An Empower 401(k) advisor is the broker of record on a plan that uses Empower as its recordkeeper. A responsive one reviews investments, benchmarks fees, and supports your duty as a sponsor. A silent one may leave those tasks undone. Spotting the difference protects the plan and its savers.
What Does an Empower 401(k) Advisor Actually Do?
An Empower 401(k) advisor advises on the investment menu, benchmarks plan fees, documents fiduciary decisions, and helps participants understand their options. The role sits with the plan, not with Empower itself, which means service quality depends on the advisor your company hired, not the platform.
When a company runs a retirement plan through Empower, the recordkeeper handles statements, the participant website, and daily transaction processing. The advice layer is separate. That layer belongs to whoever your company named as the plan advisor or broker of record. When that person is engaged, you feel it in lower costs, a cleaner investment lineup, and clear answers. When they are absent, the plan can drift for years while the paperwork still carries their name. The first part of getting more from a workplace 401(k) plan is simply knowing who is responsible for it.
Why Many Plans Run Without Real Advice
Many plan sponsors assume the recordkeeper and the advisor are the same thing. They are not. It is common for a plan to be set up once and then left alone. The original advisor may have changed firms, retired, or simply stopped calling. Because the plan keeps running and statements keep arriving, nothing forces a review.
Years pass quietly. Fees that looked reasonable in 2015 may now sit above the market, and no one has benchmarked them. The investment menu may hold funds that no longer fit. This is a familiar pattern across workplace retirement plans, and it usually traces back to one cause: no one is accountable for looking.
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Five Signs Your Empower 401(k) Advisor Is Not Doing Enough
You do not need a forensic audit to gauge whether your plan is getting real attention. A few practical signs tell you most of what you need to know.
- Silence. You rarely or never hear from the advisor, and an annual review meeting does not happen.
- No fee benchmarking. No one has compared the plan’s costs against comparable plans in years.
- A frozen investment menu. The fund lineup looks the same as it did when the plan started, with no documented reason.
- Thin documentation. There is little written record of the decisions that protect you in your fiduciary role.
- No help for participants. High-balance savers have no one to call about their own accounts inside the plan.
Any one of these on its own is a flag worth raising. Three or more together point to a plan that is running on autopilot. At that stage, the real issue is fiduciary exposure, which is fundamentally a question of managing investment risk on behalf of the people relying on the plan.
How to Replace the Broker of Record on an Empower 401(k) Plan
If the signs above sound familiar, you are not stuck. The broker of record on an Empower 401(k) plan is a designation the sponsor controls, not Empower. Replacing it usually means signing a form that names the new advisor of record. Participant balances, the website, and daily processing continue without interruption. What changes is who is accountable for reviewing the plan.
A new advisor will typically open by examining how the investment lineup is built, then benchmark fees and rebuild the documentation trail. The point is not change for its own sake. It is restoring active oversight to a plan that may have lost it.
What Real Plan Oversight Should Look Like
Active oversight is not complicated, but it has to actually happen. A working Empower 401(k) advisor reviews the investment menu on a set schedule, benchmarks fees against comparable plans, and keeps written records of the decisions that support your fiduciary duty. The same discipline that guides individual portfolios, Preserve. Strengthen. Grow.™, applies to how a workplace plan is reviewed: protect the savers first, then improve the structure.
Some plans go a step further. A self-directed brokerage account is a plan design option the sponsor elects to offer, written into the plan document and supported by a fiduciary review. It lets high-balance participants reach a wider set of investments, and through a Schwab Personal Choice Retirement Account (PCRA), have those assets professionally managed without leaving the plan. Whether that fits depends on your participant base and goals.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Every Empower 401(k) Plan Come with an Advisor?
No. Empower provides recordkeeping. The advisor role is separate and depends on whether your company hired one. Some plans have an engaged advisor, some have a name on old paperwork, and some have none at all. Checking your plan documents or asking Empower will tell you which case applies.
How Do I Find Out Who Advises My Empower 401(k) Plan?
Start with your most recent plan statement or the plan’s annual fee disclosure, which often names the advisor of record. Your HR or benefits contact can also tell you. If no advisor is listed, the plan may be running without one.
What Does an Empower 401(k) Advisor Cost?
Advisor fees are usually paid from plan assets and disclosed in the plan’s fee documents. Costs vary with plan size and the services provided. The real question is not only the fee but whether the work behind it, the reviews, benchmarking, and documentation, is actually being done.
Can I Replace the Advisor on My Empower 401(k) Plan?
Yes. As the sponsor, you control the broker of record designation. Replacing the advisor generally means signing a form that names a new one. Participant accounts and daily processing continue without interruption while accountability shifts to the new advisor.
What Is a Broker of Record on a 401(k) Plan?
The broker of record is the advisor officially attached to the plan. The designation gives that advisor responsibility for servicing the plan and entitles them to any advisor compensation tied to it. The sponsor names the broker of record and can change it.
How Often Should a 401(k) Advisor Review the Plan?
Many plans benefit from a formal review at least once a year, with investment monitoring more often. A yearly meeting covers fund performance, fee benchmarking, and fiduciary documentation. If your plan has not had a review like this recently, that gap is worth addressing.
Is a Self-Directed Brokerage Account Right for Our Plan?
It can be, for plans whose participants want more investment choice. It is a plan design option the sponsor elects to offer after a fiduciary review, and it suits plans with high-balance savers who want professional management or a wider menu. You can read more about a self-directed brokerage account inside a 401(k). For a deeper look, see our guide to 401(k) Plan Review & Benchmarking.
