26 Sep 2019

Six clever ways to raise your pension communication game

Employers have an increasing responsibility to help safeguard the financial wellbeing of their employees. Financial and mental health issues often go hand in hand and so it’s important you give employees the information they need to be able to plan and manage their money effectively. A key element of this is to ensure employees understand their pensions and the position they will be in when they retire.

Pensions are not always an easy subject to get people excited and engaged with. Communications often suffer from being overly technical and complicated, while the fact that it relates to something that may not become ‘real’ until sometime in the future, can mean it’s easy to put to one side to look at another day.

So, how do you get your employees to sit up and take notice? Below we’ve put together six tips to help you raise your pension game so you can help your employees take control of their future.

1. Keep it simple

Make the message relatable and easy to digest. For example, you could explain pension planning as being like just another form of savings account. The more you save the more options it will give you at retirement. The main difference to this savings account is that as well as putting your own money into your pension pot, you also get a contribution from your employer plus tax relief (and if you make contributions via salary exchange you could also make National Insurance savings).

2. Tailor your messages

There’s no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach when it comes to pension communications. What matters to someone approaching retirement will be different to someone starting out on their career. Take a look at the demographics of your workforce and tailor the messages so they are relevant to the receiver and you will immediately increase engagement with your messages.

3. Use multiple channels

Do you send out your messages through just one channel? An email to all employees or perhaps an update on your intranet? People absorb messages in different ways. If you only ever use one channel it’s likely there is always an element of your workforce you are not engaging with. Using two or three different channels will ensure that more people see your message.

4. Get them thinking

Lead with a message that gets your employees thinking. For example, ‘Will your pension contributions give you the lifestyle you want when you retire?’ or ‘Planning on travelling the world when you retire? Are you sure you can afford to?’.

With the dawn of auto enrolment there is a risk that employees think the minimum contribution level is the government’s recommended amount. Get your employee’s attention then give them clear details of how they can check their projected pension so they know where they actually stand.

5. Try different locations

Want to use some posters as part of your communications campaign? Not sure where to put them for maximum effect? The back of toilet doors is a surprisingly great location for your message. You get a captive audience with time to read and take in your message.

6. Run a competition

Sometimes you need to give people an incentive to engage with your communications, even if the content is in their best interests. Linking your content to a competition is a great way to create a buzz around your communications. Asking employees to find answers in your text ensures a quickfire way to get them to read and acknowledge your pensions messages while also bringing a fun element to proceedings.

Communication is all about getting the right message to the right person in the right way. By using a combination of the tips above you can start to take your pension communications to another level.

This article is provided by PIB Employee Benefits.