Benefits — Tennessee

401(k) plan

Employers have no legal obligation to provide their employees with a profit-sharing plan. Employers who do provide the benefit may wish to make reference to the plan’s availability and general terms in the employee handbook. Again, however, the employee should be given – and referred to – the plan documents for complete information regarding the benefit. There is no requirement that the employer match employee contributions to a 401(k) plan, but the sample policy provides one example of how an employer may decide to do so.

Protections on employee benefits

When Congress enacted the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) in 1974, it wanted to balance two competing concerns:

1. protecting employees who had been promised certain benefits from their employers

2. giving employers a set of rules by which they could operate and maintain uniform employee benefit plans for numerous facilities without interference from varying state laws.

Therefore, while providing plan participants with certain causes of action to sue their employers in federal court (or, sometimes, state court) if they are not...

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