3 October 2006
If you want employees to value your pension scheme and take an active part in saving for their own retirement, you must communicate the benefits regularly and through a variety of different media. That was the key message to HR delegates from Winterthur when its communication consultant Helen Gilchrist, addressed the Employee Benefits Exhibition and Conference 2006 at London’s Business Design Centre earlier today.
“From my experience effective employee communications programmes can generate dramatic increases in pension scheme take up, in some cases, from below 40% to almost 90% over recent times,” said Helen. “This underlines the benefits of engaging with employees about their pensions arrangements and options.”
“If you create bespoke educational programmes that reflect the specific needs of the organisation and its workforce, you can change the perception of saving for retirement dramatically – not only increasing pension scheme take-up but employee contribution levels as well.
“The profile of the workforce is an important factor in tailoring communications and often the hardest task is getting younger people to take an interest in their pension provision. Making it relevant to this audience is very important. Educating the older workforce should also not be overlooked, as providers need to ensure they are making enough provision and reviewing their fund options on a regular basis,” continued Helen.
Key to the success of any communications programme is having a dedicated team responsible for planning and executing a tailored education programme for clients, often working in conjunction with an employee benefits consultant. “This programme should include enrolment presentations, financial awareness education, pre-retirement seminars and one to one consultations. A range of marketing material should also be deployed such as posters, direct mailers, payslip inserts, scheme summaries, video/DVDs and newsletters/articles, all of which could be fully customised.
“The publicity surrounding pensions means that it is increasingly important to encourage employees to join their company pension schemes. Streamlined joining is of course a big help in achieving this,” said Helen. “However, employees also need help to decide how much to pay and where to invest. We are also seeing a growing appetite amongst employees for online access to their pensions. These can be integrated within an existing web offering which provides members, trustees and administrators with online access to their pension scheme. Ideally, the online service should allow members to make investment and contribution changes and offer a pension calculator to help them project future retirement income.
“Finally I have collated a lot of evidence very clearly stating that members want and need support with their pension planning. I strongly believe in workplace education and it is encouraging that our own presentations have engaged many employees to want to seek independent financial advice. Interestingly, at no point during the presentations did the issue of cost arise or affect the outcome of increased take-up of company pensions. This suggests that the pension debate’s obsession with low cost and no advice is misplaced and should provide food for thought for the DWP as it gets closer to agreeing the shape of its new national pension saving scheme,” concludes Helen.
For further information please email dc-communicationsteam@winterthur-life.co.uk.
Note: The Winterthur presentations were delivered during the two-day Employee Benefits Exhibition by communication consultants Helen Gilchrist and Caroline Durn.
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For further information:
Paul Riddell Winterthur Life, Press Office +44 (0)1256 798099
Sandra Fulton Winterthur Life, Press Office +44 (0)1256 798310
Christine Wood Financial Dynamics +44 (0)20 7269 7253
Notes to Editors
About Winterthur Life UK Limited
Winterthur Life UK Limited is part of Winterthur Group, a leading Swiss insurance company with its international headquarters in Winterthur, Switzerland.
Winterthur Life UK offers pensions and investments for high net worth clients distributed via top tier IFAs and is renowned for its innovative approach to financial products. Its philosophy of transparent product propositions offers advisers a range of retirement and investment solutions with an open charging structure.
Winterthur Life UK is an experienced provider of single premium personal pensions, trustee investment plans and corporate pensions via IFAs and a leading provider of self-investment retirement plans like Self Invested Personal Pensions (“Sipps”).
Any opinions expressed in this media communication are made as at the date of publication but are subject to change without notice. Past performance is not a guide to the future. The value of shares/units and the income from them can go down as well as up. Exchange rate fluctuations may cause the value of underlying investments to fall as well as rise. Yields are not guaranteed and may fall or rise.
Winterthur Life UK Limited is authorised and regulated by the Financial Services Authority.
www.winterthur-ifa.co.uk
Winterthur Group
Winterthur is the leading insurer in Switzerland, and ranks among the top ten all-line carriers in Europe. With a history spanning more than 130 years, Winterthur's life insurance, pension and non-life businesses are based mainly in Western Europe, but the group also has activities in Central and Eastern Europe, the US and Asia. Using a variety of channels, the group manages a balanced product portfolio for private clients as well as small and medium-sized companies. Winterthur operates in 17 countries, and has around 19,000 employees and 13 million clients worldwide. In the first half year of 2006, the group achieved a business volume of 18.8 billion Swiss francs, and reported assets under management of 157.4 billion Swiss francs as of June 30, 2006. Winterthur is a 100% subsidiary of Credit Suisse Group, a leading global financial services company headquartered in Zurich. Further information about Winterthur can be found at www.winterthur.com.
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