Ouch! Although someone with more sensitivity may not admit to working in HR field after above comments, I do!!! Not only do I work in HR, but I manage all of our Benefit Plans including our 401k. On behalf of the HR/Benefit professionals out there, let me point out a few things that may not occur to many:
1 -- Many people do make mistakes and seeing a high deferral rate above 20% does give one pause to make sure that there was no unintentional error made by the employee. We do see high % deferrals near the end of the year when new hires come in and try to maximize the contribution as much as possible before the calendar resets. But I have seen employees 'MEAN' to put in 5% or 6% and then they mistakenly put in 50% or 60% online and all of a sudden they can't make their rent for that month and they are calling in a panic. Please be grateful that your HR or Payroll team is monitoring and double checking for you.
2 -- Many employers struggle with excessive use of Hardship Withdrawals by employees who do not put aside an emergency fund. It really pains us to see them pay income taxes plus a 10% penalty for pretty predictable expenses if you are under 59 1/2. Cars do need maintenance from time to time and you have to save for this. We all get sick from time to time and you have to plan for this. Folks taking these withdrawals must first exhaust any available 401k loan options, so they are already paying themselves back for an earlier need. There are also limits on what you can pull money out for. The car repair example won't fly, but medical bills or to prevent eviction or foreclosure will.
3 -- Unfortunately, readers on this blog have a much less common view on wealth accumulation. I can't tell you the number of employees we counsel who don't even look at their pay stubs! I mean ever! They 'thought' they enrolled in the 401k plan when they were hired, but actually did not and now 5, 10, even 15 years go by and somehow they thought would be ready to retire without giving it another thought and they actually have nothing saved. Really sad. So glad you carefully review your paystubs and apply basic planning to your retirement readiness plan.
4 -- Be sure you understand how your Company does employer matching. Not every company does a true-up at the end. If your Company does the employer matching on a per-pay period basis, you want to STRETCH the contributions over the whole year to get every penny. Putting too much early or late in the year means you miss out on matching for some of the year, unless they do it as a lump sum once a year OR do the True-up. Most employers do not do it this way!!!
5 -- I don't think I am the minority in the HR community. I max out my personal 401k EVERY year and so does my husband. I plan to retire early and leave the workforce sooner than many. I also max out my HSA contributions, and invest it, so we'll have $ to pay for healthcare expenses into our retirement years. I only say this to point out that SOME of us in HR do follow what we preach.
6 -- Someone also pointed out that you get someone in HR and they are 'specialized' and 'glaze' over when you ask them anything else. Like many industries, HR is actually highly specialized. In general, there are 2 types of HR professionals, the kind that know a little bit about most HR functions, we call them 'Generalists', and then the kind that focus on targeted functions, we call them 'Specialists'. The larger Company you work for, the more likely you are to have mostly 'specialists'. This allows the department to divvy up responsibilities so that they can really, really understand one or more areas and be experts on those subject matters. If you have questions spanning many different areas, I don't really consider it a burden to speak to more than one person to get assistance.
Sadly, the truth is that your 'HR guy' probably 'freaked' out because too many employees have the opposite outlook on personal finance and have their heads in the sand. Hopefully, what you thought was him 'freaking' out was simply him refreshed/impressed that it seems you have your act together and you are one less employee he has to worry about.