What happens when you turn 65 years old?
It’s a question Duncan McNiff aims to answer every day. As a senior consultant at Portfolio Evaluations, he’s spent his career helping companies prepare their employees for retirement — a challenge that was magnified throughout a pandemic that brought widespread layoffs and terminations. McNiff shifted gears to educate his clients on ways to help their soon-to-be former employees access savings, from explaining unemployment insurance to spotlighting flexibility in 401(k) plans and even advocating for more generous hardship-withdrawal rules.
“It's an industry where most people really want to do the right thing,” says McNiff. “But honestly, they don't know where to start.”
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McNiff helps his clients focus on the future, and works to find valuable investments and negotiate costs, like providers’ record-keeper fees, on their behalf.“I love being able to come in and say, ‘Here's where you stand. Here are all the things you have to care about, here's what matters,’” he says.
After all, McNiff is only human — and he reminds himself that he and his clients share the same struggles and concerns. “If you told me I was retiring tomorrow, I wouldn’t have a plan yet,” McNiff says. “But there’s definitely a way to get there.”
