The TSP is implementing major changes. Here are some of the changes, problems encountered, and status of the transition.

It would be reasonable to assume this has been a rough few weeks for the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The planning, research and implementation goals for the recent changes introduced on June 1, 2022, have been planned over a 6-year period. In the midst of the significant changes, the Senate confirmed new members for the FRTIB board.

FedSmith has received numerous comments from readers expressing frustration with the changes to the new TSP website and a number of articles have been published outlining some of these problems. FedSmith has launched a survey for readers for rating their experience with the new TSP website.

The monthly meeting of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board (FRTIB) focused largely on how the process started, what it hoped to achieve, obstacles that have been encountered with the new system, and steps being taken to resolve problems.

For the benefit of our readers, here is a summary of what the FRTIB hoped to accomplish with these major changes to the TSP and how the implementation is progressing. The changes to the system are significant and impact all TSP investors. It may ease some of the frustration and answer some questions posed by readers to understand the most significant changes and why the decision was made to undertake these major changes to underlying structure of the existing TSP program.

Many readers had not focused on how much the structure of the TSP was about to change. Most of the publicity in the press focused on the mutual fund window. That is clearly a major change and will benefit at least some active investors.

However, there are other changes that are significant for the TSP system. This is a quick summary from the FRTIB.

Previously, the TSP provided recordkeeping for its investors. The FRTIB:

The decision was made to change the existing system by outsourcing much of the work. This was done to create a system that would be easier to change and move to newer technology to provide more services to participants. The FRTIB wanted to provide:

According to the FRTIB, this is what has been accomplished in the conversion process from the agency’s perspective.

The are several new features in the TSP’s system that are now operational. These are:

As of June 24th, 90% of participants accessing the system have successfully set up a new login. Some participants did experience problems. And, in a system with more than 6.6 million participants, this means that there are people who experienced problems.

The new login system was designed in response to a surge in cybercrime. According to the FRTIB, the goal was to make a safe investment system even safer for participants.

More than one million accounts have now been set up. There have been more than three million “logins” to the “my account” feature through June 24th.

Changes were made to the underlying program to eliminate the problems of those trying to create a new login while also maintaining a secure system.

There has been an increase of 66% in the number of representatives in TSP call centers. There was obviously a severe problem in the projected number of people who would be calling into the TSP centers and the agency has been rapidly adding new people to reduce the wait times for callers. An additional 100 new customer service agents will be added in the next week.

A number of TSP participants are now using the new features. Some of the data cited at the monthly meeting are:

As many readers know, there are problems that have been encountered with implementing the new system. These problems include:

There have been improvements since the initial introduction. Specifically:

In short, the implementation process has had problems. The FRTIB indicates cleaning up the problems is a major priority and they are working to eliminate the problems that do occur. Many of the initial problems are being resolved or have been resolved.

Ralph Smith has several decades of experience working with federal human resources issues. He has written extensively on a full range of human resources topics in books and newsletters and is a co-founder of two companies and several newsletters on federal human resources. Follow Ralph on Twitter: @RalphSmith47

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