How Do Businesses Help Employees Plan For Their Future With Improved Pension Engagement?
Pensions are considered a necessity in today’s world but are often neglected and something that we push to the back of our minds. Yet, they can be one of the biggest and continual investments of our lives and for our employers who, since 2012 are required to automatically enrol and pay into pension schemes.
One of the primary reasons for the lack of engagement with pension schemes is their perceived complexity. Pensions come with a plethora of industry-specific and financial terms, which to the everyday civilian are baffling and off-putting. Additionally, ease of access can be a big challenge. Once enrolled in a workplace pension scheme, that is often the end of an employee’s journey. But what happens if an employee wants to find out more information or get support with tasks e.g., updating an address or checking their pension pot?
The employee would either be required to locate and reset login details, email their HR or Pensions representative, or contact an external services management company. Both of which take time and effort, with the latter often taking several days and even weeks to generate a response due to the complexity of communication chains (often involving multiple people, departments, and companies).
These challenges result in lower employee engagement in their pension, with many giving up at the first hurdle. In fact, a recent survey conducted by Atlas Master Trust found that 72% of employee respondents are not actively engaged with their workplace pension.
With so much investment being made by businesses and the fundamental role that pensions play in helping employees prepare for their future, the question is how do organisations increase engagement in pension schemes?
Pensions Dashboard
The introduction of the Pensions Dashboard by the government is one of the ways in which businesses can help to improve employee engagement in their pension, with employees being able to easily access and review all their retirement savings, income streams, and state pension entitlement in one location. Although this scheme was originally envisaged to be in place by 2019, last year the Pension Dashboard Programme, the group responsible for designing and implementing this solution, stated that they would not be widely available before 2023.
This has meant that businesses, need to find other solutions in the interim for helping to overcome the challenge of improving employee engagement and awareness of their pension.
Improved Communications
The introduction of the Pensions Dashboard by the government is one of the ways in which businesses can help to improve employee engagement in their pension, with employees being able to easily access and review all their retirement savings, income streams, and state pension entitlement in one location. Although this scheme was originally envisaged to be in place by 2019, last year the Pension Dashboard Programme, the group responsible for designing and implementing this solution, stated that they would not be widely available before 2023.
This has meant that businesses, need to find other solutions in the interim for helping to overcome the challenge of improving employee engagement and awareness of their pension.
Intelligent Pensions Assistant (IPA)
Another way the businesses can improve employee engagement and access to Pensions is through an Intelligent Pensions Agent (IPA). An IPA is an easy-to-use chat interface (e.g., WhatsApp, MS Teams, Slack) that is designed to support organisations and their members by enabling more effective self-service through the automation of key policy and pensions questions and tasks.
The Agent supports members with general pension queries such as ‘What age can I retire?’, as well as providing information on scheme-specific requests and enabling actions such as securely updating personal information.
An IPA not only significantly improves member experiences through reducing waiting times and providing assurance within minutes, but also helps to improve policy awareness among employees and data accuracy for organisations.
If you are interested in finding out more about the Intelligent Pensions Assistant, get in touch today.