Work that Works

More Than a Workplace Benefit

Episode Summary

Financial stress can keep employees from performing at their best. Dawn Marchand, President and CEO of CBIA – Lawyers Financial, explains how astute legal employers are offering state-of-the-art pension plans, like DBplus, as part of a wholistic approach to creating a healthy, productive, modern workplace as well as courting and keeping top talent.

Episode Notes

RESOURCES

DBPlus – A defined Benefit Pension Plan for Law Firms

Pension Plan for Partners and Sole Practitioners

Document your CPD Hours

Have feedback? Email us at pod@oba.org with your thoughts and comments.

Episode Transcription

Charlene Theodore:

Hello and welcome to the Work that Works podcast. I'm your host Charlene Theodore. Before I begin, I want to acknowledge that I'm recording this episode from the Dish With One Spoon Territory. I'm grateful to the original owners for taking care of this land and I recognize the treaties that govern it. Knowing that our listeners span the country and are tuning in from other areas with their own treaties and unseated territories I encourage you to continue learning more about the indigenous history in your community. It is important history and a story that continues.

Speaker 2:

At Lawyers Financial. Your satisfaction is our success. It's not that money doesn't matter, financial it's right there in our name, but we're not for profit and that gives us the freedom to give you break even pricing on insurance and investment solutions and exclusive rates on home, auto, life and disability insurance just to name a few. At Lawyers Financial we focus on you so you can focus on your family, your firm, and your future and that sounds like success by any measure.

Charlene Theodore:

Nothing communicates quite so clearly that you care about your employee's wellbeing not only today but well into the future as offering a defined benefit pension plan. Yet few law firms provide pension arrangements of any kind. Why is that and what are the opportunities available to legal employers ready to make pensions a part of their modern, vital and enticing workplace. I'm OBA President Charlene Theodore and this is the Work That Works podcast.

Charlene Theodore:

I'm delighted to be joined today by Dawn Marchand, President and CEO of CBIA Lawyers Financial and OBA partner and our podcast sponsor. Dawn has been active in the financial services industry for more than 25 years having worked at some of Canada's largest insurance and investment providers in a variety of senior roles and she has played a leading role in bringing lawyers DB Plus, a defined benefit pension plan offered through lawyers financial that makes sense for law firms and serves employers and employees. So she really is just the expert we need to delve into how a pension plan contributes to a healthy, productive, and rewarding workplace and to hear how lawyers can bring those rewards to life in their own workplaces which is of course what this podcast is all about. So welcome Dawn. Thanks for joining me.

Dawn Marchand:

Thank you. Happy to be here.

Charlene Theodore:

So Dawn, offering a pension plan is certainly one very concrete and compelling way to communicate to employees that you are invested in their financial security and wellbeing. What are the benefits, maybe the obvious ones and maybe some of the underlying ones, to employees and to employers?

Dawn Marchand:

Yeah offering a pension plan is actually the product, what you're offering is retirement income, is the confidence for your employees to be able to know when they can retire and to be able to retire with confidence after having served you for many years. So speaking about DB Plus specifically, which is a defined benefit pension plan, the benefits to employees are many. Most importantly it's predictable, guaranteed lifetime income in retirement. There's no worry of outliving your money. There are no investment decisions to make. You don't have to be a decumulation expert. And then with DB Plus there are a number of additional enhancements like there's a no-cost survivor benefit, you can retire early. There is inflation protection on the way up and on the way down. And your retirement income is not impacted by market volatility either before or during retirement. So, there's just so many benefits for employees.

Charlene Theodore:

Now Dawn, I do a lot of work with pensions and our pension plan so I am well versed in the difference between a defined benefit pension plan and a defined contribution plan. Can you explain the difference to our listeners?

Dawn Marchand:

For sure. So, let's start with a defined contribution plan or a DC and I'm going to lump in there a group RSP because they are very similar from the individual's perspective. So when I say DC I'm also talking about group RSP or even an individual RSP. So with the DC, there is no implicit or explicit promise of retirement income. Essentially it's a registered savings plan. It's good because it makes people save but it doesn't say what your retirement income is going to be. At the end when you do retire you are left with a bucket of money that remains subject to market fluctuations and you must determine how you decumulate that money. How do you pull down from it?

Dawn Marchand:

Now before getting back to on the way to retirement, the employer and employee each contribute a percentage of the employee's earnings. The employee is responsible for choosing the funds that they have to invest in. They're given a list but they have to choose the funds. And then at retirement as I said you have a lump of money saved and employers have a fiduciary risk to educate employees about investments because employees are picking their own investments. So, that's what a DC plan does.

Dawn Marchand:

A DB plan, Defined Benefit, again the employer and the employee each contribute a percentage of the employee's earnings, that's the same. But then the employee has no investment decisions to make. All of those decisions are done by, all the investments are done by a professional money manager. You are guaranteed lifetime pension income in retirement not impacted by market fluctuations. There's no chance of outliving your savings and you have those additional benefits like we talked about.

Charlene Theodore:

Yeah, I think the best example or the example I like to draw upon when the financial crisis of 2008, lots of people were wiped out because they were scheduled to retire at that time. But if you retired at that time with a defined benefit plan your benefit stays the same guaranteed no matter what's going on in the market at the time of your retirement or after you retire. Whereas defined contribution plan, the guarantee is the savings which is great, everyone should be saving for their retirement, but the only guarantee is that the savings will be there. The market value of those savings over time are subject to market volatility.

 

Dawn Marchand:

That's exactly it. And you know, I often hear people will say to me that, "Well, I think that I can do just as good if I do use a DC as a DB plan," but the research does not say that at all. In fact, the expected return is much higher with a DB plan. If I can tell you just a couple of stats.

Charlene Theodore:

Sure.

Dawn Marchand:

So HOOPP, which is the Healthcare Of Ontario Pension Plan, they looked at the expected payout for each dollar that's contributed, so with three things, with an RSP, a DC plan and a DB plan. With the RSP, so an individual RSP or a group RSP, the payout for every dollar contributed at retirement is expected to be a $1.70 and that amount is very low and it's because Canada has the dubious reputation of having the highest retail mutual fund fees in the world. And fees significantly reduced compounding investment return.

Dawn Marchand:

The next, the DC plan, so a large DC plan, every dollar will get $2.58. So that's better, one and a half times, but that's because they have lower fees and they have access to different funds like a target date. But the large modern DB plans like DB Plus, like HOOPP, they're the best, they deliver $5.32 or every dollar contributed. And that's achieved through economies of scale with lower fees, access to private markets that you don't have access to with a RSP or even a DC and pooling of risk. So, having an expert do it for you and having it done efficiently will make your retirement savings that much greater,

Charlene Theodore:

As far as I'm concerned you're preaching to the choir but I'm so glad that our listeners have an opportunity to hear directly from you. Because as you may be aware I work in education so I've got a lot of familiarity with our teacher's pension plan and also we have a private plan for our staff that is a defined benefit plan as well. But before I went into education I was a lawyer in healthcare and I was with a HOO employer. And so I know pensions inside and out. When we thought about planning to bring you on, I realized just how many people didn't know this like the back of their hand.

Charlene Theodore:

I think that there's so many advantages to a defined benefits plan because even if I do think people approach that retirement savings with two attitudes one, "I can beat the market, I can do better saving on my own." There's a little bit of mistrust of the expertise of financial planners. And also they approach it with, "I can push this off." With all the financial decisions that come up over the life of your career from paying for the LSAT fee, to articling, to paying your annual fees, to starting your own practice there's always something that's going to push that off your plate in your career as a lawyer and getting into a plan, a defined benefit pension plan, makes it a priority in the background without you having to stress about it.

 

 

Charlene Theodore:

And so, I've got two follow up questions for you Dawn. So why do you think so few law firms are offering a pension option and what are some of the hurdles or what are some of the misconceptions that you think are out there about implementing a defined benefit pension plan?

Dawn Marchand:

Yeah. So I certainly I'm speaking to law firms daily almost because the interest in this is so high. It does feel like an infomercial because it just feels so obvious. So I want to say that I'm not on here selling this, I'm explaining it, but it is so good that it feels like...

Charlene Theodore:

You've got to tell people about it.

Dawn Marchand:

Yeah. Well, the first thing is that this is a cost to the partnership. It's a cost based on percentage of payroll. And so, when the partnership looks at it as a cost straight out then yeah they're going to say, "Well, I don't know. I don't think so." But the other thing is that it is not feasible for an individual law firm no matter how big they are to really start a DB plan. It's very costly. There's a lot of regulatory hurdles. So, the fact that we can join a plan, that we're being invited into these plans, you know HOOP, you know CAAT which is where DB Plus comes from. CAAT stands for the College of Applied Arts and Technology, there's OPTrust. These are all very large defined benefit plans that are closed to a certain market. So, what CAAT did and in fact when we started looking at this four years ago, our board thought that we would have to start our own pension plan, build it from scratch, which would have taken quite honestly five to seven years and multiple millions of dollars.

Charlene Theodore:

At the minimum.

Dawn Marchand:

Yes. It just so happened, and we'd been talking with all of the big players to just find out more about pension plans, and in 2018 CAAT changed their philosophy as well. And they went on a growth philosophy to say, "We believe that every Canadian should have access to a defined benefit pension plan." This is just the most amazing thing that they did

Charlene Theodore:

Because it's really the key to having a good pension plan and it's why pension plans like HOOP and Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan are able to offer such good pensions because while it is a closed plan they leverage this defined group of professionals to leverage like you say, the economies of scale and access to funds and investments that no one industry or sector or employer could do on their own.

Dawn Marchand:

It's very true. And so, we started talking with CAAT about joining. So what they did was they took their basic plan which was called DB Prime and they cloned it, they modernized it and they then started to offer DB Plus. You see, the problem is a lot of people today. I mean, I've been in the business for many, many years. I have DB Envy because my mother was a teacher and my dad was a federal government employee. And I see now that they are set for life and will never run out of money because they get money every month, more than many Canadians. But DB plans went away because they were very expensive for single employer plans, single employers to set up. And then there were a couple of really drastic activities with Sears and with Nortel and so DB plans got a bad rap.

Dawn Marchand:

So everyone moved away from them and went to DC plans or to RSPs. And so the younger generation, if you will, even 30 and 40 year olds don't understand the benefit of a DB plan. I'm finding when I talk to partners they're like, "How do I get into this?" But the younger group are saying, "You know what I'm going to use my RSP and I'll be just fine." They don't understand just how valuable until they go on and do the calculator to see exactly how much they could have in retirement and then they start going, "Yeah. How do I get this?"

Dawn Marchand:

So let's talk about just quickly really the benefit for employers here is that what we're offering, DB Plus offers a turnkey solution. There is no compliance, there's no fiduciary responsibilities, there's no administration, there's no education, there's no communication responsibilities. CAAT does all of it. And there's no balance sheet impact. So, essentially the only requirement for a law firm is a monthly remittance just like they do now for CPP. That's all they have to do. Once the firm is set up, CAAT does all the member education, all the compliance, all the statements, everything. So it really is turnkey.

Charlene Theodore:

And the reason why it's so great that we're having this conversation now is because that younger group, as you call it, in their thirties and forties they're not just employees anymore. These are the people that are starting law firms and trying to make decisions to do law differently and to have a different workplace culture which again of course is what this podcast is all about. I don't know that defined benefit pension plan is the first thing people think about when it comes to ways you can really, really move the needle on reframing an existing workplace culture or setting a new standard for your workplace. It's just a great time to be talking about this now that we're thinking about how we work, what's gone wrong before, how we can do it better.

Charlene Theodore:

You'd mentioned before Dawn that one of the misconceptions is costs and it really is an investment for employers. And I think one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation is because law firm owners, or lawyers who are also employers, they come primed to make a certain amount of investment in their staff to provide a great place to work and to attract and retain the best legal talent out there. With regards to the defined benefit pension plans specifically, how does that pay off for the organization, so in those areas I mentioned like recruitment, retention and reputation?

Dawn Marchand:

So DB Plus has a minimum contribution rate of five percent from the employer and five percent from the employee of the employee's T4 reported earnings and that must match. So I get asked all the time, "Well, if it's 10% can the employee do seven and the employer do three?" No, it has to be matching. Now five percent, that's a very definable cost. It's a percentage of payroll. And I understand that especially when I'm talking to law firms that don't have anything right now five percent stops them and they go, "Whoa, that's a lot."

Dawn Marchand:

There's a number of value added benefits of coming through Lawyers financial for this program and one of them is, is we've negotiated a gradual phase in if law firms wanted. And what that means is law firms can start as low as three percent, three percent employee, three percent employer into DB Plus. What you must do though is you must commit every year to increasing by 0.5 or one percent until you get to the five percent. What this allows you to do is start small. So, we talked about recruiting and retention and attracting. I talked to a number of partners that say associates and law firm staff they move through the firm like water. It's very fluid and there's always a recruiting cost, there's training costs, there's soft and hard costs.

Dawn Marchand:

DB plan is really a great set of what we like to call golden handcuffs. People will think twice about leaving a firm that has invested in their employees and they know that if they stay this they'll get this amount of money of guaranteed retirement income. I don't have anything specific to talk to at this point because we're just launching this but I do believe that firms will see lower attrition which means lower costs of the constant recruiting and training. Also, with that constant change comes lower productivity so I believe that firms will see higher productivity with highly engaged employees.

Dawn Marchand:

Now the next thing is the contribution rate. Some firms are saying to their employees, "Okay, we're going to start at this three percent and then each year if our usual raise was two percent or 1.5% or two and a half percent for the next few years we're going to take half a percent off of that so that we're funding the increase as we move into the five percent with the employee's, what would be their merit. We're not going to not give you a raise but if we were going to give you two percent you're going to get 1.5. And as an employee, as long as you do just an inkling of research into this you would say, "Go, do it."

Charlene Theodore:

It's way more valuable for you to increase the pot in your pension plan than it is after tax, several taxes.

Dawn Marchand:

That's exactly it. So those are two really hard costs. One can be passed along and the other one is really a savings and higher productivity. I mean, we are seeing law firms having lower engagement rates, higher disability rates because of the stress, the financial stress that their employees are feeling. This plan take that stress away.

Charlene Theodore:

Especially now when there's such a time of change to provide that certainty and really signal that your firm is going in a new direction I think is just great. I can tell you the feedback that I've gotten about the defined benefit pension plan has been amazing. Our first episode with past OBA press president Quinn Ross he did a lot of changes, instituted a lot of changes pre pandemic, just part of his way of doing business. But once he got that defined benefit pension plan in it is like a beacon. Lawyers and staff, people want to work there. People want to be where this type of security is, to be at a place where you can do your best work because it's an innovative workplace in other respects but also the defined benefit pension plan it's certainly helped with his recruiting efforts.

Dawn Marchand:

I was listening to that first episode, just listening to it and all of a sudden because I know...

Charlene Theodore:

I got excited.

Dawn Marchand:

Well I mean, I know Quinn because I mean he was such a great person to work with early on. He was right away he was like, "Okay, let's talk about this. What does that mean?" He did his due diligence. And I'm listening to your podcast and then I hear it I'm like, "Wow, way to go Quinn." And also on his LinkedIn every time they're hiring the first thing they say is defined benefit pension plan.

Charlene Theodore:

Defined benefit pension plan.

Dawn Marchand:

Yeah. It's great to see really innovative legal practitioners valuing it, then valuing their employees and really putting their money where their mouth is.

Charlene Theodore:

Exactly. Exactly. And quite frankly, this day and age that could be the ad, "We're hiring, defined benefit pension plan."

Dawn Marchand:

That's all you need.

Charlene Theodore:

Don't need any more details.

Dawn Marchand:

So true.

Charlene Theodore:

It's clear that the financial benefit for employees and for employers like the upfront cost and also some of the costs that you eliminate by having a defined benefit pension plan and also removing some of the stress and uncertainty about your career paths. If you land at a place where you can do your best work having that added layer of financial protection is just the icing on the cake but it would seem that reducing some of that stress and uncertainty how it has a positive impact on employee morale and mental health. Has that been your experience? Are there any other benefits in that area from DB Plus?

Dawn Marchand:

There's no question DB Plus is the product, the solution, but the benefit is that reduced stress of what's going to happen to me in retirement. There's so many studies out there but 51% of Canadians say that stress about retirement planning is having a medium to high negative impact on their work, 60% say it's having a negative impact on their health, and the most telling number is 72% of Canadians have saved 25% or less of what they feel they'll need to retire. They're more concerned than ever.

Dawn Marchand:

And so why should law firms care about this? Well, it has higher benefit costs. I know this because Lawyers Financial, our base product, our base reason for being is insurance. And we have many disability plans with law firms. I see the increasing costs, the increasing claims, which means lower productivity, which means additional stress on others. If you can take that financial stress off of your employees and quite honestly it sounds too simple to be true but it is true. Because there's a calculator that tells what you're going to get at retirement and you can make additional purchases as well so you can increase that amount. If you take that stress off your employees your disability rates are going to go down, your productivity is going to go up, your employees are going to be just that much more engaged and productive and they'll have a better entire life, not just the life that they have with you.

Charlene Theodore:

Inside work, it's about serving the whole person. And so it's more than just a workplace benefit, it's something that helps in all aspects of a lawyer's life from the beginning to literally the end of their career when someone, a young lawyer or a mid-career lawyer has a decision to make between the firm with the defined benefit pension plan and the firm without one. I think it really gives employers a leg up.

Dawn Marchand:

I completely agree and the great thing about DB Plus is that as more and more law firms come on board you can move from law firm to law firm with DB Plus.

Charlene Theodore:

And stay in the same system.

Dawn Marchand:

Seamlessly. Seamlessly.

Charlene Theodore:

I know. Dawn, we've got to tell them about all the advantages. I forgot about that one until you brought it up because...

Dawn Marchand:

It just doesn't end.

Charlene Theodore:

Yeah. For people who don't know it's great.

Dawn Marchand:

That's what I mean, I feel like I should give away some steak knives.

 

Charlene Theodore:

I know. You know what, it might be a little infomercially but it's our infomercial. We'll own it. We'll own it because we only have good news.

Dawn Marchand:

Good stuff. And then the other thing, as we're talking about this I really think it's important that everyone of your listeners understands is that Lawyers Financial is not taking a penny from this program. There are no fees. There's no money to be had. CAAT, they're a not for profit just like we are. And we are doing this because our board, actually a national partner at McCarthy Tetrault four years ago Randy [inaudible 00:24:23] every lawyer owes Randy [inaudible 00:24:25] a gratitude of thanks.

Charlene Theodore:

Thank you Randy.

Dawn Marchand:

Because he's the grandfather of this if you will. He wrote to our board and said, "You say you're here for the legal community. This is what we need. We need retirement income that we can retire with confidence." And so that's how this all got started. But the 5% contribution, and you can go as high as nine by the way, but there are no additional fees on top of that. So, CAAT doesn't have any other fees and there's nothing, we're not taking anything from this program. It has been our pleasure and our privilege to serve this noble profession for the last 40 years with insurance and investment solutions. And so, we are willing to really invest in this to let people know because we run into people that go, "I don't know. What's a DB plan?" Like, "Oh, you need to know."

Charlene Theodore:

You need to know. You need to know. And I love that we're so ready for it because we have all of the elements. We have this defined group of people in the profession, everybody earning different incomes. People moving from employer to employer within the profession. And so, combining our collective earning power will help everyone relative to the income that they're making over the life of their career that provides an extra layer of security for lawyers who may have really had the benefit of making a ton of income in their careers. And again, making a ton of income doesn't mean that you're going to be set for retirement, it doesn't mean that you're making great financial decisions. And I think it's really key especially for people who deliberately decide to go into areas of law where the average income may not be as high to be able to offer that security knowing that I can do amazing work that I love on this salary and I still have that security at the end of my career.

Dawn Marchand:

Yeah. When you consider that defined benefit pension plans today are really reserved for teachers, government workers and unions, that's really it. For lawyers to have access to this and through CAAT really is something and you can be a sole practitioner and still be eligible. Now you'll have to have a PC, a Professional Corporation in place, and we can talk through all of that. But it's for firms with two people and firms with 200 people.

 

 

Charlene Theodore:

As I know, you've been listening to the podcast so you're aware that on this podcast and really in all OBA initiatives we do our best to consider a diversity of perspectives as we're going through this project taking a close look at workplaces that are doing innovative things that work for everyone. Whether it's the new lawyer, all of the amazing lawyers that got called this year during the pandemic, some of them are senior experienced professionals, managing partners, lawyers who are parents, caregivers during this time, lawyers who want to embrace technology, all backgrounds and demographics. Why should everyone care about pension products?

Dawn Marchand:

Well the only thing I will say, it's a very quick answer. So the answer is, is that it doesn't matter what we all are now but when we hit 65 or 70 or 60, we're all going to be retired Canadians. We're all going to be the same. It won't matter if you were a lawyer, or a teacher, or a nurse, you will still need to live your best life in retirement. So that's why this is just so important for everyone.

Charlene Theodore:

So, let's say there's some interest from the management team of a large, smaller, or mid-sized law firm out there right now, how do the managing partners start that conversation with the law firm, CFO, for example? What's the dollar and cents logic that they can use to sell the CEO on implanting a defined benefit pension plan.

Dawn Marchand:

Well, the best thing is is that you know what it is, you can calculate it. So the negative is there's an added cost to your payroll costs but that's not a negative because you can offset that. If you have a current plan, if you have a current RSP or DC plan, you probably have some administrative or some technology costs or some fiduciary costs. Those all go away if you wind up that plan and join DB Plus and then all administration is handled by CAAT. So there are no other costs. Just like we said earlier it's only a single contribution monthly remittance to CAAT just like you would do for CPP. And then we have talked about all of the benefits. What would normally happen though is a management team would reach out to us and we have a Zoom call. We've had many, many Zoom calls with many management teams.

Charlene Theodore:

I can imagine.

Dawn Marchand:

Yes. Not as many as we'd like because of COVID but we are. Because we just launched it in July so the management team gets on board and they ask the questions, "How does this work? What are the rules? Are there certain rules? What do we need to know?" And so we go through all of that and then they will go to either their CFO will be on the call or they'll go to their CFO and the numbers just bear out. If they're not interested in providing any sort of savings plan then there's not much I can do. But as you know, Randy [inaudible 00:29:26] says, "This is the right thing to do."

 

 

Charlene Theodore:

In October of 2020 your company sponsored financial planning month to really offer financial advice and awareness specifically to our community, our legal community. I wonder if you have any tips for legal employers on how they can assist their staff with financial planning strategies, general education and support. And again, I ask this because there seems to be a lack of awareness of this even as an option. And so, in the spirit of financial awareness and financial literacy specific for our community, what can legal employers do to support some of the financial literacy that we all need?

Dawn Marchand:

Thanks for the question Charlene because awareness is the number one obstacle for us. CBA Lawyers Financial started from CBA 40 years ago as an insurance committee and have grown but continue to serve this cohort. That's all we do. We are all about the financial wellbeing of the legal community both from a wealth building and a wealth protection perspective. Many of our products and services are tailor made for the legal community. We are also not-for-profit. I mean, it's not that we don't care about the money that comes in the door, we have to pay the rent, but we're not beholden to shareholders. So we can work with breakeven pricing.

Dawn Marchand:

When we talk about financial planning that's something that we're really taking hold of in 2021. We are offering free financial planning for lawyers, their families, and their law firm employees. This really is a significant benefit. It's one that could cost upwards of $3,000 on the street. We will go through that full financial plan. And we're not selling product, I mean of course there may be product that lawyers find that they need but our financial advisor is on salary. And then we have a number of advisors across the country that do work on referral fees from the products. But for the most part, our goal is just to provide lawyers with products that are specific to their needs in both protection and wealth.

Charlene Theodore:

Well, I feel like we really made the case. There's almost nothing to add. That said as someone who is clearly pro pension plan I'm glad to have provided a platform for Dawn to talk about the advantages of DB Plus particularly because as she noted defined benefit plans fell out of favor for a while as individual employers found them cost prohibitive. They are now not only a highly feasible option for legal workplaces but a very favorable and loyalty fostering feature of Work that Works. Here's how they fit, if you could remove financial stress from the shoulders of your employees by offering them the certainty of guaranteed retirement income that is unaffected by market fluctuations you'll have happier, more productive employees who are more deeply engaged with the work. The lure of this kind of financial security is almost irresistible. If you mention this offering in your recruitment ads you will have no trouble attracting high caliber candidates. And those who join you will be very motivated to stay saving you attrition costs and to invest their talents in your organization.

Charlene Theodore:

What would be exorbitant for employers to achieve independently, creating their own pension program is made simple through participation in a closed market program offered to a defined group of professionals like DB Plus but leverages economies of scale and expertise to minimize costs and maximize return. Knowing their financial future is secure gives lawyers both the confidence and the option to work in areas that may be very rewarding personally and professionally but may not be as well compensated making the defined benefit pension plan a boom to both the employer seeking dedicated staff and the lawyers seeking meaningful work.

Charlene Theodore:

The financial cost for the employer is clear and constant and you can phase in the plan working your way up incrementally to the five percent matching commitment. There are many worthwhile investments in employee satisfaction that we've talked about on this podcast but few have such an immediate and tangible return, a return that can be calculated in advance to make a compelling case to your CFO. Remember, wherever we choose to apply our legal expertise and ambitions at the end of the day we will all be retired Canadians and we'll all want to as Dawn says live our best lives. The workplaces that can promise us that, the ones that show they care about us inside and outside of work are the ones we will dedicate ourselves to. We'd love to hear from you, rate and review and follow a link in the episode description for additional resources.