The curve, a homerun, a mistake, and an epiphany. Then, redux.

The Curve.?? Like many companies, COVID accelerated Montion Picture Industry Pension & Health Plan's (MPI’s) technology journey, and the purpose of this expose is to describe one such 2020 story and its redux in 2023.? The Board passed a new temporary benefit allowing for a hardship withdrawal from a participant’s Individual Account Plan account, its defined contribution plan. ?The maximum amount of withdrawal was the lesser of 20% of the participant’s balance or $20,000.? There are other parameters, e.g., tax gross-up, income tax withholding, etc., that aren’t necessary for the instant purpose.? Approved in the third week of March, new benefit was to be available from May 1, 2020 through December 31, 2020.?

The Homerun.? Upon approval, as we were analyzing the approaches, it quickly became very clear that set-up for manual interactions would be nearly impossible, and, if it were feasible, it would take about 35 temporary personnel to handle the initial surge.? If we could automate most of these tasks, these costs could be avoided.? We embarked on a fast-tracked project that included:? requirements for desktop, laptop and mobile devices, prompt for address correction which was fetched (and changed if necessary) real-time, a new adaptive interview eForm, on the fly real-time computational interface, receivable functionality in the pension system, new reporting, new website landing page, and a new RPA bot to retrieve the form, index it and file it in the ECM system. This project went from approval to production in an astoundingly short 5 weeks.? Putting it up wasn’t the homerun; the results were: over 7,500 participants took advantage of the program and $107.3 million was distributed to people in need, e.g., saving their homes from foreclosure.

The Mistake. ??In a subsequent one-on-one meeting with the CEO, there was a discussion where I was describing all the tools that were in place enabling that result.? I started by saying, “We were lucky that we had in place…” and then listed several enabling tools.? After listing them, the CEO looked at me and said, “That wasn’t luck”.? ?

The Epiphany.? The CEO’s comment was an epiphany, a real “ah-ha” moment.? After reflecting on this, I ended up authoring a memo to the Administrative Committee of the Board “connecting the dots” of previously funded projects that enabled the outcome.? Recently, I read a Harvard Business Review article entitled, “How High Achievers Overcome Their Anxiety” (March-April 2023).? The article lists 11 “thought traps” (cognitive distortion or thinking errors) and “discounting the positive” is one of them.? It is also the example cited herein.? The article also suggests techniques for dodging such thought traps.

Redux.? In the summer of 2023, in the face of strikes in the entertainment industry (writers, then actors) the Board again approved a hardship withdrawal.? While mostly the same, there were some changes for a few reasons: first, the Government did not waive the 10% penalty on the withdrawal for participants under 55?, there is no requirement for repayment and the forms vendor was changed.? Another resounding success; as of this writing, about half-way through the benefit’s live, about 7,600 people have $112.4 million in relief.

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?Author:

Joel Manfredo, MBA, MS (Finance)

Chief Information, Innovation and Digital Officer

MPI | MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY PENSION & HEALTH PLANS

Phone: 818.769.0007 x2400 | [email protected] | mpiphp.org

Sarah Richardson,?Lance Ralls,?Howard Miller, MBA, PMP, CISM, CRISC,?Lea Eriksen,?Kevin Gray,?Berhanu Tadesse,?Jake Westphal,?Michael Olinger,?Greg Geary,?Thomas Phelps,?David O'Brien, MBA, CHCIO, HCISPP,?Tina Machi, MSIT,?Joel Manfredo, MBA, MS (Finance),?Nancy Kim-Yun,?Beth Hilbing,?Todd Britton, EdD,?George Sheth, MBA, FHIMSS,?Kathy Lomax,?Al Castro,?John Buccola,?YuChih Liou,?Rich Lindberg,?John Manzanares,?Kathy Linares,?David Buckholtz,?Grant Anderson,?Simona M. Lovin, MBA, PMP,?Gary Zorko,?Harry Cometa,?Atul Anand,?Meg Richard