Updates to Member Education
COVID-19 has brought significant change to all of our lives. As a result of social distancing and other restrictions, MPERS converted our Pre-Retirement Seminars to a completely virtual experience. Our staff worked hard to make this transition as seamless as possible. We were able to provide over 25 live webinars, which are available for viewing at any time on our website.
Although the pandemic forced us to make this transition, we have discovered that change is not necessarily a bad thing. By providing seminars virtually versus in-person we have seen the following significant benefits:
- Our seminars were offered in a way that kept all of our staff and members safe.
- Members "attended" the webinars from the comfort and convenience of their home or office.
- There was a significant cost savings due to lack of travel.
- Members were offered an expanded list of dates and times to attend a seminar rather than being limited to in-person seminars offered in their local area.
- MPERS used GoToWebinar to conduct our webinars. By using this platform we reached up to 200 members in a single webinar! In person, we were limited to space restrictions of the meeting room or conference center where the seminars were held.
- MPERS was able to expand our pre-retirement season to include a session in November.
- After a successful season of almost exclusively virtual sessions, we have decided to continue to offer webinars as an option in the future - even when we can go back to doing our seminars in person, thereby reaching more members than we have in the past. The overall reaction from members to our webinars was very positive.
In addition to the pre-retirement webinars we have always offered, MPERS has expanded our educational library to include a new webinar for mid-career employees. MPERS and MO Deferred Comp joined forces to prepare our members and participants for retirement…sooner rather than later. This webinar is designed for active employees of MoDOT and the Highway Patrol who are within 6-15 years of retirement and those with at least 5-15 years of service. We are excited about this new program and have already received good attendance and feedback from the sessions we have offered!
