Retirement plan sponsors are turning to advisers for help and increasingly handing over plan decisions in the process. Fidelity Investments’ 17th annual proprietary Plan Sponsor Attitudes Study, released today, found that 41% of surveyed sponsors wanted advisers to have “full discretion” over investment menu decisions, up from 36% in 2025.
“That’s a big jump in one year,” says Mike Manosh, Fidelity Investments’ defined contribution investment only [DCIO] sales lead. “Most [sponsors] aren’t doing [retirement plan administration] as their sole responsibility. They’ve got a lot of other stuff going on and they’re realizing, ‘I’ve got to lever specialists, and I’ve got to outsource to the extent that I can.’”
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Nearly all surveyed sponsors (93%) reported working with advisers. Asked how they needed advisers’ support, the most-cited responses were legislative and fiduciary issues (56%), individual retirement planning assistance for employees (53%), analysis of plan metrics and recommendations (52%) and financial wellness education (52%).
New investment options were a goal for 89% of respondents over the next 12 months, and 52% reported considering replacing their current target-date funds. Products gaining interest among sponsors were target-date funds with embedded annuities (cited by 55%), target-date funds with stable value components (52%), managed accounts (41%) and active exchange-traded funds (31%).
“Advisers have been instrumental in helping sponsors navigate what has just become a really complex retirement plan landscape,” Manosh says. “Helping [sponsors] evaluate all the new investment products that have launched, driving really good employee engagement and providing employee education across a variety of topics.”
Sponsors also noted their advisers were expanding service options, with the most common areas being financial planning and advice (cited by 48%), broader benefits strategy consulting (42%), employee education (42%) and adviser-managed accounts (42%).
The growing willingness of sponsors to trust more to their advisers highlighted by Fidelity mirrors a July study by J.P. Morgan Asset Management, which found that 73% of surveyed workers reported they would push an “easy button” to completely delegate their retirement planning and management.
“We ask the participants to do a lot of things. … They need an expert,” Steve Rubino, head of retirement at J.P. Morgan Asset Management, told PLANADVISER. “They need someone to help them along that journey.”
The Fidelity survey of 1,311 plan sponsors was conducted online in January. All plan sponsors had at least 25 plan participants and at least $3 million in plan assets.
