Earlier this summer, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) surprised the retirement plan world when it announced a new approach for narrowing the universe of plans seemingly worthy of its investigatory and audit resources. If your organization receives a letter under this new program, what will you do? Will you be prepared to respond? What if the answer is no?

This month’s article helps fiduciaries to understand the fallout from Hughes and to identify a series of best practices that reflect the lower courts’ application of Hughes.

The pace of change in the retirement plan industry suggests that plan sponsors and fiduciaries need access to information that will help them to: (i) comply with their fiduciary responsibilities; (ii) ask the right questions of their service providers; (iii) understand the additional participant tools and resources available in the marketplace; and (iv) implement those solutions in a way that will help to attract new employees, retain existing employees, and improve their overall financial wellbeing.

This year’s Qualified Plan Fiduciary Summit connected plan sponsors with retirement industry thought leaders, advisors, recordkeepers, ERISA attorneys, money managers, and other service providers. This month’s newsletter article recaps the key themes from the event and items for plan fiduciaries to consider as we navigate a challenging labor market, an active litigation and regulatory environment, and increased employee needs and expectations.