Welcome.

FeatureHeld helps employees understand the features of their employer retirement plan in plain language. It compares what people believe about match, vesting, fees, and defaults to what the Summary Plan Description (SPD) actually says, then teaches the gaps and hands investment questions to a named adviser.

It matters because plan features only help when people know they exist and how they work. Measuring and closing that perception gap is FeatureHeld's one job.

Any company's SPD. An employer or adviser uploads that plan's SPD once in plan setup. FeatureHeld parses the features so each employee's pulse and gap report are plan-specific—not a generic template. This demo uses a synthetic sample SPD by default, and any company's SPD can be uploaded; the upload control lives on the Upload plan step (step 1).

Private preview, not for distribution.

Try the demo

Best place to start on your phone. Synthetic data only. No login. The demo runs in handoff order: employee home → Upload plan → Pulse → Gap report → Learn → Talk to an adviser, then the Employer dashboard.

Next: Open the employee demo

Demo mode on. Works on iPhone. No real plan data.

Where to upload your SPD

In the product, plan setup is an employer or adviser step—not something employees do during Learn. HR or the adviser uploads that company's SPD once per plan under Plan setup · Upload SPD. Employees then take the pulse against the parsed features.

In this phone demo, that setup screen is Step 1 (Upload plan). Open the demo, go to 1 Upload plan, and you will see the Upload SPD card at the top (demo defaults to a synthetic SPD; upload stays on-device).

Or jump to Upload plan (Upload SPD)

What you will do in 5 steps

Same order as the demo's step bar. The Employer dashboard comes after step 5.

Step 1

Upload plan

Employer or adviser uploads any company's SPD once (demo: synthetic sample, optional on-device upload). FeatureHeld turns it into plain-language features for that plan.

Step 2

Pulse

Answer a short set of questions about plan features. Sample answers available for a fast walkthrough.

Step 3

Gap report

Side by side: what you believed versus what the document says about match, vesting, fees, defaults, and eligibility.

Step 4

Learn

One feature per lesson. By age band and role only. Education, not advice.

Step 5

Talk to an adviser

Builds a calendar invite you can download. Nothing is auto-sent. Questions about what to buy go to the named adviser.

Glossary

Plain-English terms, A to Z (tap to expand)

401(k) plan: A workplace retirement savings plan. You save part of each paycheck into your own account, and many employers add a match. (403(b) and 457 plans are similar plans for nonprofits and governments.)
Adviser handoff: The last step of the demo. It builds a “Summary for your adviser” from your pulse and gaps, shared only if you choose, plus a calendar invite for a named, licensed adviser. Questions about what to invest in go to that adviser, not FeatureHeld.
Auto-enrollment: A plan rule that signs new employees up automatically at a set contribution rate unless they choose otherwise. The SPD says whether your plan does this and how to change it.
Beachhead: The first group of customers a new company focuses on before it expands.
Channel (partner): A company, such as an adviser firm, that introduces FeatureHeld to its own clients instead of FeatureHeld selling to each employer directly.
Cliff vs graded vesting: Two common ways employer contributions become yours over time. Cliff vesting: you own 0% until a set year, then 100% at once. Graded vesting: you own a rising percent each year until you reach 100%. Your plan SPD says which schedule applies.
Confidence badges: Labels on each fact read from an uploaded SPD. High: the parser found a clear rule in the right place. Check this: something looks off (for example, the quote looks like a worked example, or two numbers disagree), so compare it with the document. Not found: the document did not state it clearly. Every fact needs an OK (Confirm, Edit, or Not in this plan) before the pulse starts; edited facts show as Confirmed by employer.
Construct score: An average of related pulse answers on the 1 to 5 scale, such as your Features, Perception, or Access score. It summarizes a group of questions, not one answer.
Contribution limits: The yearly maximum the IRS allows you to put into the plan. Some SPDs state it; FeatureHeld shows it only when the document does.
Correlation (r): A number from −1 to 1 that shows how closely two measures move together. Values near 0 mean a weak link. A correlation does not show that one thing causes the other.
CSV: A plain spreadsheet file (comma-separated values) that opens in Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets. The employer dashboard uses it for the list of invite links.
DBA: Doctor of Business Administration, a doctoral degree. In “Dr. Johnny Bill Clark, DBA” it is the founder's degree, not “doing business as.”
Defaults: What happens if you don’t choose. The plan does some things automatically when you do not make a choice, such as auto-enrollment, a default contribution rate, or a default investment. The SPD should say what those defaults are and how you can change them.
Deferral: The part of your pay you choose to put into the plan. Also called a contribution.
Eligibility and entry date: Eligibility is the set of rules for when you can join the plan, such as age or time on the job. The entry date is the day you can actually start contributing.
Employer match: Money your employer adds to your account when you contribute. How your employer match works depends on a formula in the plan (for example, a percent of what you put in, up to a limit). The SPD states your plan’s formula.
Features, perception, and access (pulse scores): The three pulse scores. Features: how well you know what the plan offers. Perception: how you feel about the plan's quality and value. Access: how easy it is to find plan information or get help. They follow the three PQRP factors.
Fee disclosure: A separate plan notice that lists the plan's administrative fees and each fund's costs. The SPD often points to it for fund fees.
Fees: What it costs to run and invest in the plan, such as admin fees, investment expense ratios, and sometimes advice fees. The SPD and fee disclosures should say what you pay, who pays it, and how it is taken from your account.
Gap: The difference between what an employee believes about a feature and what the SPD actually says. Also called the perception gap.
Gap report: The step that shows what you believe next to what your plan says, feature by feature, and sizes each gap as none, small, medium, or large. Features the document does not mention are marked “not in document” and are not graded.
Invite link: A one-time link an employer sends to each employee for a live group pulse. Each link works once and is not tied to the answers that are shared.
JIG: Job in General. A licensed scale of overall job satisfaction used in Clark (2008), a study of professional employees. FeatureHeld does not sell or resell JIG. The demo pulse is a separate educational set, not the JIG scale.
Live group pulse: A pulse an employer runs with invite links. When they finish, employees choose to share their answers for combined group results or keep them on their phone only.
Loans (plan loans): Some plans let you borrow from your own account and repay it, usually through payroll. The SPD says whether your plan allows loans.
Moderation (moderator): When a third factor, such as age, changes how strong the link is between two other things. In Clark (2008), age shaped the link between perceived plan features and job satisfaction (p = .021).
NMA: National Management Association, a professional association whose members were the sample in the 2008 study.
On-device: Kept in this browser on your phone or computer. In the demo, answers and any uploaded SPD stay on the device and are not sent anywhere.
Plan setup · Upload SPD: The employer or adviser area where any company’s SPD is uploaded once per plan. Pulse and gap then use that plan’s parsed features—not a one-size-fits-all template.
Plan sponsor: The employer that offers the retirement plan to its employees and is responsible for it.
PQRP: Perceived Quality of Retirement Programs. How employees rate three things about their retirement plan: program features, program subjective perception (how they feel about its quality), and program accessibility (how easy it is to find and use). These are the three factors studied in Clark (2008) and the basis for the FeatureHeld pulse.
Pre-revenue: A company that has not yet earned money from sales.
Pulse: Your quick survey: a short set of questions that measures what employees believe about plan features.
p-value (p): A number that shows how likely a result this strong would be if there were no real effect. Smaller values mean the result is less likely to be chance.
Quick check: A pulse question that asks what you believe about a feature, such as your match or vesting. Your answer is compared with the SPD in the gap report.
Quick survey: Another name for the pulse. See pulse.
Recordkeeper: The company that keeps track of each person's account for the plan: contributions, investments, and balances.
Regression (hierarchical): A statistical method that adds factors in steps to see whether each new factor explains more about an outcome. The 2008 study used it to test whether age and gender changed the PQRP–job satisfaction link.
Response rate: The share of invited employees who completed the pulse: completed divided by invited.
Rollover: Moving retirement savings from one plan or account to another, for example when you leave a job. FeatureHeld does not recommend rollovers.
Small-group rule: A privacy rule for group results. If fewer than 5 people share, group results stay hidden. With 5 to 9, results show with a small-group caution. Any count under 5 inside a table is shown as “<5.”
SPD: Summary Plan Description (SPD). The plain-language booklet that explains how the retirement plan works for employees. It summarizes the legal plan document; if the two differ, the plan document generally controls.
SSN: Social Security number. FeatureHeld never asks for it.
Suggest an improvement: A link in the footer of every page. It opens an email to the FeatureHeld team in your own mail app, with the page and version filled in. You decide what to write and whether to send it. Nothing is stored on the site.
Summary for your adviser: The page built in the last demo step: your pulse scores, top gaps, lessons completed, and questions for the adviser. It is shared only if you choose, and it never includes investment advice, account numbers, balances, or holdings.
Synthetic SPD: Demo sample data only. Not a real employer's SPD.
UMI: The catalog number a published dissertation is filed under (University Microfilms International, now part of ProQuest). UMI 3302697 is the 2008 dissertation.
Vesting: When employer money becomes yours. Vesting is how much of your employer’s contributions you own, usually based on years of service. Money you contribute from your own pay is always yours. See also cliff vs graded vesting.
White-label: Selling another company's product under your own brand name.

Fences

Education only. No investment advice.
No retention or turnover promises.
No account numbers, logins, balances, or SSNs.
Demo uses a synthetic sample SPD by default; any company's SPD can be uploaded in plan setup.
Adviser booking builds a calendar invite. Nothing is auto-sent.