Ten years is a long time—and in the decade since the passage ofthe Pension Protection Act, defined-contribution plans have changedsubstantially in structure even as the part they play in Americans'retirement has also changed—from a supporting role to the mainact.

Now that DC plans have stepped up from being a supplementalsavings vehicle to being the primary retirement savings vehiclemany employees rely on, a Willis Towers Watson paper has analyzed DCplans with an eye toward seeing how well they have done at keepingup with the transformation.

In so doing, WTW has identified five steps plan sponsors can useto “get back to the basics” by reevaluating existing governancestructures and processes currently in place in their plans,followed by five steps sponsors should take to help their plans get“back to the future,” using best practices to make sure planscontinue to evolve. Here they are below.