New Retirement Savings Tool for Biweekly Employees

A new online tool is making it easy for biweekly employees to know where they stand when preparing for retirement.

Duke Human Resources has introduced a new pension plan projection tool for current and former biweekly-paid employees to review an estimate of pension as part of the Employees’ Retirement Plan. Rather than submit a request to Duke’s benefits office and wait for a mailed response to their home address, staff can now go online to receive an immediate estimate.

While the previous process meant wait times upward of a week to get results, the new system will provide a more efficient means of information for employees, said Linda Phelps, retirement plan manager for Human Resources. She noted that the benefits office received about 200 requests a month in 2014 for pension projections. 

“Staff used to have to come to us to generate these estimates, then wait for them to be mailed,” she said. “Now staff can generate an estimate themselves and have the information they need right away.”

Since it became available on Jan. 6, about 3,000 estimates have been generated. 

The tool, which is accessible for biweekly-paid employees, can be accessed with a valid Net ID and password. Once logged on, staff members enter projected dates for retirement and when they’d like to receive pension payments and click one button to receive their estimate. Estimates are based on an average of the five highest consecutive fiscal years of payment out of the last 10 years.

Sylvester Hackney, associate director of Duke Benefits, noted that the new tool is particularly useful because biweekly employees can gauge their future financial security and determine if they’d like to supplement pension savings with Duke’s 403(b) retirement plan, which they are also eligible to use. 

“Data shows that small amounts invested over a longer period of time are usually better than larger amounts invested over a shorter amount of time due to the power of compounding,” he said. “One of the most important things employees can do is start planning for retirement early in their career and we hope this helps get many employees heading in the right direction for retirement.”

In addition to determining monthly payments, biweekly staff can also use the website for several other functions: 

• Retirement planning resources – review details of Duke retirement plans, retiree health insurance and connect to the U.S. Social Security Adminsitration.
• Review personal information – access name, home address, birth date and more in order to update any pertinent contact information provided to Duke.

To access the pension plan projection tool, visit the Employees’ Retirement Plan website and click on the link on the right sidebar.