The MERS Impact Awards recognize MERS municipalities who display outstanding commitment to helping employees achieve financial security in retirement and demonstrate best practices in designing and implementing their retirement and post-employment benefit programs.  

With recruiting and retaining employees becoming increasingly problematic for public sector employers, retirement benefits play an important role in the total compensation package. The MERS Impact Award will showcase to employees and prospective employees that your organization is best-in-class when it comes to helping them meet their financial goals in retirement.

Employers can use the form below to nominate their municipality in one or more of the following four categories: 

  • Plan Transition – Entries in this category should reflect the plan education and communication to employees transitioning to a new plan. Eligible entries include: 
    • Adopting a new MERS plan, such as adoption a new 457 program or Health Care Savings Program 
    • Transitioning a plan to MERS 
    • Closing a plan and offering a new type of plan to existing employees, such as closing a defined benefit plan and offering defined contribution plan 
  • Ongoing Participant Engagement – Entries should educate existing employees on their retirement plan benefits. For plans that improved participant results with targeted messaging and/or education focused on topics related to retirement planning. Common success metrics include improved participation, increased contributions, improved investment education, successful plan asset retention, financial wellness, survey results, and more! 
  • Plan Design Innovation – For plans that augmented plan design to positively impact retirement outcomes. This category includes implementing automatic enrollment, automatic escalation, maximizing the match strategies, coordinating MERS programs with ancillary plans (for example the Health Care Saving Program with the Mercer Health Care Exchange), and more. 
  • Other – If you’re doing something great that we haven’t covered in the above categories, we want to hear about it. Examples include promoting the use of the myMERS app, encouraging beneficiary updates, improving how you communicate benefits in recruitment of new employees, etc. 

Winners will be announced and celebrated at the 2023 MERS Annual Conference in Detroit. To promote their status as a MERS Impact Award recipient, winners will be provided with a MERS Impact Awardee Digital Toolkit with graphics that can be applied to their web site, recruiting materials, and other outreach materials. 

Nomination Form

Due Date: Nominations close Friday, July 28, 2023.

"*" indicates required fields

Employee Information

Municipality Information

An estimated number is good.
An estimated number is good.

Purpose and Goals of Project

Just something to call this if it were to be listed in recognition material.
Simple estimate to understand time frame.
Please list the names and titles of the staff that played a significant role in developing the project.
Please enter a brief description of the project and the goal. If the project is awarded, this description may be used on the website and in the awards publication.
Results speak volumes about the success of your project. Tell us how you measured the success of your project. Measurements can include things such as: change in participation rate and/or savings rate, number of employees attending events, etc. Sharing feedback you received from employees can also show the effectiveness of the project.
If you have samples, links to materials like videos, web pages, or supporting information, you can upload a .pdf document here supporting your project.
Accepted file types: pdf, doc, docx, Max. file size: 25 MB.

Award Contact Information

Celebrate*
If awarded, would you or other staff be willing to attend the MERS Annual Conference for presentation of the award, and other roles in communicating ideas through case studies, participation in webinars, or other presentations?
Acknowledgment*
I have reviewed this nomination and endorse it for consideration. I understand that MERS may use information provided in communicating best-practice concepts to other municipalities, members, or entities.