, is that people are loss-averse, IFEPB explains. People are highly motivated to avoid what they consider a loss. To spur people to take action regarding their retirement savings, frame messages so individuals will clearly understand how they might “gain” by taking action or “lose” if they don’t take action.
No. 2—Point out what others are doing right
“When making choices, people tend to do what they think most other people are doing because they believe there is less chance they will make a wrong choice. They are also influenced by what they think is expected or socially acceptable. Using these social norms can help drive people to take specific action.”
No. 3—Use testimonials versus eye-popping statistics
People love anecdotes; in fact, “few people are motivated to act when they are given statistics that reflect our collective situation,” according to the foundation. It effectively argues that statistics about airline crashes are far less effective than firsthand survivor accounts, a point that’s tough to argue. Do the same when getting them to save.
No. 4—Encourage individuals to picture their retirement
Like Lindsey Vonn mentally “skiing the course” before a big race, “encourage workers to envision their future retirement—where they want to live, what they want to do, etc. Having a personal retirement picture helps people avoid temptations to spend today, which can derail their retirement savings.”
No. 5—Leverage competition
“Try challenging individuals to defer at least 10% of their annual salary for retirement,” IFEBP says. “Or have groups of workers compete to see who can save the largest portion of their income on average.”
Offer prizes like gift cards, a free lunch or vacation days to winners.
No.6—Use opt-out versus opt-in features
Two neighboring European countries have a vastly different percentage of their citizens registered to be organ donors simply because one is opt-in while the other is opt-out. It’s a lesson for retirement saving and plan participation.
“Autoenrollment and auto-escalation features in a defined contribution (DC) retirement plan combined with the use of a target-date fund default option have proven to be highly successful strategies for countering these behaviors.”
No. 7—Limit investment choices
A criticism of Medicare Part D when it was first passed was that there were simply too many choices, and people were overwhelmed. Colloquially known as a “paralysis of analysis,” people freeze when too many decisions must be made. The solution? Limit the number of options.
“The unintended consequence of a large number of choices is choice avoidance—another way to describe participant inertia and procrastination. A consensus is growing among experts that the appropriate number of funds in the investment menu for a DC plan is between five and ten.”
We recently wrote about alphabeticity bias, or the tendency for funds listed first alphabetically in an investment menu to receive more assets. It’s something of which to be aware.
“When people are provided a list of choices, they tend to choose the first choice they are given,” IFEBP write. “If the list is very long, another behavior kicks in—choosing the last items because these are the items that stick in their minds. Consider the implications of these behaviors when a list of investment choices is ordered from least to most risky.”
No. 9—Use a stretch match
But use it wisely.
“Offer 50% on amounts up to 6%, which yields total savings of 9%,” IFEBP recommends. “Alternatively, offer a 50% match on amounts up to 10% to encourage a total savings of 15%. Both of these stretch matches are good starting points until a worker looks more closely into his or her retirement needs with a financial calculator or advisor.”
No. 10—Provide access to a financial advisor
One-on-one advice still rules, something more plan sponsors recognize and are now offering.
“DC plan participants who have received advice from an independent professional save more, have more diversified portfolios and stay on course even when they feel vulnerable in market downturns,” the foundation concludes. “To encourage the use of a financial advisor, some sponsors arrange for a free or low-cost advisor to come to the workplace and allow individuals to meet with this professional during paid work hours.”
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
