401a Account

Teachers Are in High Demand: Keep the Best with 401A Retirement Account Incentives

Most schools around the nation are facing a teacher shortage, mainly due to the relatively low pay of the position and the increasing pressures of standardized testing. If you are looking for a sure-fire way to keep teachers happily working in your school system, then consider a trend that many school districts are now adopting: 401A retirement accounts.  

A 401A retirement account is a special program that works in the favor of the employer for many reasons. First of all, your employees will not be able to contribute their own money into these accounts. As an employer, you will get to decide how much you want to contribute for each individual teacher, with no requirement to open an account for every teacher you hire. You also get to decide whether the money is given out in cash disbursements, rollover to another account, or in annuities. So why does offering your teachers a 401A make them want to continue working with you? Because you can use this account as an effective incentive program that rewards the best teachers, and encourages the rest to become the best!  

You can tie the amount of money in the accounts directly to job performance, and there is never any requirement to open an account for every employee. You set up the rules and determine who is eligible, and then determine how money you want to deposit for each person involved. When teachers know that their performance could earn them additional retirement funds, it can encourage them not only to do their best job but to stay in your school system long-term to earn the most money possible.  

There is a huge difference between a 401A and a 401K. With a 401K you must allow your employees to contribute a percentage of their income directly into the account and you have the option of matching part or all of their contribution. A 401A is simply an account that allows you to reward your employees, without them being allowed to add their own money. It is a way for you to give back to the best of your staff, and probably keep more of them from walking away to another school district in the process.  

If you are not able to increase salaries or otherwise compensate your best teachers for their hard, dedicated work, then 401A retirement account incentive programs can be a way to pat them on the back and show your appreciation. It will also motivate them to keep up the good work and earn those rewards.  

But a 401A is not limited to just teachers. If you are looking for an incentives program to motivate other staff in your school system, such as bus drivers or janitorial workers, then you can set up additional programs with different rules for each separate group of employees. With a 401A, everybody wins.