Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Wins Prestigious National Award for Employee Benefit Plan

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For Immediate Release

Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh Wins Prestigious National Award for Employee Benefit Plan

Pittsburgh, Pa. - October 22, 2004 -

Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh has won a Signature Award from the Profit Sharing/401(k) Council of America (PSCA) for a program the hospital initiated last year to educate employees about its new retirement and investment plan.

Children's was announced as a Signature Award winner at the 57th annual PSCA National Conference held Sept. 29 - Oct. 1, 2004, in New Orleans. This year's PSCA awards competition included 250 entries in 16 categories from 167 different organizations, with a first-place winner in each category. Signature Awards recognize excellence in plan communication and investment education in profit sharing plans.

Children's won in the category of "Complete Campaign under 5,000 employees," for its partnership with Financial Finesse, an organization that provides unbiased financial education and resources to Children's more than 2,700 employees.

"At Children's, we're internationally known for providing children and their families with world-class pediatric health care. But we're also one of Pittsburgh's most consistent and well-respected employers over the last century," said Carlo A. Oliverio, Vice President of Human Resources at Children's. "We instituted the Financial Finesse program because our employees and their families are as important to us as the patients we care for every day."

In 2003, Children's converted a small portion of staff from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan and simultaneously enhanced several components of the defined contribution plan. Together, Children's Human Resources Division and Financial Finesse created an extensive, hospital-wide initiative to educate staff on the conversion to the defined contribution plan, the plan design changes and to re-engage employees who were not participating in the hospital matching contribution program and the tax sheltered annuity program. This initiative included personal financial consultations, retirement planning kits and materials, work-shops, telephone-based financial counseling and online content.

Working with Financial Finesse, Children's results included:

transition to the new plan with no complaints and many positive comments from employees.
increased overall participation from 20 to 41 percent.
increased participation for vested employees from 33 to 56 percent.
100 percent of program attendees said they would recommend the financial training.
98 percent said they were better prepared to make financial decisions.
97 percent indicated they would increase deferrals and alter allocation strategy.

Contacts:
Marc Lukasiak, 412-692-5016, Marc.Lukasiak@chp.edu
Melanie Finnigan, 412-692-5016, Melanie.Finnigan@chp.edu

Last Update
February 19, 2008

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