Patrick Blanchard and Jeff Swerdlow
  Comp & Ben – Back to Basics 
  Session 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Session Description

If you haven't completed a vitals check on your total rewards strategy recently, it is likely that you are already behind the market. The old days of simply benchmarking critical positions, applying an annual salary structure increase, and gut checking red-circled employees have shifted. Employers need to be ahead of the curve in the current talent acquisition and retention climate while also working to ensure that compensation and benefits dollars are being used as efficiently as possible.

One of the key differentiators to which employees are paying much more attention is often the retirement benefits. Many plan design options can help ensure your retirement plan is meeting your goals, but they don't work if they are not included in the plan design. Some of these options include automatic enrollment and escalation, a safe harbor design, and different ways to structure matching and non-elective contributions to incent specific behavior. During this session, professionals from Alvarez & Marsal will discuss the more general concepts of administering total rewards programs while providing their insights into what they see in the marketplace given our fluctuating economic climate.   

Bios

Patrick Blanchard is a Managing Director with A&M Taxand, LLC in Denver. He assists clients with a variety of issues related to qualified retirement plans.  Mr. Blanchard's experience includes performing nondiscrimination testing with a particular emphasis on complex controlled groups and unique testing conditions (e.g., subsequent to M&A activity); representing plan sponsors in Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Department of Labor (DOL) examinations; assisting to correct operational failures under the IRS and DOL correction programs, and helping employers throughout the process of adopting or making significant changes to retirement programs. 

Jeff Swerdlow is a Senior Director with the Compensation and Benefits group of Alvarez & Marsal Taxand, LLC in Denver, CO. He brings experience assisting public, privately held, private equity, and non-profit organizations as an executive compensation consultant and attorney. Throughout his career, Jeff has focused primarily on assisting companies in evaluating, designing, and administering compensation programs and incentive plans. He has also focused on developing his technical expertise to assist clients with Internal Revenue Code sections 409A, 280G, 162(m), and payroll tax matters as they arise in the development and administration of compensation plans.

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