Which communication strategies are best at boosting engagement?

Rosemary Lemon: One of the problems is that pensions are very scary and when communication comes out from providers, it has to be regulatorily and technically compliant. People just put it on the ‘too difficult’ pile. There is also a lot of jargon.

My pensions manager and I recently went around the country and spoke to employees and explained how pensions worked. We said, ‘You save for your holiday each year. Why would you not save for what is potentially the longest holiday that you are ever going to get?’ When you put it in everyday terms, it really makes it come alive.

There is a whole proportion of employees who do not know as much as they should do and who need that basic pension education

Caroline Roberts, VisitBritain

Andy Cheseldine: The communications produced in pensions generally are awful, with lots of jargon. I know the industry falls back on ‘We have to comply,’ as an excuse but it is still pretty poor. There is no need for us to issue written communication that is opaque and difficult to understand. 

Ami Bartrip: We have talked about having an online portal, enabling people to look at their pension. You go online to look at your bank statements, so why can you not go on when you want to, to look at your pension.

Caroline Roberts: I still find there is a whole proportion of employees who do not know as much as they should do and who need that basic pension education.

Jason Green: The big issue is that the average person in the UK does not have an understanding of income, expenditure and debt. Until you can get to grips with your day-to-day finances, it is very hard to try and plan 30 years down the road. Once you get that under control, you are then in a far better position to not only be more interested in saving for retirement, but also practically able to save.

Mark Rowlands: With engagement, the question is, what do you want the outcome to be?

Then there is the debate around, are we going to try and educate and give people the right tools so they can become their own planner? How much of that do we try to do through scheme design, so it is done for them?

If you can find ways to personalise the communication, in terms of timing, content and the call of action, then engagement rates go off the scale.

Nasir Rafiq: We go heavy on employee engagement, with poster campaigns and leaflets. If we have a certain group of people coming up for retirement, they need more support, so we arrange things like surgeries and one-to-one consultations. We also provide online tools, which allow each individual staff member to look at their pot.

There is not enough cash going around in the third sector for bonuses and so on, but this is what we can do.

For individuals, it is about the total benefits package. The pension, when looked at in isolation, might not be the right approach.

Bartrip: I was at a conference a while ago, and one of the companies there talked about how they are helping people to save a deposit to buy a house. At another firm, when an employee moves to the city and starts with the company, they give them a cash advance to help people find accommodation. It is all about financial wellness. The pension is a part of the benefit package, but it is also about other benefits.

Roberts: Absolutely. We all want the same things: we want a bit of security for the future, but we want to have some money now.

Rowlands: We’ve been doing a piece of work around the problem of debt, access to short-term savings, and how to cope with a financial emergency. We started doing some research with academics about a sidecar account that runs alongside the pension. The contribution initially goes into the sidecar. When that is full, you put a cap on it. It then cascades into the pension. It is an accessible pot, so the member can access it for any requirement.

We are just about to embark on some trials where large employers are going to run it as an employee benefit and see what difference it makes in terms of attitudes among younger people in particular, but also older people as they also have requirements for short-term savings.

Pensions Expert: What are the most effective communication and engagement strategies?

Lemon: At a previous company, I called for volunteers to live off the base state pension for a week and record everything they spent. They signed a contract to say that they were not allowed to eat out of the freezer and have a crafty meal at their parents’. We then blogged about it.

Fifty per cent of them put their pension contributions up after the exercise. It is fine to live off the state pension amount for a week but it is not fine to do it for the rest of your life.

Bartrip: Using employees to communicate is probably the best way to do it.

Green: Any messages that you want to get to the end user, if they are not predominantly going through a mobile device, are going to be lost.

Not everyone works in an office. Not everyone has access to a computer. A lot of people’s access to internet is via their phone. Unless communications can be mobile-delivered, or at least mobile-optimised so it can be viewed properly on a mobile, it is not going to work as well.

Cheseldine: Effective communication and engagement is not just about telling people stuff. If you are going to communicate, you have to listen as well as talk.

Lemon: When it comes to something like pensions, I do not think you can beat face-to-face communication.

Rafiq: I agree with that. Communication needs to be intelligent. 

Rowlands: Face-to-face communication is a really powerful tool. It can be a great way of engaging, or creating awareness. However, the action rates are statistically low, in terms of what people have done as a result of that engagement. Our lives are busy, so you have to give people the ability to take action in that moment in time.

Bartrip: It is important to be clear about the difference between information sharing, or whether there is some action that needs to be taken, and trying to make the action as simple as possible.