Human Interest

Score9.1 out of 10

293 Reviews and Ratings

What is Human Interest?

Human Interest headquartered in San Francisco offers their cloud-based 401k administation platform for employers featuring flexible plan design and a dedicated account manager.

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of the Admin Portal - A summary page offers a snapshot of the plan.

Screenshot of the Admin Portal - Employee List: See employees at a glance and information such as contribution rate, participation, balance, risk setting, etc.

Screenshot of the Employee Dashboard - History View: Employees have the ability to view their YTD contribution amount and account related activity on this page.

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Screenshot of the Admin Portal - A summary page offers a snapshot of the plan.

Ease of Enrollment
The consistency and ease of enrolling new or existing employees into the plan
Category average: 9.7
Plan Flexibility
The ability to accommodate different plan designs, including but not limited to traditional, vesting schedules, or safe harbor plans with auto-enroll, auto-escalating contributions, and non-Highly Compensated Employee only contributions.
Category average: 9.5
Payroll Integration
Ability to integrate with a variety of payroll packages and deduct part of pay to go towards 401(k)
Category average: 9.4

Compliance Maintenance
The reliability of the provider in conducting nondiscrimination testing and fixing compliance issues
Category average: 9.3
Filings and Disclosures
Reliability in providing required forms, filings, and disclosures such as Form 5500 series, summary plan descriptions, and Safe Harbor Notices
Category average: 9.1

Andrew Olsen

Go To Market in Sales at Metaview (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

So the last two organizations I was at, we needed a 401k provider. We both were using a PEO in both instances. And so because of the PEO, it wasn't exactly easy for us to set something up to provide 401 Ks for the team. So Human Interest was our basically provider of choice in both cases. And so it really provided us that ease of both matching for our users with the 401k match that we offered, but also setting them up to easily conduct however they wanted.

Pros

So as a user of it, since I was being paid by these companies, being able to manage my level of risk, being able to manage how much I was putting in from a percentage standpoint was always super easy. Even in a situation where my last company was acquired, we had to go through transferring over to different solutions was super useful. The team was always very open, honest about, Hey, what can we do? How can we work with them? And accommodating in that way. I think as a provider it was so easy to get team members set up. I never had any complaints. I never had anybody worry. I never had somebody come to me and go like, I don't understand Human Interest.

Cons

I think I would call this out for basically any provider in this space that 401k transfers as jobs end and move are always difficult. And so any company that I think figures out how to make that as seamless as possible is winning. That's when I think people need understanding the most is when they're trying to transfer, they're trying to move funds, whether it's too human interest or away from it. And so that's always a place that I think there's room for improvement.

Return on Investment

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.

Usability

Other Software Used

Gusto, Ashby, HubSpot CRM

Kathy Arroyo

Director of Compliance in Legal at Lewer Companies (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

So Human Interest is our 401k servicer. They integrate perfectly with our payroll company and you can do real-time updates as far as your contributions or redistributing funds. I was part of the implementation team that rolled from another 401k provider to Human Interest. It was very simple. We did it right at the end of the year. They were still able to meet all of our deadlines even though it was a very quick turnaround. And our employees are very happy with it.

Pros

One of the things I've heard from a lot of employees was rolling their old, not from our previous provider, but from other companies that they had, rolling those 401k monies over into the system, super easy. They gave us templates, a perfect email address that we could just send everything to. Everything went really smoothly with those. So all of our previous 401k were rolled in with the stuff that we just moved from our other provider.

Cons

The only thing I can think of right off hand is that there's a day delay when we look at our total. So for instance, we heard the other day that there was a rally in the markets on Friday and that everybody had supposedly recouped all of their losses from March. We actually had to wait the whole weekend until Monday to log in to actually see what those were. And I know real time is really, really hard, but anytime we could get something faster, that would probably be my only.

Return on Investment

So we've been with them right at six months now. And so I would say I don't specifically have ROI details, but I know our employees are very happy with it.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Empower

Other Software Used

Paylocity

Rebecca Nedrow

Vice President at Friend That Cooks (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

So we switched over to Human Interest for our 401k benefit at the end of 2023, beginning of 2024. And what we were looking for was a way to automate a lot of the processes of getting people enrolled and then allowing users to manage their own account. One of the problems that we had with our previous provider was that there was an intermediary broker basically, and he really wasn't doing the job and he wasn't available to answer questions, he wasn't getting people signed up on time and it was creating a lot of problems for us. So we wanted to find a solution that was going to be more streamlined and allow our employees to take more control over their benefit.

Pros

First of all, communication. 10 out of 10. If we have a question or we need support, we know who we need to go to, we get pretty rapid support. We can always schedule a meeting and our rep is really great at answering the questions, reviewing the questions, making sure everything got handled, and then also sending us a summary. I like that, having that record. Another thing that Human Interest does really well, they handle all of our ERISA filing for us and all of the end of year reporting and everything that we do. We also do profit share for our employees. So they take care of all that for us. Really the only thing we have to do is tell them a dollar amount and they take care of the rest.

Cons

So one thing that is sometimes tricky as an admin, logging in to the portal and then being able to distinguish between me as an admin versus me as an employee. Sometimes that's a little bit tricky. That could be a little bit more streamlined I think. Do they even have an app? They have an app? Maybe I don't use the app. Maybe that's the problem.

Return on Investment

I think for our employees, the impact has been higher participation rates, which for us means higher retention rates. The happier they are, the more benefit they see in keeping us as their employer, the better it is for us. So with that, I mean the return there is less hiring, less training, all of those expenses are saved, plus we get to keep and retain awesome talent that are happy to be here. I would say just the ease of use for them.

Usability

Wendy Wood

Chief Operating Officer at Southeast Community Foundation (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We are using HI as our 401k administrator.

Pros

HI has been great about follow-through and follow-up.
HI reps have been easy to work with and friendly.
HI handled all the behind-the-scenes details so I didn't have to worry about it.

Cons

Our set-up is tricky because we employ tutors that act like seasonal employees. The auto-push of info from Rippling to HI is a great feature, but, in our case, it makes things a little jumbled.
That the reps have a clear understanding of what can and cannot be done. I was told that we could switch our 401k to a 403b on the initial call and later told that was not possible

Return on Investment

We are very new to having a 401k plan. Our last administrator were not engaged at all. HI has been great because I think our employees feel like it's a legit resource and that they can get answers when they need them.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Paychex Flex

Other Software Used

Rippling, DonorDock, Jotform

Shellie Brighton

Sr. HR Business Partner in Human Resources at MindSource Center (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We had been looking for a way to offer a 401(k) plan to our employees for quite a while. As a small employer, this was not an easy task. Once I met with Human Interest, we were able to rapidly create and deploy a plan, and our employees love us for it.

Pros

Made creating the plan very simple
Made integrating with our payroll team easy to accomplish
The website is easy to navigate.

Cons

offering more opportunities for staff to talk to an investment advisor rather than depending on the tool

Return on Investment

We had wanted a plan for quite some time, so this was super helpful.
Offering a retirement plan will help with recruitment and retention
The training videos are helpful, but it is pretty obvious that narration is done by AI as their pronunciation and cadence is off.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Empower and Vanguard ECM

Other Software Used

TempWorks Software, Gusto, Empower

Guideline

ForUsAll

Insperity Retirement 401(k), tool

Betterment

Human Interest

What is Human Interest?

Categories & Use Cases

Media

Key Features

Top Performing Features

Ease of Enrollment

Plan Flexibility

Payroll Integration

Areas for Improvement

Compliance Maintenance

Filings and Disclosures

Reviews

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

Cons

Return on Investment

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Other Software Used

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