At the height of the financial market meltdown in 2008, Leviton — a global manufacturer of electrical wiring equipment — became concerned about employees going into panic mode and either stopping contributions to the company’s 401(k) plan or, even worse, withdrawing money that was already in the plan. It was during that time the company, which has 10,000 employees worldwide, started thinking about auto-enrollment.
Today, participation in Leviton’s 401(k) plan is 84%. Fran Ruderman, vice president of HR for Leviton, attributes the participation success to a three-pronged approach: auto-enrollment, auto-escalation and access to personalized saving and investing advice.
