Federal Retirement Thrift

Investment Board

2017 Thrift Savings Plan

Education Efforts
2

Introduction 3

YouTube and Social Media Videos 4

Communications 6

Email Notices 7

Annual Statement Enhancements 7

Agency Representative/Employee Training 8

Contents
3

We are pleased to provide this summary of our education efforts in 2017 in response to the following requirement 

contained in the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) Open Elections Act of 2004:

The Board shall annually report to the Committee on Governmental Affairs of the Senate and the

Committee on Government Reform in the House of Representatives on its Thrift Savings Plan education

efforts on behalf of plan participants. Pub. L. 108 ‐469, §2, 118 Stat. 3891, 3892.

In 2017, the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) engaged and educated participants using 

social media, YouTube videos, one-to-one communications, enhanced annual statements, and training for 

agency and services TSP representatives and employees.

We are committed to delivering compelling messaging that encourages participants to save for retirement; 

to educating, communicating, and interacting with participants to help them make smart choices; and to 

creating innovative products and programs to assist participants in achieving their retirement goals.

Introduction
4

In 2017, the TSP launched a video and social media campaign called “TSP@30” that highlighted nine real TSP 

participants and their stories. We also released seven new or updated videos:

 Two new videosfocused on the Blended Retirement System (BRS): one outlined reasons

uniformed services members may or may not want to opt into BRS with a focus on the TSP,

and the other explained the TSP to new BRS members;

 One updated video geared toward uniformed services members who are not part of BRS but

still choose to contribute to the TSP;

 One updated video explained to uniformed services members how Roth TSP works;

 One updated video encouraged separated participants to make an informed decision on 

whether to stay with the TSP;

 One new video explaining the TSP to new civilian federal employees; and

 One new video telling participants how they can reset their passwords online. This video is

the first in our “Now You Know” series, which give one-minute answers to our most

frequently asked questions.

In support of the Department of Defense's (DoD) BRS training, we collaborated on a webinar, a live Facebook Q&A

session, and a live Twitter chat.

YouTube and Social Media Videos
5

The metrics related to the above-mentioned videos, as well as the DoD special events, are summarized below:

 "Opting into the Blended Retirement System (BRS)" – 72,562 YouTube views; 32,544 

Facebook views (total from 3 posts)

 "The TSP for BRS Members: What’s It All About?"– 3,379 YouTube views

 "The TSP for non-BRS Uniformed Services Members"– 905 YouTube views

 “Is Roth TSP Right for Me? (Uniformed Services)" – 1,406 YouTube views; 10,050 Facebook 

views

 “Don’t Move! Reasons to Stay in the TSP" – 949 YouTube views

 "Welcome to the TSP! Here’s What You Need to Know" – 2,224 YouTube views

 "Now You Know: Password Reset" – 632 YouTube views; 16,719 Facebook views

 TSP @30 Participant Stories (totals for the series) – 10,270 YouTube views; 56,673 

Facebook views

 Facebook Live Q&A with DoD – 8100 reached, 485 views, 79 shares, and 22 direct 

engagements

 Live webinar with DoD – 259 participants

 Twitter chat with DoD – 157 participants

* All YouTube and Facebook views are totals as of February 2, 2018.

YouTube and Social Media Videos
6

Written

Correspondence

42,940

Telephone 

Calls

Answered

2,439,113

Secure

E-messages

69,482

 

 

 

Blended Retirement System Communications

In addition to the previously mentioned videos, webinars, and social media events aimed at educating uniformed 

services members about BRS, the TSP released the fact sheet Questions and Answers about Opting into the 

Blended Retirement System (BRS). We also replaced the Managing Your Account booklet that covered both civilian 

and uniformed services with two new booklets designed to help members manage their accounts: Managing Your 

Account for Members of the Uniformed Services and Managing Your Account for Civilian Federal Employees. We 

revised many other TSP publications and web pages to reflect policies that changed with BRS, which were 

released on January 1, 2018.

Participant Communications 

Our educational efforts also include one‐on‐one contact. We offer participants various ways to submit inquiriesto

the TSP including written correspondence, secure e‐messaging, and telephone calls. We also receive questions via

Twitter and Facebook and, whenever possible, we answer them as long as the question doesn't involve a

participant's personal information.

Communications
7

We used mass emails to communicate with participants and beneficiaries. News and announcements about the

Plan are disseminated to a GovDelivery subscriber list, which currently has 3,011,086 subscribers. We send out

between one and five announcement emails per month.

To explain why we ask for personal contact information and how we use it, we emailed our Privacy Act Notice to

all participants with an email address on file. This email was sent to 2,768,156 recipients and had 992,266

unique opens.

We added beneficiary information to the annual statements. Participants can see designated primary beneficiaries 

on their annual statement. If none are designated, they will see a message outlining the statutory order of 

precedence for TSP death benefits.

As we typically do every year, we included special leaflets with some of the annual statements for targeted groups.

One targeted FERS participants of any age who had never contributed to their TSP accounts; it detailed how

matching works and the benefits of not leaving money on the table. Another went to younger uniformed services

members and explained the power of compounding over time. A third leaflet informed new employees of the

option to transfer other eligible plans into the TSP.

Email Notices

 Annual Statement Enhancements
8

By law (5 U.S.C. § 8350), the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) is required to operate a training program for 

retirement counselors in employing agencies. This requirement ensures that employees are able to obtain current 

information and personal service in response to their retirement‐related questions. Since 1987, we have worked with OPM 

to sustain a network of TSP agency representatives as part of this program. In 2017, 758 TSP agency representatives 

attended a total of 30 training sessions led by the TSP training staff. We also hosted four quarterly meetings with 159 agency 

representatives receiving TSP updates for their HR offices.

We provide free training sessions to federal employees and 

uniformed services members. A total of 52,826 employees 

attended TSP training sessions, either in person or by 

webinar.Of these, 8,187 attended one of the 91 sessions of 

the "TSP A to Z" or "Uniform Services A to Z" courses; 8,070 

attended one of the 127 sessions of the "Early to Mid‐Career" course; 9,563 attended one of the 43 sessions of the "Pre‐

Separation" course; and 800 attended one of the 15 sessions of the "Blended Retirement System” course. There were 8,494 

people who logged into our webinarsessions, which were online versions of these courses.

We increased our presence with TSP exhibits at conferences and financial benefits fairs for civilian employees and members 

of the uniformed services. In 2017, we participated in 57 events, enabling ourstaff members to reach 13,951 attendees. We 

also partnered with the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to conduct 

joint trainings for Federal Executive Boards (FEB) in Atlanta, GA; Dallas‐Fort Worth, TX; Kansas City, MO; Chicago, IL; and St 

Louis, MO. We conducted a total of 15 sessionsreaching 1,770 federal employees. We will continue joint efforts such as this 

one to reach more employees in the future.

Agency Representative/Employee Trainings