Your Dell Technologies Benefits & Career: Financial Planning for Employees and Executives

Do you work at Dell Technologies? Get the resources you need and expert insights from financial professionals who specialize in helping Dell Technologies employees make the most of their compensation package and benefits.

Whether you’re a new Dell Technologies employee or you’ve moved up the ranks into a management or executive leadership role over a multi-year career, it’s important to make smart money moves with your income and employee benefits. For example:

✅ Do you know the right moves to make to get the greatest value from the Dell Technologies benefits available to you?

✅If you’re thinking about leaving Dell Technologies for another job or planning to retire from the company in a few years, are you taking the right steps today to ensure you will receive all of the compensation and benefits that you’ve earned?

Get the Most Value from Your Dell Technologies Benefits and Compensation Package

Throughout the year, Dell Technologies provides its employees and executives with updates about their benefits ranging from health insurance and health savings plans to retirement plans like a 401(k), deferred compensation plans, and stock options. While the company offers many useful resources and access to knowledgeable staff who can assist with questions, you’ll also find financial professionals not affiliated with Dell Technologies who specialize in helping Dell Technologies employees make the most of their income and benefits.

Whether you work in the Dell Technologies headquarters in Round Rock, Texas, another office location around the country, or remotely from home, you may have questions about your compensation package and benefits better suited for a financial professional who can offer unbiased advice and guidance.

For example, sensitive topics like discussing the steps you should take before quitting your job at Dell Technologies to work elsewhere, protecting yourself in advance of a corporate layoff, or deciding when you should plan to retire are all conversations that may be more comfortable with a trusted financial advisor.Should you hire a Dell Technologies specialist financial advisor or an advisor close to home?

💡 In the Q&A below, you’ll gain insights from financial advisors who work with Dell Technologies employees to help them make smart decisions to get the most value from their compensation and benefits, reduce their money stress, and prepare for a comfortable retirement.

🙋‍♀️ Do you have questions not yet answered? Please reach out to the financial advisors below to set up an introductory call or contact them with your questions by email.

Q&A: Financial Planning Tips For Dell Technologies Employees & Executives

Answers to Dell Employee Questions with Emily Rassam and Richard Archer (Archer Investment Management)

With a focus on serving professionals in the technology industry, the financial advisors at Archer Investment Management help their clients get the most value from their benefits and compensation package so they can enjoy life and feel confident about their financial future. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas, respectively, Emily Rassam and Richard Archer specialize in offering financial planning services to Dell Technologies employees.

Q: As a financial advisor with experience helping Dell Technologies employees save for their retirement, how do you help them make the most of their employee benefits?

Emily: At Archer Investment Management, we specialize in working with mid-career technology professionals. We have several Dell Technologies employees as clients and are familiar with the company’s employee benefit plans, retirement plans, equity compensation packages, and ancillary benefits.

More importantly, we are acutely aware of the financial planning needs of technology professionals and how their Dell benefits fit into an overall financial plan, including long-term planning, goal setting, tax planning, and estate planning. We start by building a financial personality profile and risk tolerance assessment to understand your relationship with money and your comfort level with risk.

Q: When you first speak with a Dell Technologies employee, what questions do you like to ask to better understand their unique circumstances and determine how you can best help them achieve their goals?

Richard: Our detailed onboarding process includes conversations about your life goals, how your finances play a role in maximizing happiness, and what it means to be intentional with money. We gather information about your benefits and compensation package, spending plan, short-term and long-term goals, taxes, estate plans, and insurance.

This detailed planning process allows us to build a comprehensive picture of your financial life and how each piece of the puzzle fits together. You cannot make recommendations without examining the whole picture.

Q: Is there a particular benefit available to Dell Technologies employees you feel isn’t as well utilized or understood by employees as it should be?

Richard: As you are enrolling in the 401(k) plan, you will want to evaluate if the Roth 401(k) savings feature is beneficial for you. This after-tax savings option is often underutilized at Dell. At a minimum, consider contributing 6% for the match or up to $7,500 per year if making over $125,000 per year (once the match is no longer suspended).

Q: Beyond Dell Technologies employee benefits for retirement savings, are there other types of benefits offered by the company that you find valuable to discuss with your clients (e.g., stock, education savings, health savings)?

Emily: Dell offers a commuter benefits program to defer pre-tax dollars into a Smart-Choice account to cover commuting costs. For every $100 Dell employees spend on commuting, they are potentially able to save $25-$30 on taxes. Included with this benefit are vouchers for employees to utilize a bicycle to commute to work.

Get to Know Emily Rassam, Financial Advisor for Dell Technologies Employees:

View Emily’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit her website to learn more.

Q: For Dell Technologies employees thinking about leaving the company to accept a job elsewhere, what actions do you recommend they take before resigning and shortly thereafter?

Emily: Your matched 401(k) dollars are 100% vested from day one. However, you may have received employee stock options or restricted stock units (RSUs) that are unvested. Look carefully at the dates on your grants and vesting schedules to determine when each RSU grant vests; this may impact your timing to leave Dell – you don’t want to leave any money on the table! You have 90 days after departing the company to exercise your stock options. Work with an advisor to determine which grants to exercise and the best way to fund this purchase.

Q: For Dell Technologies employees approaching retirement age, how do you recommend they prepare to make the transition from living off their salary to relying upon other sources of income?

Richard: Our detailed retirement planning process includes:

• A spending strategy tailored to your income goals
• Social Security timing recommendations
• Coordination of health care benefits
• Discussion around how your spending will change throughout retirement
• Stress-testing your retirement projection with many what-if scenarios
• Timing your exit to maximize any unvested incentive stock options (ISOs), non-qualified stock options (NSOs), or RSUs

Q: For Dell Technologies employees who have managed their finances on their own to this point, what would you suggest they consider to help them decide if they should begin working with a financial advisor at this stage in their lives?

Emily: There are many online tools and calculators. Where we find Dell employees get stuck is understanding how to prioritize goals and seeing the big picture. We help Dell employees organize their financial lives and provide accountability for reaching goals.

Understanding whether you should use surplus dollars to pay down debt, save towards a short-term goal, or work towards a long-term aspiration (such as retirement or college education savings) can be challenging. For Dell employees planning with a spouse or partner, an advisor can help facilitate difficult conversations and move the ball forward on your planning process.

Q: What are some of the unique financial planning challenges you commonly see among your clients who are Dell Technologies employees and how do you help them overcome these obstacles?

Richard: One common obstacle we find is knowing when to diversify away from the concentration risk of holding a high percentage of your net worth in one company’s shares. Many of our Dell employee clients struggle with selling positions; it requires coaching, recognizing natural human biases, an evaluation of the risks, and careful diversification away from an outsized position.

Q: What questions do you recommend Dell Technologies employees ask financial advisors they’re considering hiring to help them decide if they’re a good fit?

Richard: If you were granted incentive stock options or restricted stock units, be sure to work with an advisor who understands how to incorporate those into your overall picture. Seek an advisor who can model the alternative minimum tax (AMT), understands the rules around qualifying and disqualifying dispositions, and knows how and when to diversify away from sizeable single stock positions, if appropriate.

Get to Know Richard Archer, Financial Advisor for Dell Employees:

View Richard’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit his website to learn more.

Q: Is there anything that comes up frequently in your initial meeting with Dell Technologies employees that surprises you?

Richard: We enjoy finding opportunities to help Dell employees maximize non-traditional benefits such as pet insurance, adoption assistance, discounts, commuter benefits, legal services, back-up childcare, and tuition assistance.

Q: For highly compensated Dell Technologies employees and executives, are there any special benefits you believe it’s important to take into consideration when preparing their financial plan?

Emily: The Dell Deferred Compensation Plan (DCP) is an offering to provide income deferral opportunities to eligible U.S.-based distinguished engineers, fellows, directors who manage people, and executives. The DCP allows you to defer up to 85% of your income and schedule future installment payments that may begin as early as three years from enrollment or over 2-15 years in retirementf. 

Q: Is there a particularly memorable experience or a moment you recall with a client who worked at Dell Technologies when you realized they have unique opportunities and circumstances when it comes to their financial planning needs?

Emily: One of our clients is an executive at Dell, and he was unfamiliar with the Deferred Compensation Plan offering available to him. We reviewed the plan documents and rules to guide him during the enrollment process. The executive and his wife are in their 50s, and the offering was especially beneficial for them to defer the income (and subsequent taxes) now while their income is higher and retire early in a lower tax bracket.

We helped him choose a deferral percentage to match the goals in his overall financial plan and a distribution bucket strategy.

Brian Thorp, Founder and CEO Wealthtender _{Brian and his wife live in Texas, enjoying the diversity of Houston and the vibrancy of Austin. With over 25 years in the financial services industry, Brian is applying his experience and passion at Wealthtender to help more people enjoy life with less money stress}.