This concept of sharing greater costs with the employee is nothing new.

I think many people end up taking buyout offers quickly because $100,000 (or some other lump-sum payment) can seem like a great deal of money, only to end up realizing after the fact that it wasn't enough to justify leaving. People need to avoid the wide-eyed feeling of I'm winning the lottery and make sure they think about if I am 50 I still got decades ahead of me.

Even the granddad companies that maintained these benefits are on a track moving away from it.

Workers should think about it very carefully and go through a very clear evaluation.

The easiest thing to do is leave (your savings) in the plan, ... If you like the investment options you have, you may want to leave it there.

Carrying a very different cost structure than your competitors and having an element of unpredictability relative to competitors has caused many companies to move away from defined benefit plans.