May 2022 Edition

Talking about wellness means talking about every aspect of health: physical, mental and financial. None of these aspects can be overlooked since they’re all interconnected.

In 2022, the research firm Advanis conducted a survey in collaboration with Desjardins Insurance. The survey showed that Canadians are worried about their overall wellness. More than 50% of Canadians are stressed about their finances and around 40% of the population admitted to being concerned about their physical and mental health. Interestingly, financially wealthy respondents are more likely to feel physically (72%) and mentally (72%) fit. This study confirmed the impact of financial health on physical and mental health.

That’s why we’re offering webinars and educational resources to plan members to empower them to take control of their finances and reduce their stress levels throughout the year.

In May, we’ll be reaching out to plan members with ways to improve their overall well-being:

1. Plan members will receive an email with different tips to reduce financial stress.
2. They’ll also have access to a new article on using their tax refunds to enhance their quality of life.

Our commitment to the well-being of plan members also benefits employers like you, as healthy employees contribute to a healthy business.

On June 21 and 22, 2022, we’ll be holding the first sessions of our new webinar Budget Management 2.0: Boost your financial health with healthy spending habits. This course is for plan members who want to learn how to better manage debt.

The following webinars will also be available in June:

• Budget 2.0: Enrich your life with a sound cash flow action plan (June 2)
• Responsible investment: positive results for you and the planet (June 7)
• Converting your savings into retirement income (June 15)

Our live webinars are offered to plan members free of charge. To sign up, they can just:

• Log on to their Group retirement savings account via the Omni app or dfs.ca/GroupPlanMember External link. Opens in a new window.
• Go to the Wellness Centre
• Under Education Centre, click Available webinars
• Select the webinar(s) of interest
• Click the arrow next to the webinar of interest

An invitation will be sent to your plan members at the end of May encouraging them to sign up for this new webinar.

Feel free to share information regarding webinars with your plan members!

As of June 11, 2022, employees who haven’t yet enrolled in their plan, and plan members who haven’t yet enrolled in all plans offered can expect a more intuitive and mobile-friendly experience, if they have access to online enrolment.

From the moment they log on to their account, our virtual guide, Penny, will walk them through the entire enrolment process including setting their financial goals, choosing their investment instructions and entering their contribution rate (if permitted under their plan).

Overall wellness

These improvements are a key step in our Goal Based Advice approach, which follows a new philosophy. Plan members no longer simply enrol in a plan; they set goals and make decisions to achieve them.

We want to support plan members with goals other than retirement. That’s why our suggestions will help them distribute their savings across their financial goals and help them understand how it will impact their retirement.

This approach is part of how we see overall wellness. We want to increase our plan members’ engagement and readiness for retirement. And studies have proven that when people are involved in their own retirement planning, they get better results than those who delegate it all to someone else.

Have questions? Contact your client relationship manager or call Plan Sponsor Services.

We’ll start producing the June financial statements shortly. To ensure your plan members receive their paper or e-statements, their postal and email addresses must be up to date in our systems. You can help us out by reminding your employees to change their addresses themselves on the plan member site via dfs.ca/GroupPlanMember or with the Omni Desjardins app, or by doing it for them on the plan sponsor site.

Plan member site Opens in a new window. or with the Omni app: When logged on, your plan members can update their addresses by clicking My profile in the top right corner of their screen, and then Edit in the Information box.

Plan sponsor site Opens in a new window.: Click Log on and then select Group retirement savings. Enter your user ID and password. Once you’re on the secure site's home page, click Participant management, search for the person whose address has changed and make the necessary corrections.

If you have a lot of changes to make, you can send them to us in a standard demographic file.

Thank you for helping us keep your plan members’ information up to date.

For more details, please contact your client relationship manager or call Plan Sponsor Services at 1-888-510-4762.

To make sure you can leave work behind without worry:

1. Fill out the Request to grant or revoke access to plan information and plan members’ personal information form (PDF, 1,4 MB) Opens in a new window. to designate a replacement and give them access to the plan sponsor site.

You need to complete this authorization form so that your backup can be issued their own user ID. For security reasons, don’t share your user ID. If your replacement forgets your user ID, and then calls us for help, we won’t be able to do anything if they’re not in our system.

2. Train your backup so they can do:

• Enrolments
• Updates to personal information
• Terminations
• Contribution remittances

To help you train your backup, refer to the administrative guide available on the Plan sponsor site Opens in a new window.

• Click Log on
• Select Group retirement savings
• Enter your user ID and password
• Click Guides and procedures

Since April 11, our new address for courier shipments such as ICS and Purolator is:

Group retirement savings
200, rue des Commandeurs
Lévis QC
G6V 6R2

All courier shipments sent to and received at the old address after May 30, 2022, will be redirected to Lévis, resulting in additional processing time.

Note that our mailing address remains the same:

Desjardins Insurance
Group retirement savings
PO BOX 1355 Station Desjardins
Montreal QC
H5B 1C4

Over the coming months, Fidelity will be making several changes to the strategic asset allocation of its ClearPath target date funds’ mutual and institutional series. In summary, the changes will involve:

• The addition of long-term Canadian government bonds and global developed markets sovereign bonds
• The refinement of exposure in inflation-linked bonds by introducing global inflation-linked bonds and reducing the weighting of Canadian Real Return bonds
• The reduction of weighting in Canadian investment grade bonds and Canadian money market assets

With the added diversification, the fund manager looks to improve portfolio resiliency in distinct market environments that may emerge, especially for investors nearing or in retirement.

For more information about these changes, do not hesitate to communicate with your client relationship manager.

On April 7, 2022, Franklin Asset Advisors announced the departure of Greg Wilkinson, manager of the FGRAF fund, effective June 2022, as well as the closure of its regional offices in Asia. Greg orchestrated the launch of the fund in collaboration with Desjardins Insurance.

Andrew Knox will manage the FGRAF fund with the help of a small team in Calgary and will be supported by resources in the New York office and in Europe to cover the underlying managers.

On April 7, 2022, Lazard Asset Management announced the retirement of Ashish Bhutani, Chief Executive Officer, on June 1, 2022. Ashish will be replaced by Evan Russo, who has served as CFO since 2017.

On April 14, 2022, Mawer announced the departure of Nadine Krenosky, Head of Global Compliance and CCO, along with some changes made to its global equity team:

• Manar Hassan-Agha, Equity Analyst, is joining the team.
• Stanislav Lopata, Equity Analyst, is no longer part of the team.
• Peter Lieu, Private Equity Portfolio Manager, Daniel Lee, Equity Trader, Asim Hussain and Michael Vogel, Equity Analysts, were hired.

On April 7, 2022, BlackRock announced that its LifePath^® target date fund investment team is looking to evolve the portfolio construction approach to address risks and opportunities related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria.

In the late second half of 2022, this team will begin to transition the equity components of the LifePath Index target date fund suites to include sustainable building blocks.

More specifically, the team will begin to transition the current market cap weighted equity building blocks to ESG-optimized equity indices covering the same asset classes and geographies.

More details will follow as we get closer to the official transition date.