The 2021 NAGDCA Members’ Choice Award was presented to the County of Los Angeles and its industry partner Empower Retirement during the 2021 Award Winner Showcase webinar on November 10.  The newly created award allows NAGDCA government members to select the plan they feel deserves special recognition for its outstanding Leadership Award-winning project or campaign. The award acknowledges the plan for its 2020 communication and education campaign “Ready, Set, Communicate!” The County was also awarded with 2021 Leadership Recognition Awards in the COVID-19 Response and Participant Education & Communication categories.

While many employers scaled back operations at the onset of the pandemic and struggled to define a “new normal,” the County recognized that this could be  detrimental to the retirement progress employees had made to date. Instead of settling for complacency, the County decided to double down on its participant communication strategy and outreach.

In March 2020, the County responded to pandemic-imposed constraints adopting a Ready, Set, Communicate! approach to communication and education. This meant pivoting to a virtual engagement model with the goals of protecting the health and safety of participants and Plan representatives, increasing the frequency and scope of communications, communicating in a more efficient and targeted way and helping participants improve retirement outcomes.


Click here to learn more about the award-winning campaign. 

Click here to learn more about the Members’ Choice Award.


Kim Burch-Garcia, County of Los Angeles, and Lisa Hoxha, Empower Retirement, share details about their award-winning campaign in the clip below.