NAGDCA Members’ Choice Award Winners
NAGDCA Members Select Alameda County as the 2022 Members’ Choice Award Winner
The 2022 NAGDCA Members’ Choice Award was presented to Alameda County and its industry partners during the 2022 Awards Presentation Ceremony during the annual conference. The award acknowledges the plan for its 2021 Income Replacement Study. The County was also awarded with a 2022 Leadership Recognition Award in the Plan Design & Administration category.
Alameda County, California covers much of the East Bay area, including the cities of Oakland and Berkeley. County employees participate in the Alameda County Employees’ Retirement Association (ACERA) pension program. The County offers a voluntary 457(b) plan as a supplemental retirement savings option. Given the extremely high regional cost of living, the County is concerned about retirees’ ability to maintain their standard of living throughout retirement. Does the combination of the ACERA pension and voluntary 457(b) savings achieve reasonable employee retirement outcomes? Are employees saving enough? Are they investing in a way that will help them achieve a timely, comfortable retirement? Further, research confirms that plan participants do not manage their investments well on their own and benefit greatly from professional “do-it-for-me” solutions, such as Target Date Funds (TDFs) and Managed Accounts. But there are so many options in the marketplace. – Which is best? And for whom? Under what circumstances? – Without quantifying the actual employee income replacement gap, there is no way to answer these questions.
The County, in conjunction with plan consultant Retirement Plan Advisors (RPA), set out to conduct a detailed income replacement study of all active County employees to accurately identify the current state of their retirement readiness. The County’s ultimate goal was to use the findings to implement effective
solution(s) to immediately and positively impact employee retirement outcomes. Work began on the project in early 2021 and was completed in Fall 2021.
Click here to learn more about the award-winning project.
County of Los Angeles Selected by NAGDCA Peers as 2021 Members’ Choice Award Winner
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.