The Benefits Conversation Has Changed. Have You?

Artificial intelligence is doing something to the workplace that no annual perk survey has quite caught up with yet. Roles are being redrawn, tenure keeps getting shorter, and employees have started asking a quieter, more serious question than “what’s the PTO policy?” They want to know whether the work they do today will still support the life they’re building tomorrow.

That is a benefits problem. And the employers who answer it well over the next few years are going to win the talent everyone else is fighting over. I’ve spent my career on the money side of that equation, so let me lay out where I think smart HR leaders should be looking.

Give the Pension a Second Look

For most of my career, suggesting a company bring back a defined benefit pension would have gotten me quietly shown the door. That is changing, and the people changing their minds aren’t idealists — they’re CFOs.

Mercer’s 2025 CFO Survey found that half of pension sponsors now intend to keep their defined benefit plans for the long term. Two years earlier that figure was 36.7%, and in 2021 it was just 28.3%. That is not a rounding error; it is a reversal. Better funded status, more flexible plan designs, and a stubborn labor market have all pushed finance leaders to give the old workhorse another look, and roughly 70% of them are actively planning lump-sum windows over the next couple of years.

IBM is the case study everyone points to. In 2024 it swapped its 5% 401(k) match plus 1% automatic contribution for a “Retirement Benefit Account” — a cash-balance-style pension that credits 5% of pay with nothing required from the employee. It guarantees a 6% return through 2026, then shifts to the 10-year Treasury yield with a 3% floor. Reasonable people argue about whether IBM’s version is generous enough, since employees give up market upside and the ability to direct the money. But the strategic signal was loud: a Fortune 500 company decided guaranteed, employer-managed retirement income was worth reopening a plan it had frozen for years.

Here is why that matters for recruiting. In a market where AI makes any given career path feel less certain, the rarest thing an employer can hand someone is certainty. A guaranteed check for life is exactly that. And you don’t have to go all the way back to a traditional pension to get there. Cash-balance and hybrid designs let you cap and share the risk, layering a modest guaranteed benefit on top of the 401(k) you already run — which is precisely what more than half of the CFOs Mercer surveyed are now exploring.

The catch is that these plans live or die on design and governance. Done poorly, a pension becomes the funding headache that scared everyone off in the first place. Done well, it is one of the most durable retention tools you can offer. That is a conversation worth having with an independent fiduciary who has no product to sell you.

Four Financial-Wellness Benefits That Actually Move the Needle

A pension is the long game. Most of your people are also under real pressure right now — 59% of employees report financial stress in PwC’s 2026 survey. Four benefits address that pressure head-on, and each one now has favorable law behind it.

• Student loan 401(k) match. Since January 2024, SECURE 2.0 lets you make matching retirement contributions based on an employee’s student loan payments, so they stop having to choose between paying down debt and saving. Fidelity projects participants can nearly double their 401(k) balances over a career. Adoption is still only around 2–3% of plans, which is exactly why offering it now sets you apart.
• Tax-free student loan repayment. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed in July 2025, made the Section 127 exclusion permanent. You can put up to $5,250 a year toward an employee’s loans free of income and payroll tax. (That cap is shared with tuition assistance, and it begins indexing to inflation in 2027.)
• Payroll-linked emergency savings. Nearly three in five Americans can’t cover a $2,000 surprise. Without a cushion, people raid the very 401(k) you’re funding. Payroll-integrated emergency savings programs see 40–60% participation and, counterintuitively, tend to increase retirement contributions while cutting early withdrawals.
• Real financial guidance. Employees increasingly want coaching and planning, not just a login to another portal. It is consistently one of the higher-ROI wellness investments an employer can make — and one of the easiest to get right.

Steal These From Pro Sports

This is the part most benefits consultants skip. Professional sports leagues have spent decades solving the exact problem AI is now handing the rest of us: how do you take care of people whose earning window may be short and whose careers can end without warning? Their playbook has ideas worth borrowing — and none of them require a superstar budget.

• Automatic, tenure-based severance. NFL players with two or more credited seasons receive an automatic lump-sum severance payment for each season played. No negotiation — it simply triggers. Most corporate severance is discretionary and adversarial. A transparent formula every employee can see turns severance from a source of dread into a genuine loyalty benefit.
• A post-employment health bridge. Vested NFL players keep the same health coverage for five years after they leave, at no cost. Corporate America hands departing employees a brutal COBRA bill instead. Even a partial, time-limited subsidy on that bridge would stand out enormously.
• Annuity and deferred-comp for everyone, not just the C-suite. The NFL runs both an annuity program and a capital accumulation plan that let players turn front-loaded pay into income that arrives after their playing days. Most companies reserve deferred comp for executives. Extending a simple version deeper into the workforce helps ordinary employees smooth income across a less predictable career.
• Access to a real financial planner. Here is one worth pausing on. The NBA’s own corporate benefits give every U.S. employee free access to a Certified Financial Planner — not a chatbot, not a webinar, an actual planner. It’s a terrific benefit. But notice the irony baked into it: the executive who designs a benefit like that for thousands of employees is almost never the person who has one for themselves. Which is a natural place to turn the lens around.
• Career-transition support, built in. Leagues invest heavily in what comes next for a player — tuition assistance, second-career planning, structured transition help. In an economy where AI will reshape roles mid-career, an employer-funded “what’s next” fund — reskilling dollars that convert to savings if unused — turns your workforce’s biggest fear into your most distinctive benefit.

The thread running through all of these is a decision: that financial security is part of the deal, not an afterthought.

A word of caution before you go shopping, though. There’s a real difference between a scaled financial-wellness platform and a personal fiduciary, and the two get lumped together far too often. A wellness platform is built to serve thousands of employees at once — a hotline, an app, a library of generic guidance. That has its place for a broad workforce. But it answers questions; it doesn’t sit across the table from any one person and own the outcome. When the stakes are high and the situation is genuinely personal — which is exactly the case for you — what you want isn’t a platform. It’s a fiduciary who knows your name.

Now, CHRO — Let’s Talk About You

You spend your days engineering everyone else’s financial future. In my experience, HR executives are among the most under-advised people on their own. Your compensation is complicated, and complication quietly costs money when nobody is managing it.

A few things worth a hard look:

• Concentration risk. A meaningful slice of your net worth is probably tied up in one employer’s stock, RSUs, or options. Diversifying isn’t disloyalty; it’s prudence.
• Deferred-comp traps. Vesting schedules, election deadlines, and blackout windows carry tax and timing landmines that generic advice misses.
• Coordinated tax planning. Your bonus, equity, and retirement contributions should be planned together, not in silos. A handful of decisions a year can meaningfully change what you actually keep.
• Your own trajectory. You designed the plan for everyone else. Is yours actually on track for the life and legacy you want?

The uncomfortable part: whoever is offering you a “free” plan review often isn’t legally required to put your interests first. That is the whole difference between a broker and a fee-only fiduciary.

What Working With a Personal Fiduciary Actually Looks Like

If “fiduciary” sounds abstract, here is what it means in practice — the specific work Vidarrow would do for a CHRO who brought us their situation:

• Untangle your equity comp. We’d map every tranche of RSUs, options, and ESPP shares against vesting dates, blackout windows, and your concentration exposure — then build a disciplined, rules-based plan (often a 10b5-1) to diversify without triggering avoidable tax or compliance problems.
• Manage your non-employer portfolio. We can establish separately managed accounts to house your portfolio that specifically exclude any ETFs, Mutual Funds and other security types which own / hold your employer’s stock – helping you stay compliant – always. 
• Coordinate the whole tax picture. We look at your bonus, equity events, deferred-comp elections, and charitable giving as one integrated puzzle each year, so decisions in one bucket don’t quietly cost you in another. Multi-year projections replace guesswork.
• Optimize your deferred compensation. We’d pressure-test your nonqualified deferral elections and distribution schedule against your actual retirement timeline and tax outlook — the elections most executives set once and never revisit.
• Manage held-away accounts. Your existing 401(k), old plans from prior employers, and outside investments get folded into one coordinated strategy, so nothing sits on autopilot working against the rest of your plan.
• Plan the exit and the legacy. Estate structure, income planning, and — given how AI is reshaping careers — genuine contingency planning if your own role changes. We build the plan to survive disruption, not just a good year.

None of that is a product we’re selling you. It’s advice, priced transparently, with a legal obligation to put you first. And it typically starts with a single, no-obligation conversation — you tell me what your comp actually looks like, and I tell you honestly where the gaps and opportunities are.

A Closing Thought

Whether you’re redesigning your company’s retirement plan or simply organizing your own portfolio, who sits across the table matters. At Vidarrow, we’re an independent, fee-only fiduciary — legally bound to act in your best interest, with transparent fees and no products to push. For employers, we handle plan design, 3(21) and 3(38) fiduciary services, and participant education. For executives — including the ones running HR — we do the personal, high-touch work described above: concentrated stock, deferred compensation, and integrated tax and estate planning that a scaled platform simply isn’t built to deliver.

 If you’re rethinking benefits for this new era — or you’d just like a second opinion on your own plan — we’d genuinely enjoy the conversation.

References

1. Mercer / Argyle, “2025 CFO Survey Results” (executive summary and governance report). https://www.mercer.com/en-us/insights/retirement/defined-benefit-plans/executive-summary-2025-cfo-survey-results/

2. Chief Investment Officer, “Many DB Sponsors Commit to Staying in the Pension System” (36.7% in 2023; 28.3% in 2021). https://www.ai-cio.com/news/half-of-db-sponsors-plan-to-stay-in-the-pension-ecosystem/

3. CFO.com, “Are defined benefit plans back? Half of CFOs are now using them.” https://www.cfo.com/news/defined-benefit-plans-back-half-cfos-using-them-mercer-pension-defined-benefits-data/750536/

4. 401(k) Specialist, “IBM Replacing 401(k) Match with 5% Retirement Benefit Account Contribution.” https://401kspecialistmag.com/ibm-replacing-401k-match-with-5-retirement-benefit-account-contribution/

5. Platinum Point Financial, “Updated Guide to IBM Employee Benefits Including the RBA” (6% guarantee through 2026; 10-yr Treasury with 3% floor). https://platinumpointfin.com/videos-%26-blog/f/updated-guide-to-ibm-employee-benefits-including-the-rba

6. PwC 2026 Employee Financial Wellness Survey, via JTS Financial, “The State of Employee Benefits 2026” (59% report financial stress). https://jtsfs.com/the-state-of-employee-benefits-2026/

7. IRS Principal Financial Group, “SECURE 2.0 student loan repayment 401(k) match” (effective Jan. 1, 2024). https://www.principal.com/businesses/trends-insights/help-boost-recruiting-secure-20-student-loan-repayment-401k-match

8. Fidelity Investments, “Student Debt Retirement” (participants projected to nearly double 401(k) balances). https://newsroom.fidelity.com/pressreleases/fidelity-introduces-new-solution-as-employers-embrace-innovative-benefits-to-help-employees-boost-re/s/a1a4670b-bf72-4902-8009-80d954e7ce06

9. Beancount.io, “The SECURE 2.0 Student Loan 401(k) Match: A Small Employer’s Guide to Section 110” (2–3% plan adoption). https://beancount.io/blog/2026/07/09/secure-2-0-student-loan-401k-match-section-110-small-employer-guide

10. Beancount.io, “Section 127 Made Permanent: The $5,250 Tax-Free Student Loan and Tuition Benefit” (OBBBA, July 2025; indexes 2027). https://beancount.io/blog/2026/08/22/section-127-employer-student-loan-repayment-5250-educational-assistance-plan-guide

11. Benecor Health, “Student Loan Repayment 2026: The $5,250 Section 127 Rule” (OBBBA §70412; shared cap with tuition). https://www.benecorhealth.com/employee-benefits/student-loan-repayment-benefit-section-127

12. Sunny Day Fund, “Targeted Economic Security Programs” (⅓ can’t cover $2,000; 40–60% participation). https://www.sunnydayfund.com/blog/targeted-economic-security-programs-how-emergency-savings-student-loan-match-able-accounts-and-the-federal-savers-match-are-reshaping-retirement-security

13. Constangy (Christopher R. Deubert), “NFL Player Benefits: A Deep Dive” (severance, annuity, capital accumulation plans). https://www.constangy.com/employment-labor-insider/how-are-those-nfl-player-benefits

14. Athlete Advisor Match, “Health Insurance for Professional Athletes 2026” (5 years free post-career NFL coverage for vested players). https://financial-advisors-for-athletes.com/guides/athlete-health-insurance/

15. NFL Players Association, “Benefits for Active NFL Players” (tuition assistance, transition benefits). https://nflpa.com/active-players/benefits

16. NBA Careers, “Employee Benefits” (free access to a Certified Financial Planner for NBA employees). https://careers.nba.com/benefits/

_{Disclosure: Vidarrow (“Vidarrow Investment Advisors”) is a registered investment adviser offering advisory services in the State of Illinois and in other jurisdictions where exempt. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This article is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute tax, legal, or investment advice, nor an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any security. Statistics and third-party statements are drawn from the sources cited above and are believed to be reliable but are not guaranteed. Consult qualified professionals regarding your specific situation.}