Retirement plans are successfully adapting to many of the changing needs of workers and employers, according to a long-running survey of plan sponsors.

Plans are becoming easier to enroll in, more personalized and more flexible when it comes to withdrawals—and these trends have correlated with a rise in participation rates, according to the 2019 Trends & Experience In Defined Contribution Plans survey from Alight Solutions.

More than half of the 240 employers surveyed, 56%, said that at least 90% of their eligible workers participate in a defined contribution plan, up significantly from 2017, when 46% of employers reported a 90% or greater participation rate.

In 2019, plan sponsors reported an average participation rate of 83%—the highest Alight has recorded in nearly three decades of surveying.

According to Alight, by the end of 2018 Americans had more than $7.5 trillion in workplace retirement accounts, and the amount has doubled since the beginning of the millennium. In 2019, more than 85% of employers say that their defined contribution plan is their primary retirement plan, up from 67% in 2009.

The survey found that employers are allowing more workers to participate in plans immediately after being hired. In 2019, 75% of companies reported having immediate eligibility, with another 10% having an age-only requirement keeping their youngest workers from starting to save.

Automatic enrollment in defined contribution plans continues to grow in popularity. In 2019, 74% of the plans surveyed had some form of automatic enrollment, up from 58% in 2015. With this growth, employers are also reporting that fewer workers are opting out of their plans. The proportion of employers reporting an opt-out rate of less than 1% has grown from 16% in 2017 to 21% this year.

Employers also report offering more personalization within plans, with about two-thirds of the survey respondents offering managed accounts within their plans, up from 58% in 2017.

Alight also detected more plan sponsors white labeling the funds within their plans, or changing the name of an investment from its off-the-shelf title to something more intuitive and clear. In 2019, 40% of employers reported white labeling at least some of their funds.

In 2019, very few defined contribution plans require an all-or-nothing withdrawal, a trend that Alight says accompanies a growing desire among plan sponsors to keep assets within the plan. Today, only 8% require a total lump-sum when making a withdrawal, down from 22% in 2014. Now, three-quarters of employers offer installment payments, and 78% permit partial distributions.

The Trends & Experience In Defined Contribution Plans survey has been conducted every two years since 1991. The 2019 survey was fielded in the first quarter of 2019 among 240 employers across various plan types, sizes and industries, and included 401(k), profit sharing, 403(b), 401(a) and 457(b) plans. Respondents had a combined total of 8.5 million employees and over $725 billion in plan assets, with a median size of 15,000 employees and $1.8 billion in plan assets.