The plan sponsor world is not homogenous. In fact, we found some major dividing lines in our latest survey and have uncovered some interesting key findings.

Automatic enrollment has an edge. The number of plans using automatic enrollment keeps rising—as do participation rates and other features associated with helping participants through retirement, not just to retirement:

• Higher use of target-date funds, automatic escalation and plans to offer a guaranteed income target-date solution.

Faulty defaults abound. Too many plans either don’t use a qualified default investment alternative (QDIA) or don’t use any default at all.

• While more of the larger plans are taking advantage of QDIA safe-harbor protections, one in five plan sponsors overall say they have no default. Those without a default are less concerned with improving participation or helping participants with their investment decisions. They’re also less likely to know whether they are plan fiduciaries or not.

Time to transform your target-date offering.While most plans still use off-the-shelf target-date funds—prepackaged, proprietary mutual funds—larger plans are setting tomorrow’s standards today with various forms of customization, including the use of cost-reducing collective investment trusts (CITs) instead of mutual funds.

• Target-date funds with a guaranteed income stream are gaining appeal and interest among larger plan sponsors, and the vast majority said they’d consider adding such a solution at some point in the near future (Display).

Room for (investment lineup) improvement. Many plans now offer global bond funds, but less than half of DC plans include diversifiers, such as real estate investment trusts (REITs), commodities and liquid alternatives.

• Plan sponsors might consider incorporating diversifiers into their target-date fund glide paths to avoid any concerns of participants inadvertently allocating too much to these investments if they are on the core menu.

Fiduciary awareness is slipping. More than one-third of plan sponsors don’t realize they are fiduciaries, and that’s a higher percentage than we found in our 2011 survey.

• Sponsors from the largest plans and those that use a financial advisor or consultant have a better understanding and awareness of their fiduciary responsibilities than those who don’t use an advisor or consultant.

DB or not DB: that is the question. DC-only plans excel in participation rates, and their sponsors tend to be more concerned for participants’ preparedness for retirement.

• DC-only plans are more likely to offer target-date funds, and their sponsors tend to be happier with the current number of options offered in their plan. However, companies also offering DB plans (typically found among the larger retirement plans) use customized target-date funds more and are more concerned with keeping fees and expenses down.