The 4D Framework
The Roland|Criss 4D FrameworkTM signifies a fundamental change in the way employee benefit plans achieve effectiveness.
Our Firm’s Practice
We help employers function, adapt, and evolve in an increasingly complex environment so they can produce the best results for their employees and their enterprises, whether it be through the administration of employee benefit plans, auditing of support systems like payroll and vendors’ fees, monitoring service providers’ cybersecurity networks, or tailoring control frameworks that underpin retirement plans.
Our Approach to Risk Advisory
Retirement Plans
As an independent ERISA 3(16) plan administrator, we blend a comprehensive governance, risk management, and compliance framework with years of frontline experience to relieve clients of regulatory and legal risks, and maximize the performance of their plans’ service providers.
Investment Risk
By integrating with our GRC framework, our clients’ modernize their investment decision-making practices for their retirement and pension plans and align fees with the new pricing paradigm.
Third-Party Risk Management
We help clients select and monitor the vendors that serve their retirement, pension, healthcare, and welfare benefit plans by evaluating the quality of their services and the reasonableness of their fees.
Cybersecurity
We provide fiduciary committees with the risk assessments, procedures, and AI-enabled vendor monitoring they need to manage their role as the main guarantor of the security of benefit plan assets and data. Our assessments adhere to guidelines issued by the Employee Benefits Security Administration (“EBSA”) and standards published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (“NIST”).
Payroll Risk Management
We help clients avoid the threat payroll errors pose to the accuracy of their retirement plans through independent verification and reconciliation.
Healthcare & Welfare Plan Compliance
Our assessments of service providers to healthcare and welfare plans help our clients comply with regulations enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor.
Empowering Leaders
We initiated this online forum to enable collaboration among executives who appreciate employee benefit plan risks and strive to reduce them through knowledge and tactics. Participation is available for members of committees that oversee retirement, pension, healthcare, and welfare plans.
Cybersecurity and ERISA plan management
In the face of an exploding number of cybersecurity breaches of employers’ in-house IT systems, retirement plan recordkeepers, payroll services, and healthcare providers, the standard of care for qualified employee benefit plans has jumped.
Cybersecurity is a fiduciary obligation
Ensuring best practices requires professional assessment and state-of-the-art cyber skills.
The EBP Cybersecurity Forum
Focused exclusively on cybersecurity for employee benefit plans (“EBP”), Forum members get concise frequent digests, articles, tips, regulatory documents, and research that’s hard to find elsewhere.
Join the forum.
Stewardship maturity in HR
Human resources leaders occupy a critical stewardship role; their maturity in that position is vital to millions of participants and their beneficiaries in 401(k), 403(b), and health and welfare plans.
Our focus on fiduciary excellence
Providing assurance and building trust among your board members and your employees in a risky world.
Independent administration and compliance
What can you do to lighten your retirement plan operations burden and regulatory risk exposure?
Employees are asking questions about costs
Is your enterprise able to make a convincing case for the fairness of its retirement plan fees? Roland|Criss can help you provide a credible answer.
Modernizing employee benefit plan oversight
Roland|Criss’ resource for streamlining operations and ensuring your compliance with fiduciary standards.
Why investment decision-making is not easy
Making decisions about investments can be difficult, in part because of the selection of money managers and investment advisors. Seeking advice from a second source might be wise.
How to maintain assurance
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”) does not describe how to satisfy its vague fiduciary principles, so how do employee benefit plan managers know if they’re doing the right things the right way?
The investment policy audit
An annual audit of the investment policy that supports a retirement or pension plan has eight key objectives.
The Deep End of the Vendor Pool
Changes in regulatory rules and guidelines expand the categories of vendors who fall within an employer’s duty to monitor service providers for their qualified employee benefits plans.
The Roland|Criss Podcast →
Welcome to the Excellent Fiduciary Podcast, where you will hear interviews with experts in legal, risk management, and employee benefit plan operations and best practices.
Roland|Criss Webinars →
Join our experts for the latest on tactics for meeting regulatory and risk management challenges head on.
