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

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

In so doing, WTW has identified five steps plan sponsors can use to “get back to the basics” by reevaluating existing governance structures 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 plans continue to evolve. Here they are below.