Please read and then answer the following 3 questions BASED on the retirement plan at Columbus Custom Carpentry.

All answers to the following questions should be analyzed and answered with a MINIMUM of 2-4 paragraph discussion each including 3-5 full sentences.

Retirement Plan

Columbus Custom Carpentry offers employees a retirement program called a 401(k)

plan. This plan helps employees save for retirement through payroll deductions and

supports employees efforts with company-matching funds. Employee savings in the

401(k) are deducted before tax, resulting in more money going into your account

than the amount of reduction in your take-home pay. The company match is 100

percent of the first 2 percent of savings and 50 percent for 3-4 percent of savings,

then 25 percent for 5-6 percent contributed. Employee contributions are held in a

trust separate from company assets, except in the brief period between deduction

and transfer to the investment company. The company match becomes vested (the

employee earns an unrestricted right to the money) based upon years of service.

After two years, the employee is 40 percent vested, 60 percent after three years, 80

percent after four years and 100 percent after five years of service. Employees must

complete one year of service to be eligible. See the plan document for more details.

While there is no indication in the notes how many employees are currently participating in the plan, for this review let us assume 50% of the employees are participating with 60% being exempt and 40% being hourly. Retirement costs on page 23 show all workers category to be 4.0% of benefits for retirement

1. What possible reasons could there be for the limited participation?
2. What would you do, not increasing company costs, that might increase participation?
3. In reviewing the other type of retirement plans listed in the text, are there other plans that might be of better benefit to the company and to the employees?