Employer News: April 2023

As a HOOPP employer, you can take pride in knowing that your organization helps provide its employees with a secure monthly income in retirement. Together, we offer your employees pension peace of mind. While 2022 presented many challenges for investors, including HOOPP, we were able to keep the Plan strong and pensions secure.

Funded status remains strong

Despite posting an investment return of -8.6% for 2022 (our first negative annual return since 2008), the Plan ended the year more than fully funded at 117%. This means that the Plan has $1.17 in assets for every $1 that is owed in pensions. This is a key indicator of the Plan’s health and ability to pay pensions to members, today and in the future.

HOOPP continues to improve Plan benefits

The ongoing strength of the Plan has helped make it possible for the Board of Trustees to:

• approve a pension increase for active members through a benefit improvement, effective Jan. 1, 2023; this builds on previous enhancements approved by the Board in 2018 and 2021
• keep the Plan affordable for members and employers by keeping contribution rates unchanged until at least 2024

To help you share this information with your employees, we’ve prepared sample content, available in English and French, that you can post on your intranet. It will direct employees to our 2022 Highlights.

Additionally, each year, the HOOPP Board of Trustees reviews a number of factors when considering whether to provide a cost of living adjustment (COLA) to members. To help retired and deferred members’ pensions keep up with rising prices, HOOPP’s Board approved cost-of-living adjustments of 4.8%, effective April 1, 2022, and 6.32% effective April 1, 2023.

If you would like more detailed information about HOOPP’s results, you can view our 2022 Highlights.

HOOPP is committed to providing you with year-round support through service and education to help you administer the Plan and communicate the value of HOOPP to your employees. Thank you for your continued partnership in administering HOOPP and support for sharing communication resources with your employees, which can give them the peace of mind they deserve.

Here are some useful resources you can share with your employees:

Pension webinars

HOOPP’s popular pension webinars are part of our ongoing member support and education. These webinars are one of the ways we educate members about the features and value of their HOOPP pension. Our goal is to provide our members with the information they need to make good decisions about their future.

HOOPP offers three different member webinars:

• HOOPP Overview: Understanding your pension
  Members will learn more about their pension, along with key benefits and features of the Plan and how our educational resources and pension experts can guide them.
• HOOPP Connect, your secure online member site
  Members will learn how their secure member site can help them see pension estimates, update their information, and more.
• Are you getting retirement ready?
  Members will learn about planning for retirement, the value of their HOOPP pension, ways to maximize it, how our educational resources and pension experts can guide them, and more.

To make it easy for you to promote these webinars to your employees, we provide a variety of materials including posters, intranet content and email communications in both English and French. Please visit your employer resource page for more information and to download these promotional materials.

35,000 decisions in a day: New video showcases the value of HOOPP

The average person makes 35,000* decisions in a day, but for members, some of the most complex decisions are taken care of because they have HOOPP.

To help you share the value of a HOOPP pension with your employees, we created this fun and engaging video based on the '35,000 decisions a day' concept. Whether your employees are current HOOPP members or you're educating part-time and other non-full-time employees about the benefit of becoming one, this video will help demonstrate the value of belonging to a strong Canada-model defined benefit pension plan, like HOOPP.

We are pleased to provide you with intranet content to promote this video to your employees that can be accessed and downloaded here.

*Some in the scientific community (Krockow, E. (2018). How Many Decisions Do We Make Each Day? ) estimate the average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day. Others might disagree. No matter the number of decisions you make in a day, how HOOPP members save for their future still isn't one of them.

Expert Corner

The recently launched Expert Corner is a space where HOOPP and industry experts share insights and tips to help your employees make informed decisions today so they can enjoy financial security tomorrow. Here, they will learn about topics such as financial planning, retirement planning, taxes, budgeting, and more.

We encourage you and your employees to subscribe to the Expert Corner for regular email notifications when new content is posted. We also ask that you share this promotional article with your employees and social networks to help us spread the word.

We’re here to help

HOOPP works hard to support our members and employers with information and guidance related to our Plan and retirement security. You play a critical role on that front by helping promote and give more visibility to the information we provide. Thank you for your assistance!

At HOOPP, we continue to improve our services and offerings to provide more value to you and your employees. We are currently working on enhancing the enrolment experience, including a new HOOPP Handbook, as well as updated online educational resources. To help your members connect with their pension early in their careers, we will also be requesting their email address as a mandatory field during the enrolment process.

The new, streamlined HOOPP Handbook will highlight the main features of the pension and continue to demonstrate the value of HOOPP. It will also direct members to additional resources on hoopp.com as we continue to see our member population embrace digital communications and utilize our website to access education, guidance and other resources.

As a participating employer, it is your responsibility to provide all eligible employees with a copy of the Handbook within 30 days of starting work. Please note that as part of the changes we are making and to reduce the amount of print communications, HOOPP will no longer send a second copy of the Handbook as part of our enrolment package.

Collecting email addresses during the enrolment process will help us fulfil our commitment to serving our members and keeping them informed as we evolve our online services and serve our members digitally.

Please note that a personal email is preferred. However, if only a work email address is available, please provide it and encourage your employees to provide their personal email address and mobile number on HOOPP Connect to ensure they receive important information from HOOPP.

We thank those of you who have already been including your employee’s email address during enrolment and appreciate your continued support. Your assistance helps us meet the evolving needs of our membership and allows us to communicate faster through a secure communication channel as we continue to transition to digital member communications.

HOOPP is committed to expanding and broadening pension coverage for healthcare organizations and workers across the province. That’s why we are excited by the addition of Carefor, Eastern Ontario's largest and oldest charitable, non-profit home health care and community support service organization, who joined our Plan in January 2023. The addition of Carefor showcases our continued focus on providing access to retirement security across Ontario’s diverse healthcare sector.

HOOPP’s growth benefits your organization

The addition of Carefor provides you with greater access to healthcare workers who are already part of the Plan and want to remain a member throughout their working lives. It also increases the Plan’s value for your employees because it provides them with greater flexibility during their working years.

Belonging to an extensive network of 630+ employers where employees can contribute to HOOPP and prepare for a financially secure retirement will also help build your reputation as an employer of choice. And, by offering HOOPP to your employees, they belong to a strong Canada-model pension plan, benefit from more options to grow their pension and can look forward to a reliable retirement income for life.

We are passionate about pensions and delivering on our pension promise to members across Ontario. To accomplish that, we are committed to expanding and broadening pension coverage for healthcare organizations across the province’s continually changing healthcare landscape.

The Bulletin Board includes reminders, the latest updates and a sneak peek at what’s to come.

Coming soon

Sign up for our upcoming employer education webinar

The next In the loop with HOOPP webinars will cover HOOPP's 2022 financial results, our recently launched climate change plan, enhancements to data security for HOOPP Insight, important administrative reminders and how we support you, Q&A and more. The webinars are scheduled for May 3, 4 and 8.

Reserve your spot today

HOOPP Insight email notifications

You asked about receiving a notification when a secure message is sent to you on HOOPP Insight and we listened. Coming this fall, you will receive an email notification whenever a new secure message has been sent to you through HOOPP Insight. We are happy to provide this new feature which is the result of your feedback on how we can serve you better.

Important housekeeping items

Employer multi-factor authentication (MFA) is almost here

Building and retaining your trust by ensuring the confidentiality, integrity and security of your employees’ data are top priorities for HOOPP. A key part of securing that data is managing access to that information. That’s why we will introduce an additional verification step when logging in to HOOPP Insight.

MFA is a simple and effective way to prevent unauthorized account access. After it launches, you will be required to enter your username and password, as you do today, followed by a verification code that will be sent to your email address.

In addition to MFA, we will continue to monitor employer access to HOOPP Insight and will contact those with individuals that have not recently accessed the site.

Termination and rehiring guidelines reminder

Employees may only access their HOOPP benefit options following a termination of employment or retirement. If a member chooses to resign or retire from your organization, or if you exit a member from your organization, you have an obligation to report the termination to HOOPP. However, a termination or retirement event should not be reported to HOOPP when:

• arrangements have been made for the member to return to your workplace
• the member transfers from one position to another within your organization
• the member is disputing their termination of employment

For more information, please reference our Employer Administration Manual, section 8 – termination.

PSPA letters and tax slips

Last year, we announced that eligible members active in the Plan on or after January 1, 2023, will receive a larger lifetime pension for each year of contributory service before 2023. That means these members will receive even more from their pension.

Since member pension benefits have been improved on a past-service basis, a past service pension adjustment (PSPA) will be reported to the CRA using data from your member data collection (MDC) submission. A letter and tax slip has been sent to all members that informs them about the PSPA. No action is required by members.

This PSPA will reduce eligible members’ RRSP deduction limit for 2024 and, in turn, the amount they will be eligible to contribute to their RRSP.