Making Midlife MOTs work

While still a relatively new engagement tool, Midlife MOTs are growing in popularity. More employers are offering them to people in their mid-forties as a way to step back and review their wealth, work lives and wellbeing.

Phoenix Insights has published findings from its recent Midlife MOT pilot, Developing and Delivering Midlife MOTs: evidence and insights. What can employers and pension schemes learn from this and other industry pilots?

People are enthusiastic about Midlife MOTs

Phoenix’s study cited pilots by Aviva and Legal and General, which demonstrated high demand. Although Aviva’s sessions were voluntary, they were all fully booked.

Midlife MOTs are also good for engagement. Phoenix observed: “Overall, employees appreciate the effort and support that employers offer them via MOTs and therefore feel valued.”

The exercises receive positive feedback afterwards. Over 90% of employees involved in the Legal and General pilots agreed the pilot was useful, and 80% agreed it helped them visualise what they would like their later life to be like.

Midlife MOTs can help people to look at their pension savings, which they might otherwise avoid, causing them anxiety. The exercise can help employees to understand where they can seek support and make them feel more confident about how they’re approaching their working lives, according to Aviva’s 2020 report, The UK’s Midlife Workforce: Navigating Uncharted Waters.

What can we do to make Midlife MOTs better?

Lesson one: People need support to turn good intentions into action

Phoenix’s pilot had mixed success. Some participants changed their behaviour as a result of the MOT. One participant transferred her bonus directly into her pension fund afterwards.

However, others struggled to turn good intentions into action because they were too busy at work, they did not feel a sense of accountability for their decisions, or because they felt they were too far from retirement and, therefore, did not feel a sense of urgency.

Phoenix will take lessons away from the pilot. “It is clear that ongoing engagement through multiple channels is required to ensure MOT users follow through their action plan … Workshops will continue to be available to colleagues who are looking to transit to later life within the next 10 years to support them in making concrete action plans. There will also be internal briefing sessions to inform line managers of the new initiative and how they could support their action plan.”

Lesson two: The terminology could be improved

Not everyone is delighted to be told they are in midlife. And ‘MOT’ may not resonate to employees outside the UK. Phoenix is looking to move away from the ‘Midlife MOT’ terminology, it said in its review of the pilot.

Lesson three: Think about the timing of the intervention

They might not be a Midlife MOT if they happened at 35 – but an earlier nudge to encourage people to save more would make a bigger difference to someone’s retirement outcomes than an intervention at 45.

Lesson four: Follow the principles of behavioural psychology

The Behavioural Insight Team (otherwise known as the Nudge Unit)’s EAST framework suggests that in order to change people’s behaviour, interventions must be Easy, Attractive, Social and Timely. Phoenix applies these principles in its paper, concluding that employers could make retirement planning feel easier by emphasising the small amount of time that many MOT actions take.

Phoenix’s paper suggests: “Actions could be chunked or clustered by the amount of time needed (‘if you have two minutes’, ‘if you have 10 minutes’, ‘if you have one hour’).”

To make engaging with Midlife MOTs attractive, employers could offer the chance to win a free lunch or an extra day of leave, Phoenix’s paper adds.

To make it social, employers could: “Provide testimonials from relatable and respected messengers about the benefits of the MOT, make MOT sign-ups more visible by publicising how many people have signed up for the MOT process, and develop a buddy scheme to boost attendance and engagement throughout.”

To make it timely, employers could use news hooks like Pension Awareness Week as a trigger to launch new campaigns, remind people to attend Midlife MOTs and ring-fence time in their diaries for follow-up actions, as well as considering the timing of their messaging – the new year is often a good time, for example.

This is part one of a three-part series on Midlife MOTs. Stay tuned to Pensions Expert for parts two and three, coming soon.