Patience is going to be the byword for advisors to employer-sponsored retirement plans, according to TIAA.

Although the bills, known collectively as SECURE Act 2.0, have been winding their way through Congress already, it will be at least months–and maybe much longer–before plan administrators know what changes they can make and what will be required of them, according to three TIAA directors who participated in a webinar Thursday.

SECURE Act 2.0 is being designed to take the retirement benefits provided under the original SECURE Act, which went into effect Jan. 1, 2020, and apply them to more employees. The acronym stands for Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement and the original law made changes to existing laws to make it easier for people to save for retirement and more beneficial for employers to provide retirement plans.

“With the SECURE Act 2.0, Congress is now trying to help more older workers and low income workers save for retirement,” Jennifer Crowe, senior director of institutional product consulting at TIAA, said.

The current problem for plan administrators and their financial advisors is that the proposal is now made up of several bills that have overlapping, and sometimes conflicting, provisions and no one knows what the final bill will look like, Crowe said. Therefore, advisors to employers who sponsor retirement plans can only tell their clients to be ready to make changes as soon as they are allowed or required, Crowe and Jill Brown, TIAA’s director of government relations, said.

The bills are well intentioned and have bipartisan support, which is unusual in Congress, they said. “Congress is trying to fill in the gaps in the current system that leave some workers out,” Brown said. But in addition to not knowing what the final provisions will be, it is not known when the various parts of the final act will go into effect, added Hal Moody, managing director of product and business development at TIAA. “All of this creates a challenging situation for plan administrators,” Moody said.

“The only thing guaranteed now is that Americans are not saving enough for retirement,” Brown said.

Among the provisions in the bills, sponsors for 403(b) retirement plans would be able to band together to create a pool of employers who could sponsor a plan, just as 401(k) sponsors can now do. Also, employers would be able to provide matching payments under the retirement plan for employees trying to pay off student debt. Often employees feel they need to pay off their loans before they can start saving for retirement, Brown said.

Also included in the proposals is a provision that would allow employees to set up an emergency savings plan so that money could be withdrawn penalty free in an emergency, rather than withdrawing directly from the retirement savings. Another change would allow employers to offer small gifts, such as a gift credit card, to entice employees to sign up for the company’s retirement plan. The age at which required minimum distributions would need to be taken from retirement plans may be increased.

But these are only a few of the 80 to 90 proposals that are included in the bills, the speakers emphasized.

“This is going to be a slow roll out even after a final bill is signed,” Crowe said. Plan sponsors need to know they will have time to make changes.

Some employers may want to make changes that benefit employees and use them as a way to attract new employees and retain existing workers, Brown said.