Civil Service Pension Scheme inadvertently prompted nearly half of its members to explore their pension entitlements after it carried out a survey as part of a wide-ranging engagement project, aimed at ensuring all members are informed about their benefits.
MyCSP operates the Civil Service Pension Scheme, but also offers administration services to the wider pensions industry.
It began working on its member engagement strategy in 2014 with the Cabinet Office, according to David Boardman, communications director at the scheme. He said the objective was to “make sure members are sufficiently engaged with pension planning [and benefit entitlement]”.
If you want someone to do something or change their behaviour, frankly a text or a poster isn’t going to work
Trevor Rutter, Like Minds
The defined benefit scheme considered the use of mobile phones and apps such as Instagram to communicate with members after a payment delay prompted high levels of calls from members.
This resulted in changes such as a revamped website and a dedicated Twitter account, which Boardman said was “more to do with recognising people will access information in a range of ways”.
Engagement survey
More recently, the scheme completed a member engagement survey of more than 6,000 members that revealed 80 per cent of active members had used the scheme’s website, and that 73 per cent of active members who find the information they are looking for on the website do not feel the need to follow up with the enquiry centre by phone.
This has fed into the scheme producing a range of 'What to expect…' guides in November, outlining the key points members should be aware of in situations such as when they leave before normal pension age or are going through a divorce.
However, an unintended consequence of the survey was that nearly half of respondents said taking the survey were then prompted to look into their own pension entitlements.
In addition, 92 per cent said they wanted to find out more about their entitlements.
The next steps, Boardman said, were to carry out focus groups and launch the next initiative – a “jargon buster” video to “demystify the world of pensions for our members”.
Ongoing reviews
The first review of its guides will take place in February. The jargon buster guide will go to the Cabinet Office for review at the end of January and will likely go live in February at the earliest, Boardman said.
“It’s all about simplicity, clarity, testing,” he added.
Trevor Rutter, consultant at communication specialist Like Minds, said testing and refining communication channels is important to ensure a scheme is not getting caught up in the latest approach.
“There’s a danger if things become fashionable that people start doing something because everyone else is doing it,” he said.
Rutter stressed the importance of using different channels for different purposes: “If you’re making people aware of something, you can send them a text or [put] a poster in the lift, but if you want someone to do something or change their behaviour, frankly a text or a poster isn’t going to work.”
Ian McQuade, client director at governance consultancy Muse Advisory, said there was increasing focus among schemes on how they communicate with members.
“Communication is one area where a number of schemes are looking to up their game,” he said, adding it was being driven by defined contribution schemes.
“It’s more prevalent in DC schemes than in DB,” he said. “I think a lot of DB schemes are in runoff mode.”
However, Jonathan Reynolds, client director at professional trustee company Capital Cranfield, said: “On the DB side, I think there’s been an improvement. One of the issues is a slight increase in demand for cash equivalent transfer values.”
