Empower vs. Human Interest

It is well suited for mid- to large enterprises, whereas it might be overwhelming for small organizations with fewer headcounts to manage. Overall, it's a good tool for employee profile management.

Incentivized

Actually you guys serve a lot of variety of clients that we have. So everything from simple clients on your 316 and then you got your 338 platforms to some more of the complex clients that want to carve out their own funds. You guys integrate well with financial advisors if they wish to use that, but a lot of times it's, those aren't necessary if clients want to save money.

• Keep track of all our employee's 401K accounts
• They take care of all notices for account holders
• They take care of all tasks in a timely manner.

Incentivized

• They sold us very well in the beginning and the original sales rep brought in his manager which also helped answer questions our executives had.
• Ease of use for employees seems great. Walking through as an employee is simple and quick. All electronic paperwork is great.
• Sending reminder emails to sign up for the 401(K) is a great feature that's easy to use. I have used these a lot!

Incentivized

• Sometimes the tiles are removed automatically or stop working.

Incentivized

• Payroll cycles in small business can be a weekly on-cycle evolution which is not automatically recognized.
• The Annual Census verification, and IRS requirement, is cumbersome as a resubmission of data already known.
• Email to new participants can go unaddressed without notification to the company administrator. Better to illicit early follow-up than wait till their emails expire do to participant non-action.

We have had no problems and will stay with Empower for our 401k needs.

Incentivized

We will drop Human Interest as soon as they rectify their error in withdrawing $3600 in additional fees earlier this year

Employees can log in and access their 401k accounts. They can make changes, check their balance or take out loans, with confidentiality. I give it an 8 because it takes 10 days to 2 weeks for those changes to get to me (the administrator) so I can make the necessary changes to their payroll profiles. I think a 5 day waiting period would be more reasonable.

Incentivized

It's really easy to get, well, first of all, they get enrolled automatically so they get added to the platform automatically. They get removed from the platform automatically and everything is really easy to understand for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience. And that's actually a lot of our employees have never had a retirement benefit before. They don't know anything about it. They really don't understand how it works. There's also a little bit of a fear factor with deducting money from their paycheck to be able to contribute to this. And so how easy it is for them to get it set up and then the information that Human Interest gives them about what the benefit is, how it works, all that, it's great

no issues so far

Easy to navigate

Incentivized

Had a past participant from 20 years ago, receive a letter from the government saying they might have a retirement account. Empower helped this employee and I didn't have to play detective concerning this person. They back tracked to Merrill Lynch to find this former participant and help her. I was impressed.

Incentivized

So we had a designated rep and he was fantastic. I don't remember his name at the moment, but he was almost immediately responsive. And you guys also partnered with us for client knowledge webinars and he was great. Great at that too.

super easy to get going

A key insight from our implementation of Human Interest is that early coordination across finance, HR, and leadership is critical. The platform itself is straightforward, but ensuring payroll integration, compliance documentation, and employee education are aligned from the start makes the rollout smoother and increases adoption. Another insight is that employees respond best when given clear, simple communication about how to enroll and the benefits of participation—this minimizes confusion and builds trust in the program. Finally, dedicating time up front to review compliance and reporting features helps avoid issues later and gives leadership confidence in the plan’s long-term stability.

Incentivized

It stood out when compared for features, legacy, customer support, and on-premises deployment.

Incentivized

So we had previously been with Empower, which is another 401k. They're substantially larger. Their web platform is very bulky. Their compliance was hard to get information from. We really liked when we talked with Human Interest Implementation Team that we could get pretty much right to the top. I mean, if we wanted to talk to their COO, we could do that and that all of their compliance stuff just seems to be tied in as the compliance director. That's really important to me.

we are only using it for one employee but when we hire more, it will be easy to expand already setup

• It has improved employee experience and is a good tool for management to track things.

Incentivized

• I think it's a little bit hard for me to say since I have been more of a recommender of these products in my roles. I've been at a lot of early stage companies that we're looking for solutions and I've recommended human interest because I think it's easy for scaling organizations to get in place. I think in a large organization, what I would talk to is very specifically the user experience. I think 401k understanding and most large organizations is a very for, it's something that's forgotten. And what that means is basically we kind of give it to folks, but we don't actually teach them or help them leverage it. And so they're very on their own. I think human interest is so easy to use that you provide a better experience from day one there, let alone from actually really setting it up correctly.