Breakthrough Participant Educational Efforts honored at Pension & Investments Eddy Awards

As plan sponsors across the country strive to encourage more participation and engagement among their employees, the best of the best took the spotlight at the recent Pension & Investments 2024 Eddy Awards.

Two retirement plans supported by Nationwide, San Joaquin County, California, and Maryland Teachers & State Employees Supplemental Retirement Plans (MSRP) stood out from the pack for their participant education efforts.   

The 2024 Eddy Awards recognized 44 defined contribution campaigns for creativity and focus on helping their workers achieve a dignified retirement.

San Joaquin County earned first place in the Special Projects category for their virtual courtyard event. Partnering with Nationwide, the plan created a colorful, 3-D virtual courtyard for employees to visit to become better acquainted with resources and financial tools available, including accessing educational videos and scheduling meetings with retirement specialists. The courtyard event saw a 61% engagement among their 5,060 employees.

“Congratulations to San Joaquin County and Maryland Supplemental Retirement Plans for their ongoing commitment to helping plan participants reach their retirement goals,” said Eric Stevenson, president of Nationwide Retirement Solutions. “We were proud to partner in the campaigns they implemented to drive participants to the tools and resources Nationwide provides to help them to become more confident in their financial futures.”

“Nationwide ‘pulled out all the stops’ when it came to the quality, giving participants a change from the type of communication they tend to see from the county government,” Jennifer Goodman, director of human resources for San Joaquin County said to Pensions and Investments.

MSRP earned a finalist spot in the Special Projects category for their Maryland State Employees $ave Week campaign, a week-long event focused on increasing enrollment and strengthening financial literacy. The campaign led to a 20% increase in enrollments year over year.

Nationwide Retirement Solutions is a business within Nationwide, a Fortune 100 company based in Columbus, Ohio that is one of the largest and strongest diversified financial services and insurance organizations in the United States. Nationwide Retirement Solutions administers nearly 32,000 retirement plans, helping protect nearly $200 billion in participant assets, and helping secure financial futures for over 2.7 million participants in the governmental 457, corporate 401(k) and not-for-profit 403(b) markets. Nationwide is committed to serving the retirement industry by doing the right thing at the right time through better participant experiences, administrative simplicity and values that translate to service.

Visit nrsforu.com for more information about the tools and services Nationwide provides to retirement plan participants. 

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