Other themes we are hearing recently include mental health in the workplace, the impact of proposed legislation on retirement income adequacy, and the need to build out our Financial Wellbeing Database to more robustly understand how various wellness initiatives impact not only financial wellness but productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and overall wellness. Regarding the latter, to meet this broader set of objectives, we’ll be merging November 4, 2021 EBRI’s American Savings Education Council into the Financial Wellbeing Research Center to better allow our empirical research in this area to be complemented by perspectives of like-minded organizations through our podcasts and blog. The Path From Valuable to Invaluable Creating Diverse Ways to Absorb EBRI Analysis When asked to describe EBRI, the words that are often articulated by But, of course, our research needs to be accessible in order to be invaluable. Accordingly, we’ve developed a members and others are “thought leadership,” “objective,” “data driven,” myriad of different ways to interact with EBRI analysis beyond the traditional Issue Briefs and Fast Facts. These “unbiased,” and “influential.” include infographics; PowerPoints; webinars; and, most recently, interactives. The latter we started just over a year ago and are a particular favorite of mine. By allowing people to interact with the data dynamically through These are all certainly phrases I’d want associated with EBRI’s mission. Tableau — including downloading the underlying data — interactives allow users to more easily parse out the But one word is often missing, and it has stood out to me for quite a while elements of the research that are most relevant to them and their needs. now: “invaluable.” How do we make EBRI invaluable to the retirement, health, and financial wellness benefits ecosystem? Filling a Critical New Role at EBRI Going Long on Databases Critically, we’ve added a new role specifically designed to better connect the dots between EBRI’s research and those who might benefit from it. Our new Research and Development Strategist, Bridget Bearden, is charged One way we’ve gone about this is to “go long on data” by leveraging EBRI’s database infrastructure to integrate with: employee-level data that create a more comprehensive view of workplace wellness. In the past several years, EBRI has expanded its dataset of empirical 401(k), IRA, and HSA data to include data on: • Coordinating EBRI research within the research team and externally. • Managing the research team to create growth opportunities. • More than 200 plans with 2.3 million participants in public defined contribution plans, in cooperation with • Managing research workflow so that it is more efficient and appropriately prioritized. NAGDCA, through the Public Retirement Research Lab. • Amplifying research by effectively packaging, positioning, and communicating EBRI research. • 22 million consumers’ credit, debt, savings, and checking account transactions from JPMorgan Chase. • Identifying opportunities and novel uses for EBRI data and research. • The financial wellness initiatives undertaken within 500 401(k) plans. • 147,600 telemedicine enrollees, representing approximately $165 million in claims. The combination of building out our research capabilities, tapping into constituent research needs, making • The flexible spending accounts of two million FSA users. research more accessible, and bringing Bridget on board to focus on research strategy is intended to take EBRI to that next level: from valuable to invaluable. I’m excited for this journey to continue. What truly makes these databases invaluable — apart from the fact that EBRI is the only organization that houses this type of data across providers — is that they are all interconnected. Although the data are de-identified — we don’t know the identity of anyone in our databases — it is also encrypted in such a way that if an individual is in our 401(k), IRA, financial wellbeing, and consumer databases, for example, we can connect all of their activity across these databases. We can see how much 401(k) participants are spending once they enter retirement — as Lori Lucas we did in our Issue Brief titled “In Data There is Truth: Understanding How Households Actually Support Spending in Retirement.” We can also understand how someone who undertakes financial wellness initiatives President and CEO changes their 401(k) savings behavior, as we did in our Financial Wellbeing Symposium in September. Getting a Read on Membership Needs Of course, the value of our databases hinges on mining them to meet the needs of our constituents. As always, EBRI’s Research Committee has been very actively engaged in helping us prioritize research through our agenda planning process. Prior to the pandemic, we were also holding regional workshops to get a better read on what is keeping members and others up at night. More recently, we’ve been holding one-on-one meetings with our members to explore what is driving their own research agendas and business objectives. Last year, one strong theme that emerged was diversity, equity, and inclusion — which drove EBRI to focus on the considerations of minorities within the Retirement Confidence Survey, Workplace Wellness Survey, and Employer Financial Wellbeing Survey in 2021. We’ve also updated EBRI’s Retirement Security Projection Model® with data on minorities that allow us to project the retirement income adequacy of Black, Hispanic, and other workers as well as White workers. Next year, we’ll pivot to a focus on women and the LGBTQ community as we continue to support the needs of our membership in this area. We’ll also be oversampling minority workers for our Spending in Retirement Survey.