Pharma company sees tenth of staff up contributions after face-to-face comms

Such communication is widely viewed as the most effective way to drive engagement, but often the sheer number of members presents logistical challenges to employers.

The employer implemented the strategy in September 2013 after responses to a survey indicated member appetite for in-person communication was strong.

“They wanted face-to-face communications rather than written communications and technical booklets,” said Simon Lewis, group pensions manager at Bayer. “People want to engage with you. They want you to take them through it.”

Lewis said employee engagement with the scheme had risen as a result, estimating that as much as 10 per cent of the membership had increased their contributions following the sessions.

“We found that any old excuse to go out and talk to members is good enough. As a result, what we’ve seen is increasing engagement... people changing strategy, paying [additional voluntary contributions], raising contributions,” he said.

However, he added the increase in contributions was not the primary objective of the campaign, but rather it was to gauge workers’ current levels of understanding around pensions. “We recognise people have got different needs,” he said.

Nick Throp, co-founder and director at communication consultancy Like Minds, said: “Face-to-face is the model for everything else. It’s how we learn to communicate in the first place.”

Recreating the interactive element of face-to-face communication through other media is held by experts to be an important aspect of effective dialogue, as schemes can be forced to explore other strategies as a result of the challenges and costs of engaging with the whole membership.

Karen Heath, chief engagement officer at communication consultancy AHC, said while it is effective, face-to-face can be time-consuming and expensive. “Where it’s logistically possible we would always advocate doing it, but for a lot of schemes it’s not,” she said.

Comms project

The scheme set up sessions targeting different segments of the workforce over a four-week period. In that time it met a third of its membership.

Different sessions were created for the defined benefit portion of the scheme, those in both DB and the defined contribution plan, members aged over 55 and employees who had yet to join.

Lewis said the next challenge was to find a method of reaching the rest of the workforce, but that it was keen to preserve the advantages of face-to-face communication in its ongoing strategy.

“We’ll be looking at technical sessions, webinars, etc. But one of the things that made it work was the human interaction,” he said. “People come to see you in the flesh to be reassured, you get that much better in face-to-face.”

Alongside targeted sessions, the scheme set up a stall so members could come forward with questions. “We now feel as though we’re in an ongoing conversation with them,” said Lewis. “We’re building on that.”

Ben Reynolds, chief operating officer at communication consultancy Shilling, said a continuing conversation is equally important as initial enthusiasm can wane over time and lead to a drop in engagement.

“Engagement may last for 6-10 weeks, so you need to work out how to keep it going beyond that,” he said.