TIAA-CREF's voluntary separation program resulted in a 10% reduction of its workforce, higher than the 5% to 7% acceptance rate expected by the company's management when the program was introduced in May.
Plans to cut expenses firmwide, including the reduction of the company's head count, began earlier this year at the start of COVID-19 pandemic.
TIAA extended the buyout to about 75% of its 16,500 employees worldwide and the process "went quite well on a number of fronts," said Roger W. Ferguson Jr, TIAA's president and CEO.
"We achieved an appropriate resizing of the company," he said. "Offering the VSP allowed us to live our values by letting our employees make their own decisions about what is best for them."
The higher-than-expected rate of acceptance of the VSP means that TIAA won't lay off any personnel in 2020 or 2021, Mr. Ferguson said.
In fact, because of some voluntary staff departures, TIAA will need to hire new workers in positions such as relationship managers and client service managers.
Mr. Ferguson said he was pleased that "a very modest 4% to 5%" of the investment personnel working at Nuveen, TIAA's money management arm, elected to take the buyout offer.
"Stability for the investment teams really is the focus," Mr. Ferguson said, adding that Nuveen is committed to making strategic hires where needed.
Nuveen manages a total of $1 trillion for institutional and retail clients.
Most of the TIAA employees who accepted the buyout offer will remain with the company until early November and will assist in transitioning their work to employees staying with the firm, spokesman Jessica Greaney said in an email.
A critical component of the newly downsized TIAA will be an aggressive, continued build out of the firm's digital capabilities as more investors choose to engage with TIAA virtually online, Mr. Ferguson said.