As seasons change, so do our employees’ career plans.

Whether your long-time employees are tempted by the outlook of summers without work, or they’ve been planning their retirement for years, INPRS often sees a spike in retirements planned in the warm summer months.

Our team prepares for this concentration of summer retirement dates, but there are a few things employers can do to help ensure a seamless transition for your retiring employees:

• Update your employees’ last day in pay (LDIP). This date is important because it helps determine when the member can receive their first retirement benefit check from INPRS. Without this date in ERM, they can’t get paid. Submit their LDIP as soon as you know it.

• Keep your entire roster up to date. If members are seasonal employees, accurate data is even more important. Few things are more disruptive than having to resurrect old employment dates from 20 years ago when someone is trying to get their retirement application processed. Take an afternoon to review the seasonal employees on your list and make sure their information reflects their true time worked.

• Take care of your missing member backlog. You may recall that we’ve talked a lot about missing members recently, but that doesn’t mean they still aren’t important things to manage. Missing members start to appear on your roster when they don’t have any wages or contributions for a period of time and also do not have a life event submitted to help INPRS understand why there are no wages and contributions. Managing your missing member list now will help you and your employees have a better retirement experience in the future.

By keeping your INPRS data updated, you can help ensure your retiring employees have a smooth welcome to the retired life – a career sendoff we all aspire to achieve.