401(k) Retirement Plans Tailored for Business Owners & Their Employees

Most business owners set up their 401(k) once and rarely look back. The plan runs quietly — payroll deductions go in, statements go out — while you focus on running the company. The problem is that quietly is exactly where hidden fees, underperforming funds, and unmet fiduciary obligations live. If your plan hasn't been independently reviewed recently, the numbers below likely apply to you.

• As a plan sponsor, you carry personal fiduciary responsibility for every investment decision inside your company's 401(k). Most small business owners don't realize that until something goes wrong.
• Plan fees, investment lineups, and participation rates are all benchmarkable. If your plan has never been reviewed against comparable plans, it's overdue.
• RetireReady NJ is now in effect. Employers who already offer a qualified plan are generally exempt — but the plan has to be properly structured to qualify.
• Adding a 3(38) fiduciary investment manager transfers discretionary investment responsibility to a credentialed third party. That's a meaningful reduction in your personal liability.
• Genesis works with small and mid-size businesses across South Jersey and the Greater Philadelphia area to build plans that work for employees — and protect the owners running them.

New Jersey requires most private employers to offer a retirement plan at work. If your business has 10 or more employees, has operated in New Jersey for at least two years and does not already offer a qualified retirement plan, you are required to either register with RetireReady NJ, the state's auto-enrollment Roth IRA program, or sponsor a qualified plan of your own.

Enrollment deadlines are phased in by business size, and the state has now published dates for the newly covered tiers. Businesses with 20 to 24 employees have an implementation deadline of December 1, 2026, with penalty exposure beginning if they have not registered before September 1, 2027. Businesses with 10 to 19 employees have an implementation deadline of February 17, 2027, with penalty exposure beginning if they have not registered before November 17, 2027.⁴

Notices are being mailed to newly covered employers, so many owners will hear from the state before their deadline arrives.

The good news: if your business already sponsors a 401(k) plan, or establishes one, you are exempt from the RetireReady NJ mandate entirely. A properly structured 401(k) does more than satisfy the state requirement. It does something the state program cannot: it lets you contribute as the employer, deduct those contributions, and design a plan your employees will actually use.

One important detail most employers get wrong: there is no hours test. Under the Affordable Care Act, a full-time employee is someone averaging at least 30 hours of service a week or 130 hours a month.⁶ RetireReady NJ has no comparable threshold. The statute counts any individual 18 or older who lives in New Jersey or is employed by a New Jersey employer, and whose wages are subject to New Jersey gross income tax withholding.⁵ Hours worked never enter into it, so part-time and seasonal staff count the same as full-time staff.

Independent contractors run the other way. A contractor you pay on a 1099 has no wages subject to New Jersey withholding, so that person is outside the definition and does not count toward your number.⁵ The same fact that keeps them out of the count also keeps them out of your plan: a 401(k) covers your common law employees, not the people you contract with. If you are relying on contractors to stay under 10, that is worth a careful look, because classification is the state's call and not yours.

Workers you bring on through an employee leasing company or a professional employer organization count as well. The statute treats a co-employed worker as employed by your business, not by the leasing company.⁵ The one place that cuts the other way: if that leasing company or PEO has sponsored a qualified plan for them within the past two years, your business falls outside the mandate.⁵ Many owners find they crossed the threshold years before they realized it once they count their full roster.

The statute sets out what non-compliance costs, and it escalates by the number of calendar years in which a violation occurred.⁷

State-mandated retirement programs are expanding across the country. If your business operates in multiple states, or if you are planning to grow, understanding which mandates apply to you is part of responsible planning.

The following states where our advisors are licensed have enacted or are advancing mandatory retirement plan laws as of September 2026:

Table reflects the states where our advisors are licensed and is provided for informational purposes only. State laws are subject to change. Consult your plan administrator or legal counsel for specific compliance questions.

RetireReady NJ was designed to give employees a starting point, not a comprehensive retirement plan. Here is how the state-run Roth IRA, the default plan with a Traditional IRA also available, compares to a properly designed 401(k) plan using 2026 contribution limits:

*Ages 60-63 may contribute up to $35,750 in employee deferrals in 2026 if the plan document allows the higher SECURE 2.0 catch-up.

The state program does remove one real burden, and it is worth being precise about which one. Under the Secure Choice Savings Program Act, a participating employer carries no liability for an employee's decision to join or opt out, and none for the program's investment decisions.⁸ That is a genuine benefit.

What it doesn't remove is the work, or the exposure attached to the work.

You still have to automatically enroll every employee who hasn't opted out, set up the payroll deposit arrangement, and remit the deductions on the state's schedule.⁹ In practice that means building and maintaining an employee census with full Social Security numbers, dates of birth and home addresses, connecting a business bank account, keeping your payroll schedules current, adding each new hire, and tracking who opted out and who never responded.

The statute puts a price on getting that wrong. An employer who fails without reasonable cause to enroll an employee who hasn't opted out receives a written warning in the first calendar year and a $100 fine in the second. In the third and fourth years it becomes $250 for each employee who was neither enrolled nor opted out, and $500 per employee in the fifth year and after. Collecting deductions and failing to remit them carries $2,500 for a first offense and $5,000 after that.⁷

So the trade is narrower than the word free suggests. You hand off investment liability. You keep the enrollment and remittance work, you keep the penalty exposure that rides along with it, and you give up the things a 401(k) makes possible: contributing as the employer, matching, and letting your people save well past an IRA limit.

Neither path is automatically the right one. It just deserves to be decided on the whole picture.

Being a plan fiduciary means you are responsible for:

• Selecting and monitoring plan investments on a prudent basis
• Ensuring plan fees are reasonable relative to the services provided
• Maintaining adequate plan documentation
• Acting consistently and in accordance with the plan document
• Benchmarking plan performance at regular intervals

The Department of Labor actively enforces these standards. A DOL audit of a non-compliant plan can cost employers $7,500 or more in professional fees and remediation — before any penalties are assessed.

"Most business owners don't realize they're personally liable for every investment inside their company's 401(k). That exposure is manageable — but only if someone's actually managing it."

— Scott Jones, BFA^™ CPFA^® CRPC^® RFC^®

Here is what working with Genesis Wealth Advisor Group looks like for plan sponsors:

Complimentary Plan Benchmarking
Before you spend another dollar on your current plan, let us benchmark it against comparable plans in your industry and size tier. We review investment expenses, administrative fees, fund lineup quality, and overall plan design — and deliver a clear, written assessment. This is the same type of review the Department of Labor expects you to conduct as a plan sponsor. We do it for you, at no charge.
Call our dedicated plan review line: 856.283.3959 ext. 301

DOL Audit Readiness and Documentation Guidance
Most plan sponsors only learn they have a documentation problem during an audit. We help you get ahead of it. We share sample DOL audit letters so you understand exactly what documentation the government may request — then we help you build and maintain the file that answers every question before it is asked.

Employee Financial Education — On-Site or Virtual
A retirement plan your employees understand is a retirement plan they use. We provide employee education meetings at least annually — available on-site at your location or virtually — covering financial planning, retirement income planning, Social Security claiming strategies, estate planning basics, investment fundamentals, and behavioral finance. This is not a pitch meeting. It is a working session your employees can apply immediately. 3(38), 3(21) and 3(16) Fiduciary Services

As a plan sponsor, one of the most significant fiduciary risks you carry is liability for investment decisions — and administrative exposure is right behind it. We help you address both:

• 3(38) investment manager (primary): A 3(38) fiduciary takes on full discretionary authority over plan investment decisions. This shifts the liability for investment selection away from you as the plan sponsor. We often recommend this structure and coordinate with qualified 3(38) managers on your behalf.
• 3(21) co-fiduciary (available): A 3(21) co-fiduciary provides investment recommendations and analysis; you retain final decision-making authority and share in the investment fiduciary responsibility.
• 3(16) plan administrator (available through TPA and bundled products): An appointed administrator takes on the day-to-day administrative fiduciary functions — plan document compliance, Form 5500 coordination, participant notices, and more — reducing your operational burden and administrative liability.

We discuss the right structure for your plan during your complimentary review.

Independent, Multi-Vendor Access
We are not captive to any single insurance company, mutual fund family, or record-keeper. That means when we evaluate plan providers — whether that is Fidelity, Betterment, Vanguard, Lincoln, Principal, 401Go, Empower, or another custodian — we are comparing them on your behalf, not on ours. You get our assessment of which platform best serves your employee population, their beneficiaries, your plan design goals, and your budget. 

Ongoing Fee Review
Plan fees are not a one-time conversation. We conduct ongoing reviews of your plan's expense structure to ensure fees remain reasonable as your plan grows and as market options evolve. If a better structure becomes available, we bring it to you.

"When I sit down with a business owner to review their 401(k), I always start with the same question: do you know what this plan is actually costing your employees? Most owners don't — not because they don't care, but because no one has ever laid it out for them clearly. Getting your plan right is not a compliance box to check. It is one of the most direct ways you can demonstrate that you value the people building this business with you."

— Scott Jones BFA^™ CPFA^® CRPC^® RFC^®, Founder, Genesis Wealth Advisor Group, LLC

"A well-designed plan is more than a benefit. It's a recruiting tool, a retention tool and a signal to your employees about how you run your business."

— Scott Jones, BFA^™ CPFA^® CRPC^® RFC^®

1. Source: Employee Fiduciary
2. Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office
3. Source: Pew Charitable Trusts
4. Source: New Jersey Department of the Treasury, Secure Choice Savings Program Board.
5. Source: New Jersey P.L. 2019, c.56, section 3 (C.43:23-15), definitions.
6. Source: Internal Revenue Service, Identifying Full-Time Employees.
7. Source: New Jersey P.L. 2019, c.56, section 19 (C.43:23-31).
8. Source: New Jersey P.L. 2019, c.56, section 17a.
9. Source: New Jersey P.L. 2019, c.56, sections 14b and 15.

Disclosure: The benchmarking, fiduciary services, and education referenced on this page are offered in the capacity of investment advisor and do not constitute legal advice. Plan sponsors should consult with qualified ERISA counsel for legal compliance matters.

Date Updated: September 8, 2026