Team Building

If you are gearing up to implement a new government savings program, building the right team is critical. At the same time, one thing is for sure: you’ll never have enough people to do the work.

There may only be a limited amount of funding for startup costs, and new programs can take years to become financially self-sustaining. What if you can only afford a single, full-time employee? What if you aren’t part of a larger, established organization, like a treasurer’s office with existing business operations, like finance, HR, IT, and procurement?

One approach that helps me think about team building is mapping out the functional areas and expertise needed. Then I can look at existing resources and the gaps. A functions chart looks like an org chart, but it’s based on what needs to be done rather than who does it.

Here’s a standard example:

• Executive direction (leadership)

• Management support

  • Admin support

  • Board management

  • Project management

• Business Operations

  • Procurement

  • HR

  • Finance

  • IT

• Communications

  • Outreach / engagement

  • Marketing

• Policymaking

  • Legislative affairs

  • Rulemaking

  • Legal counsel

• Plan design

  • Investment management

• Operations

  • Customer service

  • Plan administration

  • Tech platform

• Compliance

  • Reporting

  • Enforcement

What can be sourced elsewhere?

Few programs can effectively manage all of these functions in-house. It’s common to develop public-private partnerships for savings programs, where a private plan administrator takes on key responsibilities like marketing, tech platforms, plan administration, and customer service. Programs also commonly outsource portions of community engagement, investment consulting, and certain legal services.

If the program is within a larger state agency or office, many of the functions like business operations, project management, board management, and policymaking can be managed by existing centralized resources or by temporarily reassigning staff from other departments.

In Oregon, during the startup of OregonSaves, we were blessed to have the help of our colleagues in the Treasurer’s Office help us with procurement, HR, communications, project management, legal advice, and other key needs. 

What’s mission critical?

There are certain core responsibilities that public entities simply can’t outsource, especially if it involves any sort of fiduciary responsibility. Many programs have boards or committees that are ultimately accountable for the programs, and the most critical hire these entities can make is an executive director, someone who is empowered with directing the program on their behalf. Sometimes, this may be the only employee a program can afford, so it’s important to find someone who is both visionary and can drive the work forward and make it happen. 

It can be extremely difficult, however, for an executive director to implement a program all on their own. They may be good at wearing different hats, but few people have all of the skill sets and capacity to do it all alone. If a program can afford additional employees, it can help to have someone on the team who can dive deeper in the weeds, to allow the executive director to focus on the big picture, especially for key areas like community engagement, operations, and policymaking. 

During the startup of OregonSaves, we had just two full-time employees, Lisa Massena as the Executive Director, and myself, nominally the director of outreach and engagement, but in practice responsible for much more. I personally changed my hat every day, depending on what the program needed. Some days, I drove around the state, performing outreach or customer service. Other days, I managed our marketing campaigns, sat on rulemaking committees, developed financial forecasts, measured key metrics, worked with research partners, and performed compliance follow up with employers.  

The key, even with just a team of two, is to build a team that has complimentary skills, to allow you to and conquer as much of the work as possible. 

It’s also important to remember that the needs of the program will change as it moves from startup to ongoing operations. Outreach, for example, is incredibly hard at the outset, when no one has any idea the program exists, and it is absolutely vital to the successful launch of the program. Once a program becomes more settled, the need for outreach may become more narrow and targeted, requiring different skill sets and expertise. 

Likewise, the people who enjoy the challenge of starting up something new may be different from those who prefer the steady state and gradual improvement of ongoing operations. The development of a team is an ongoing challenge, as team members come and go. One goal from for any program should be to set up a positive team culture from the start, since culture outlasts individuals and can often be the hardest thing to change once its been set.

More to come! / Joel

Columnist and Senior Associate Joel Metlen is based in Oregon. Joel is a pioneer of the state facilitated retirement savings space, woven into a career of public service and innovation. At OregonSaves, Joel’s responsibilities ranged from marketing and employer engagement to operations and data analysis. You’ll see his insights from that experience, and more, here.

This piece was featured in the February 10, 2022, edition of Retirement Security Matters. For more fresh thinking on retirement savings innovation, check out the newsletter here.