Beyond the Click: What Really Drives Retirement Readiness
Danielle Gladstone, Vice President and Head of Participant Engagement
State Street Investment Management
As Vice President and Head of Participant Engagement at State Street Investment Management, Danielle Gladstone sits at a unique intersection of behavioral finance, communication strategy, and retirement policy. Her work goes far beyond traditional participant education—it's about understanding the psychology of savings, the power of nudges, and the critical gap between retirement optimism and retirement readiness.
In this conversation, Gladstone shares insights from State Street’s latest Global Retirement Reality Report, discusses the evolving landscape of participant engagement, and offers her perspective on everything from the role of AI in retirement communications to why crypto probably doesn't belong in your 401(k). Her message is clear: participant engagement isn't a nice-to-have—it's the linchpin that makes even the most sophisticated retirement benefits actually work.
State Street's Global Retirement Reality Report has been tracking participant behavior and attitudes across multiple markets since 2018. What findings from the recent report surprised you?
It's a great question. We've been running the global retirement survey—GR3 for short—since 2018. Every year we try to gauge participant sentiment around retirement confidence and retirement readiness. This past year we specifically noticed that retirement optimism does not equal improved retirement readiness.
We surveyed over 4,300 savers in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the UK, and the US. Even though retirement optimism is climbing, preparedness remains unchanged. Participants feel increasingly optimistic despite gaps in things like planning, strategy, and physical savings.
For example, short-term debt is a surprisingly powerful predictor of retirement confidence across markets. That is - having little or no short-term debt emerged as the number one driver of confidence, and that beats traditionally emphasized levers like investment knowledge or retirement planning. But not having debt isn’t the same as having retirement savings.
Another driver was inflation. Inflation's impact has been deeper and more persistent than expected. Even as markets and economic expectations stabilize, inflation is still the dominant threat to confidence. Healthcare also looms large, especially in the US, where out-of-pocket expenses and costs can be unpredictable and burdensome.
What does this signal to us? It further underscores the role and importance of financial wellness programs and participant engagement—more than many plan sponsors typically assume. It's unsurprising, but it's a really important call out because, as many of us practitioners in the field know, participants say one thing, but it often conflicts with the reality.
We're seeing more conversations around retirement, including by folks in their 20s and 30s. Could that slightly higher level of awareness make people more comfortable, whether they're ready or not?
Being in tune with your own personal financial situation is naturally going to make you more comfortable and more likely to engage with your financial benefits at work. I think one of the big things missing in this country is financial literacy. It's very low across the board.
I know some states are mandating financial literacy in elementary school curriculums, and I think that should be mandated everywhere. Starting to plant that seed as early as you can, just to give people a foundation, will make people a lot more comfortable in the long run. Personal finance is a taboo subject for a lot of people. They're afraid of it. They don't talk about it. They don't want to touch it.
“Short-term debt emerged as the number one driver of retirement confidence—beating investment knowledge and retirement planning.”
You've won recognition for your multi-channel participant engagement approach. Walk us through how you think about content delivery across different channels—digital, video, in-person, mobile—and more importantly, how you're measuring impact.
There are many factors that come into play, and I always think about who the audience is and where they're physically situated. Are they behind a desk? Are they behind the wheel of a delivery truck? Are they running between patient rooms in a hospital? Are they standing in front of 35 fifth graders in a classroom? That's where content delivery comes into play.
Email remains king. It's the most efficient and low-cost way to reach a wide audience, and according to our recent survey of plan participants, it's how they most prefer to be reached. But it's not always enough because our inboxes—as I'm sure is the case where you are—are saturated, and emails can get missed. That's why we talk about taking a multi-channel approach, because it better ensures that your message gets seen.
Beyond email, I'm a big advocate for self-mailers. Everyone has a mailbox at home. Things like postcards, posters, or tent cards in offices—and I appreciate that not everyone is in an office, but many people have a home base or at least some office that they report to at some point. Posters, tent cards, web banners on the record keeper site have proved very effective. Then, of course, there are other tactics like video and webinars.
No matter how communications are delivered, they should link back to a centralized repository housing educational content, if necessary—it depends on the topic at hand and how much education is required. Streamlining information is incredibly important. If action is required on behalf of the participant, more needs to be done.
In-person workshops actually ranked second in terms of preference among our survey respondents. Email was first, and in-person workshops ranked second in terms of how they prefer to receive education around their retirement plan. It surprised me. I figured webinars would rank higher just given their convenience. Either way, those forums are great because they offer the opportunity to ask questions in real time, and everyone can benefit from that. Multi-channel just means hitting people from all sides, and it makes it more likely that they'll see a message.
In terms of measuring impact, what I tell plan sponsors after a communication campaign is to look to their record keeper call centers for incoming calls from participants.
What kind of questions were they asked? Were they getting a ton of calls? Were people upset or surprised by a change? There's a wealth of information within those call centers. Sponsors can also look at record keeper data to see how many people opted out of a new investment option or benefit, or how many people signed up. You can glean a lot by looking at data, but even that doesn't always tell the full story.
Another way—and I'm a huge advocate for this tactic—is a post-campaign survey. It's a great way to get a qualitative sense for how people felt about a change or a benefit, or even how they interacted with the communication and education campaign. It can help inform a sponsor's communication approach next time or even improve it. We've had clients do just that, and we've taken all of those tactics to understand what works. How do we measure the success of this campaign or this benefit? Why did people sign up? What tactics were they most likely to interact with? What did they find most helpful? That's the best way to figure out how to do it better next time, or do it the same if it was successful.
We talk about 'personalization' in participant communications. Today, what does that look like for a plan participant -- and are you seeing changes in engagement metrics and participant outcomes?
When entreating participants to take action, it's helpful to base it on real-life information versus a generic message, and this is made possible thanks to record keeper data. Participants can receive interventions now based on their individual 401(k) balance. For example, if they're missing the company match, they might receive an email: 'You're leaving money on the table. Click here to find out how you can save more.'
There was a great study by Beth Perry and her team of social scientists at the federal Thrift Savings Plan in 2019 or 2020, where they A/B tested an email communication with a personalized message against an email communication with a more general message regarding peer saving behavior. They found that both email messages motivated action, and there was very little difference between which was more effective. Those who received an email were more than twice as likely to increase their savings than those who didn't receive an email at all.
I would say that at least some personalization is effective in motivating action, and it's easier for plan sponsors now with record keeper data and even middleware in recent years. But looking back to this experiment and other research we've seen from behavioral economists, any nudge is better than no nudge at all.
Personalization is definitely effective, but peer influence can be a little spotty in the research. There have been so many experiments around this concept, and the results are different every time. Any nudge, any communication imploring someone to save more is going to increase the likelihood that they're going to save more, whether it's through peer influence or citing your own personal situation. I will say that I have seen studies where peer influence backfired—it may demoralize people. 'Oh, they're doing better than I am. I might as well just give up.'
“It doesn’t matter what you’re offering or how you’re offering it—if participants don’t know about it, don’t understand it, don’t know where to find it, it’s going to be rendered useless.”
Crypto and other alternative assets often come up in participant conversations and survey data. How are you approaching education around these assets?
I have a lot to say about alternative asset classes like private markets, but I'll quickly address crypto. Crypto is the new shiny thing, especially for younger savers. I don't think crypto is appropriate in a DC portfolio. I know that some plans offer it through ETFs through their brokerage window, and that's kind of ancillary or separate.
I think if people want to go and invest outside of their retirement plan, go invest in crypto. Have fun, be careful. I don't know right now that it is appropriate for the traditional DC plan because there are things about crypto that kind of go against the purpose of the DC plan. The regulations around it are spotty. There's no intrinsic cash flow. They're extremely volatile. That's not to say never. I just think right now, where we are with crypto, it's still so shiny and new.
What I will say about private markets is that, following the August 2025 executive order, and according to our own recent private markets survey, many plan sponsors are keen to implement private markets into their retirement plans in the next one to two years. They see the value. They're citing things like the potential return and diversification benefits of private markets as the top reasons they would consider or are considering implementing them.
Similarly, among informed participants—more sophisticated participants who understand these types of asset classes—we're seeing increased interest in alternatives: private equity, private credit, real estate. The executive order, coupled with the emergence of evergreen vehicles, have indeed begun to democratize access to these investments. Once DOL issues their proposed rule, expected very shortly, I think we're going to start to see them pop up more in retirement plan lineups.
That said, the average participant is not sophisticated. They're not an investment expert. The industry at large agrees that these private assets are best offered through a professionally managed solution like a target date fund. What we know about target date fund participants is that they're often the least sophisticated. Generally, they're not concerned with what's under the hood of the target date fund. They're more concerned with things like cost and performance.
So, educating participants around these asset classes becomes less necessary. Our survey work tells us that familiarity helps build optimism around their positive potential impact on retirement. If a participant did want to understand more about private markets or even crypto, as with anything, we need to highlight the potential benefits alongside the potential risks.
Avoid jargon. Keep it simple and think about it in terms of what participants will want to know: How do they work? What are the potential benefits? They're a great diversifier. They offer higher return potential, but there tends to be a higher cost. There's less liquidity. If incorporated within a diversified, professionally managed investment offering, there's less of a need to delve as deeply into the mechanics of these asset classes.
Looking at the engagement work you've led at State Street, can you share tangible results you have observed. And based on what's working, what should other providers and plan sponsors be thinking about?
First, I'm biased because I lead a participant engagement practice, but it all centers around participant engagement. It doesn't matter what you're offering or how you're offering it. If people don't know about it, don't understand it, don't know how to use it, don't know where to find it, it's going to be rendered useless. Communication alone, no matter the message or the tactic, is effective in getting people to think about or interact with their retirement plans.
In terms of participation rates, no communication program is as effective as auto features and defaults. But if you truly want to get someone to do something, you better make it as easy as possible for them to do so. Send a short email with the to-do, whatever it might be. Highlight why it's important. Call attention to the deadline if it's applicable. Provide easy access to take action and give them someone—a phone number, a person—that they can call if they need help. User experiences break down if there are barriers to taking action. Making it as easy as possible to ensure success is key.
Deferral rate increases are tricky since people have a hard time with what they perceive as giving up money, even if it will benefit them in the long run, in the future. But as I mentioned before with the federal Thrift experiment, simply sending an email imploring a participant to increase their savings can motivate action, especially if the message is based on their actual savings rate. Bottom line: email is king, personalization helps.
Automation has saved participants from themselves. The Pension Protection Act and the incorporation of defaults in plans—starting to incorporate these automated features—has proven to be the best way to get participants to save for retirement, building on that inherent inertia.
Where it falls short is that, in some ways, it's diminished the depth of engagement. If participants are being automatically enrolled, they may be less likely to check in unless they're getting email nudges or interventions from their sponsor or their record keeper. But automation is still doing more good than harm in that it's getting people to save money.
How are you thinking about AI in the context of participant engagement?
As any content creator might tell you, I both marvel and shudder at AI's vast capabilities. Without a doubt, when it comes to boiling down a complex financial concept so participants will understand it, AI can come up with better ways of saying things than I ever could. AI can give you the right amount of detail and lay out a multi-phased, multi-channel strategic campaign plan if you want. So, in that way, I think AI serves as the smartest assistant you can find.
But when it comes to direct participant interaction, I'm a bit skeptical right now. I've seen demos of AI financial advisors, even some who are avatars of real-life advisors. Call me old-fashioned, but it is no replacement for human interaction. That is a crucial piece of participant engagement. Communications, streamlined interactive tools, and online education are great, but the human element hasn't gone away and isn't likely to go away, even with the continued integration of AI.
I'm super excited—a little scared, but excited—to see how AI might take the load off of busy retirement plan administrators and enhance how people interact with their retirement benefits and hopefully improve outcomes as a result. So, mixed feelings about AI, but generally cautiously optimistic.
Where do you see the biggest continuing gaps and emerging best practices in the retirement industry?
Technology has helped tremendously. It's helped to streamline and ease the participant experience. It makes it easier to access information. It's quicker to get information. I view technology as having been super crucial in improving the participant experience with their retirement benefits.
That said, I think the retirement system—from policymakers to asset managers to administrators and plan sponsors—has been working in lockstep for years, and generally the system works very well. The trouble is that personal finance is still a foreign or taboo concept to many people. They're not comfortable facing it, so they avoid it. I think the biggest gap continues to be financial literacy and financial wellness. It's not up to the DC industry to solve this, but it can certainly help.
Some plan sponsors might feel like it's not their job. They question where their responsibility ends on providing these benefits: 'I'm providing these investment options, but retirement is just one piece of a person's financial life.' To be financially prepared for retirement, you need to take stock of your own financial situation. As we saw in our GR3, participants admit that short-term debt is their number one barrier to confidence.
Sponsors can lean on their service providers for help in facilitating financial wellness programs. It's not that hard. A lot of record keepers do this really well. Fidelity, they're my record keeper, and they have phenomenal programs around things like budgeting, saving, spending for the long term, creating an income plan. Some plans are taking it a step further through plan design—things like 401(k) matching contributions for student loan repayment.
The DC industry is doing things to try to solve for this, but at the end of the day, it's still going to be up to the individual to make use of these benefits, unless they're all completely automated, which I don't see happening. The biggest gap continues to be financial literacy. The content is all out there in some form. It's a matter of curating it and getting it to the right people at the right time.
Danielle – you get the last word – what is it?
Only that it all comes back to participant engagement. It doesn't matter what you're offering, how you're offering it, if you have the Cadillac of financial benefits—if participants don't know how to use it, where to find it, or that it exists at all, it doesn't matter. It's going to fall flat.
We couldn’t agree more. Thank you Danielle!
You can follow State Street’s participant engagement efforts here and if you’d like to connect directly with Danielle you can reach her here danielle_gladstone@statestreet.com
About Danielle Gladstone
As Vice President and Head of Participant Engagement at State Street Investment Management, Danielle Gladstone sits at a unique intersection of behavioral finance, communication strategy, and retirement policy. In her role, she leverages engagement best practices and behavioral finance principles to create actionable engagement strategies that help millions of Americans prepare for retirement. Her work goes far beyond traditional participant education—it's about understanding the psychology of savings, the power of nudges, and the critical gap between retirement optimism and retirement readiness.
Gladstone brings a wealth of industry experience to this work, having previously held positions at both BNY Mellon and Fidelity Investments, where she provided regulatory administration to mutual fund companies. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, Communications and Media from Emmanuel College, a background that serves her well in crafting communications that translate financial jargon into language real people can understand and act upon. At State Street, she leads the firm's award-winning multi-channel participant engagement approach and helps oversee the annual Global Retirement Reality Report (GR3), which has tracked participant sentiment across multiple countries since 2018.
