Thursday 19 September
9am – 9.15am
Welcome from the chair
Spotlight 1: State of the nation: employers' appetite for change
Spotlight 2: ABI - state of the nation on how long-term savings providers are responding to the changing pensions landscape
Spotlight 3: Directions in DC: current trends and actions in improving standards and performance of pensions for employers
10am – 10.45am
Panel 1: The drive for value from pensions spend: strategies for employers and their employees
Panel 1: The drive for value from pensions spend: strategies for employers and their employees
Panel debate
Bringing together employers from across different industry sectors, the panel will discuss and debate the pensions issues and challenges facing reward and benefits directors. Areas to be discussed include:
- The current pensions trends and challenges facing employers: the impact of external factors, service levels, investments and employee engagement
- Understanding what good looks like and how to articulate that to your employees
- The changing role of pensions in retirement and wider financial wellbeing: how pensions will need to change in the future
- The impact of potential regulatory and legislative changes
- Innovative approaches to pension scheme design that align with corporate goals, including ESG, and employee needs
- Engaging and educating employees in pensions
- The impact of new technologies and AI in delivering a better experience for employers and their employees
Moderator: Jo Gallacher, Content Director, REBA
Getting best value in DC pensions
Getting best value in DC pensions
Workshop
The new government’s Pension Schemes Bill puts value for money in DC schemes firmly in the spotlight. But what determines value, and how does it impact employees’ pension savings over the course of a working life? This practical session reveals key factors that shape value for money in DC for both employees and employers. It will explore how to help employees get best value at retirement, which in turn can ensure that employers get good value from a key benefit provision.
Key themes that will be covered include;
- The essential factors that affect value in DC pensions
- The impact of those factors can have on employee pension savings
- How to help employees get the best value from their workplace pension
- How can employers look to measure value for money
Closing the pensions adequacy gap
Closing the pensions adequacy gap
Workshop
While auto-enrolment has been a great achievement in creating millions more first-time retirement savers, there is still a significant gap in pensions saving, meaning many employees will not have an adequate pot for retirement.
The latest REBA Benefits Design research in association with Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing, shows that while employers view pensions as an important element of a competitive offer, there s a lack of focus on helping employees achieve a financially secure retirement.
Join this workshop to discuss and learn about the importance of focusing in on three key areas – selecting the right provider, improving funding models and educating members – so that you can start delivering value to your members and knowing how to drive better member outcomes.
Key discussion points:
- Where should employers put their efforts and budgets to design and provide a workplace pension plan that will support adequate retirement savings?
- How can employers identify the funding adequacy gaps amongst their workforce and work long-term to improve retirement outcomes for their employees?
- What broader HR and benefits policies can they use to reduce the pensions adequacy gap and how do pensions align with wider financial wellbeing?
Exploring new pension benefits approaches to tackle DC pensions inequality
Exploring new pension benefits approaches to tackle DC pensions inequality
Workshop
While auto-enrolment has been a great achievement in encouraging everyone to save more into pensions, there are still significant gaps in pensions savings within the workforce, linked to gender, ethnicity and other factors.
Join this workshop to discuss the challenges of navigating pension saving in today’s economic climate, the specific factors impacting gender pensions gaps and some of the ways employers can address pensions inequalities by review HR practices and policies and exploring how innovative and equitable arrangements can help drive positive change.
- How can employers align HR practices and DEI policies to create a fairer system an reduce gender pension gaps?
- Addressing pension inequality through new and alternative DC contribution design approaches – what are the options?
- Can other pension strategies, designs and approaches be adopted to reduce pension inequalities?
- The potential impact of change on gender pension gaps and how it can contribute to wider corporate DEI goals
Building better financial futures – carving the way for an effective and inclusive pensions strategy
Building better financial futures – carving the way for an effective and inclusive pensions strategy
Workshop
It takes a working lifetime to save effectively for retirement. To help employees build the best possible retirement pot requires an inclusive pensions and communications strategy. That means being able to engage scheme members at every stage of their working lives.
This session will explore how to:
- Ensure employers and employees get what they need from their pension scheme at all stages of their working life, including using benchmarking.
- Understand employee needs when considering their later life/retirement provision
- Consider the importance of accommodating diverse needs within a pension and communication strategy
Speakers
Making retirement personal makes it matter: taking employees on the journey from ostrich to owl
Making retirement personal makes it matter: taking employees on the journey from ostrich to owl
Workshop
Join this workshop to understand how new technologies are enabling and transforming members’ understanding of pensions in ways never experienced before. We’ll explore how creating more intuitive and engaging online journeys can support improved decision-making and better outcomes for both savers and their employers, without straying into the red-risk area of offering financial advice.
As well as demonstrating the very latest innovations and giving employers the chance to experience first-hand what this will look like in practice, LGIM will host knowledge-sharing roundtables to discuss and debate how technology-enabled guidance and advice is likely to evolve.
Key discussion points:
- How to use guidance and advice to improve outcomes for members, especially at retirement
- Understanding the Ostrich effect – why do employees avoid retirement planning and how can new forms of tech help employers address those barriers?
- Where are employers right now on the journey and where would they like to get to?
- How will tech evolve to reduce the advice-risk for employers while providing the targeted guidance support employees need?
Designing pensions for tomorrow: what’s coming and what it will mean for employers and employees
Designing pensions for tomorrow: what’s coming and what it will mean for employers and employees
Workshop
Within the first 100 days of a new government understand the likely direction of travel for pensions policy and reform by joining this workshop with Cushon. Their experts will bring you up to speed on what’s top of the agenda, which existing initiatives are likely to survive and where the new areas of focus will be?
While political influences settle down, employers cannot afford to fall victim to inertia. They must press on to adapt and evolve to ensure their workforces get good member outcomes, and they meet their own workforce planning and HR objectives. Employees, particularly younger workers, face ever-increasing demands on finances whether it’s student debt, rapidly rising rents, getting onto the housing at later ages, self-funding of health and social care. The older workers of tomorrow will have very different retirement journeys to the generations before them.
Cushon will explore what all this means for the future of workplace pensions and how pensions strategies will need a radical rethink and redesign to balance the current and future pressures on employees’ finances and the need to save adequately for retirement.
Key discussion points:
- Pension review and reform – what’s coming next and how this will impact workplace pensions strategies?
- Evolving and adapting views on what retirement looks like
- What’s working and what’s not when it comes to engaging the younger workforce?
Empowering Retirement: Harnessing AI to transform pension engagement
Empowering Retirement: Harnessing AI to transform pension engagement
Workshop
Join this workshop for an enlightening journey into the heart of the AI-driven pension revolution. Exploring the capabilities of AI in personalising pension engagement and enhancing the retirement planning experience, discover how cutting-edge technologies are not just reshaping communication but revolutionising the entire pension landscape. During the workshop, we’ll dive into the AI Ecosystem, providing attendees with an opportunity to engage with AI on a personal level and witness its capabilities and limitations firsthand. The session is designed to demystify AI, offering a comprehensive exploration of its practical applications. We’ll tackle the challenges, celebrate the benefits, and equip you with practical tips and strategies to integrate AI into your reward and benefits framework.
Key discussion points and takeaways:
- AI fundamentals and applications: understand how AI is currently being used to elevate experiences and outcomes for both pension customers and industry professionals
- AI in action: gain practical insights into AI integration for your business, learn strategic applications within your team, and experience live demonstrations of AI tools
- Human touch in automation: discuss the critical role of human intuition and decision-making in complementing AI’s efficiency
- Gamification in pensions: explore the potential of gamification to engage employees in a new, dynamic way with their pension plans
DC investment round-up
DC investment round-up
Workshop
The way that a DC scheme manages its investment strategy can have a significant effect on how employees’ pension pots grow over time, which ultimately affects their retirement income.
Join this workshop to discuss the latest trends in DC investment, find out what to ask your pension scheme provider about their investment approach, and why the contents of the default investment strategy matter to scheme governance.
Key discussion points – explore and discuss the latest trends in DC investment
- What’s really inside your provider’s investment strategy? How will it help employees get the best investment returns from their contributions and build the best possible DC pot for their retirement?
- How can employers make sure that their pension provider’s ESG strategy fits their own beliefs and those of their workforce, and delivers good value for money?
- What could proposals to include different assets such as private equity in DC default strategies mean for the long term?
- How can employers make sure their pension scheme offers an investment approach that works for employees at different stages of their lives, and offers good value for money?
New thinking for DC – using governance to drive value & engagement
New thinking for DC – using governance to drive value & engagement
Workshop
Whether you have contract-based, master trust or own trust DC, regulators are looking for more effective governance (e.g. through The Pensions Regulator's General Code of Practice) and greater value for money (VFM) in pension plans. This session looks at how good governance can:
- drive genuine value in schemes for members and employers
- achieve equity and consistency across multiple DC schemes
- help you take action in response to underperformance
- add value to pensions strategy
- measure and improve member engagement to embed employee ownership of pensions
Engaging employees with their pensions
Engaging employees with their pensions
Workshop
It's more important than ever to engage employees with pensions, yet there seems to be a general lack of understanding by employees about their pension investments and, crucially, how their actions and behaviours can significantly impact future retirement outcomes. WEALTH at work will share key insights and some interesting (and unexpected) findings from their latest Pensions Engagement research, exploring the challenges members are facing, changing attitudes and why they may not be as engaged with their pension savings as they should be. Join this interactive session to dig deeper into employee attitudes and beliefs about pensions and understand how you can empower employees by developing their pensions knowledge and understanding and help to positively impact their financial future.
Key discussion points:
- What is the research and data on employee attitudes and behaviours telling us about how far they understand pensions, what motivates them and what this means for their future pension savings potential?
- Why is pension engagement so challenging for employees and their employers?
- How employers can help employees engage with the changing landscape of retirement saving - balancing pensions adequacy with other financial commitments
- Finding your engagement benchmark and using financial education as a workforce planning tool
- Ways to help over-55s prepare to make good pensions decisions and make the most of their savings
Getting best value in DC pensions
Getting best value in DC pensions
Workshop
The new government’s Pension Schemes Bill puts value for money in DC schemes firmly in the spotlight. But what determines value, and how does it impact employees’ pension savings over the course of a working life? This practical session reveals key factors that shape value for money in DC for both employees and employers. It will explore how to help employees get best value at retirement, which in turn can ensure that employers get good value from a key benefit provision.
Key themes that will be covered include;
- The essential factors that affect value in DC pensions
- The impact of those factors can have on employee pension savings
- How to help employees get the best value from their workplace pension
- How can employers look to measure value for money
Closing the pensions adequacy gap
Closing the pensions adequacy gap
Workshop
While auto-enrolment has been a great achievement in creating millions more first-time retirement savers, there is still a significant gap in pensions saving, meaning many employees will not have an adequate pot for retirement.
The latest REBA Benefits Design research in association with Howden Employee Benefits & Wellbeing, shows that while employers view pensions as an important element of a competitive offer, there s a lack of focus on helping employees achieve a financially secure retirement.
Join this workshop to discuss and learn about the importance of focusing in on three key areas – selecting the right provider, improving funding models and educating members – so that you can start delivering value to your members and knowing how to drive better member outcomes.
Key discussion points:
- Where should employers put their efforts and budgets to design and provide a workplace pension plan that will support adequate retirement savings?
- How can employers identify the funding adequacy gaps amongst their workforce and work long-term to improve retirement outcomes for their employees?
- What broader HR and benefits policies can they use to reduce the pensions adequacy gap and how do pensions align with wider financial wellbeing?
Exploring new pension benefits approaches to tackle DC pensions inequality
Exploring new pension benefits approaches to tackle DC pensions inequality
Workshop
While auto-enrolment has been a great achievement in encouraging everyone to save more into pensions, there are still significant gaps in pensions savings within the workforce, linked to gender, ethnicity and other factors.
Join this workshop to discuss the challenges of navigating pension saving in today’s economic climate, the specific factors impacting gender pensions gaps and some of the ways employers can address pensions inequalities by review HR practices and policies and exploring how innovative and equitable arrangements can help drive positive change.
- How can employers align HR practices and DEI policies to create a fairer system an reduce gender pension gaps?
- Addressing pension inequality through new and alternative DC contribution design approaches – what are the options?
- Can other pension strategies, designs and approaches be adopted to reduce pension inequalities?
- The potential impact of change on gender pension gaps and how it can contribute to wider corporate DEI goals
Building better financial futures – carving the way for an effective and inclusive pensions strategy
Building better financial futures – carving the way for an effective and inclusive pensions strategy
Workshop
It takes a working lifetime to save effectively for retirement. To help employees build the best possible retirement pot requires an inclusive pensions and communications strategy. That means being able to engage scheme members at every stage of their working lives.
This session will explore how to:
- Ensure employers and employees get what they need from their pension scheme at all stages of their working life, including using benchmarking.
- Understand employee needs when considering their later life/retirement provision
- Consider the importance of accommodating diverse needs within a pension and communication strategy
Speakers
Making retirement personal makes it matter: taking employees on the journey from ostrich to owl
Making retirement personal makes it matter: taking employees on the journey from ostrich to owl
Workshop
Join this workshop to understand how new technologies are enabling and transforming members’ understanding of pensions in ways never experienced before. We’ll explore how creating more intuitive and engaging online journeys can support improved decision-making and better outcomes for both savers and their employers, without straying into the red-risk area of offering financial advice.
As well as demonstrating the very latest innovations and giving employers the chance to experience first-hand what this will look like in practice, LGIM will host knowledge-sharing roundtables to discuss and debate how technology-enabled guidance and advice is likely to evolve.
Key discussion points:
- How to use guidance and advice to improve outcomes for members, especially at retirement
- Understanding the Ostrich effect – why do employees avoid retirement planning and how can new forms of tech help employers address those barriers?
- Where are employers right now on the journey and where would they like to get to?
- How will tech evolve to reduce the advice-risk for employers while providing the targeted guidance support employees need?
Designing pensions for tomorrow: what’s coming and what it will mean for employers and employees
Designing pensions for tomorrow: what’s coming and what it will mean for employers and employees
Workshop
Within the first 100 days of a new government understand the likely direction of travel for pensions policy and reform by joining this workshop with Cushon. Their experts will bring you up to speed on what’s top of the agenda, which existing initiatives are likely to survive and where the new areas of focus will be?
While political influences settle down, employers cannot afford to fall victim to inertia. They must press on to adapt and evolve to ensure their workforces get good member outcomes, and they meet their own workforce planning and HR objectives. Employees, particularly younger workers, face ever-increasing demands on finances whether it’s student debt, rapidly rising rents, getting onto the housing at later ages, self-funding of health and social care. The older workers of tomorrow will have very different retirement journeys to the generations before them.
Cushon will explore what all this means for the future of workplace pensions and how pensions strategies will need a radical rethink and redesign to balance the current and future pressures on employees’ finances and the need to save adequately for retirement.
Key discussion points:
- Pension review and reform – what’s coming next and how this will impact workplace pensions strategies?
- Evolving and adapting views on what retirement looks like
- What’s working and what’s not when it comes to engaging the younger workforce?
Empowering Retirement: Harnessing AI to transform pension engagement
Empowering Retirement: Harnessing AI to transform pension engagement
Workshop
Join this workshop for an enlightening journey into the heart of the AI-driven pension revolution. Exploring the capabilities of AI in personalising pension engagement and enhancing the retirement planning experience, discover how cutting-edge technologies are not just reshaping communication but revolutionising the entire pension landscape. During the workshop, we’ll dive into the AI Ecosystem, providing attendees with an opportunity to engage with AI on a personal level and witness its capabilities and limitations firsthand. The session is designed to demystify AI, offering a comprehensive exploration of its practical applications. We’ll tackle the challenges, celebrate the benefits, and equip you with practical tips and strategies to integrate AI into your reward and benefits framework.
Key discussion points and takeaways:
- AI fundamentals and applications: understand how AI is currently being used to elevate experiences and outcomes for both pension customers and industry professionals
- AI in action: gain practical insights into AI integration for your business, learn strategic applications within your team, and experience live demonstrations of AI tools
- Human touch in automation: discuss the critical role of human intuition and decision-making in complementing AI’s efficiency
- Gamification in pensions: explore the potential of gamification to engage employees in a new, dynamic way with their pension plans
DC investment round-up
DC investment round-up
Workshop
The way that a DC scheme manages its investment strategy can have a significant effect on how employees’ pension pots grow over time, which ultimately affects their retirement income.
Join this workshop to discuss the latest trends in DC investment, find out what to ask your pension scheme provider about their investment approach, and why the contents of the default investment strategy matter to scheme governance.
Key discussion points – explore and discuss the latest trends in DC investment
- What’s really inside your provider’s investment strategy? How will it help employees get the best investment returns from their contributions and build the best possible DC pot for their retirement?
- How can employers make sure that their pension provider’s ESG strategy fits their own beliefs and those of their workforce, and delivers good value for money?
- What could proposals to include different assets such as private equity in DC default strategies mean for the long term?
- How can employers make sure their pension scheme offers an investment approach that works for employees at different stages of their lives, and offers good value for money?
New thinking for DC – using governance to drive value & engagement
New thinking for DC – using governance to drive value & engagement
Workshop
Whether you have contract-based, master trust or own trust DC, regulators are looking for more effective governance (e.g. through The Pensions Regulator's General Code of Practice) and greater value for money (VFM) in pension plans. This session looks at how good governance can:
- drive genuine value in schemes for members and employers
- achieve equity and consistency across multiple DC schemes
- help you take action in response to underperformance
- add value to pensions strategy
- measure and improve member engagement to embed employee ownership of pensions
Engaging employees with their pensions
Engaging employees with their pensions
Workshop
It's more important than ever to engage employees with pensions, yet there seems to be a general lack of understanding by employees about their pension investments and, crucially, how their actions and behaviours can significantly impact future retirement outcomes. WEALTH at work will share key insights and some interesting (and unexpected) findings from their latest Pensions Engagement research, exploring the challenges members are facing, changing attitudes and why they may not be as engaged with their pension savings as they should be. Join this interactive session to dig deeper into employee attitudes and beliefs about pensions and understand how you can empower employees by developing their pensions knowledge and understanding and help to positively impact their financial future.
Key discussion points:
- What is the research and data on employee attitudes and behaviours telling us about how far they understand pensions, what motivates them and what this means for their future pension savings potential?
- Why is pension engagement so challenging for employees and their employers?
- How employers can help employees engage with the changing landscape of retirement saving - balancing pensions adequacy with other financial commitments
- Finding your engagement benchmark and using financial education as a workforce planning tool
- Ways to help over-55s prepare to make good pensions decisions and make the most of their savings
2.30pm – 3.15pm
Panel 2: Joining up pensions savings for employees – what’s the direction of travel and how can providers help?
Panel 2: Joining up pensions savings for employees – what’s the direction of travel and how can providers help?
Panel debate
This panel will bring together pensions industry experts to debate and explore the bigger market issues impacting reward and benefits including:
- The potential of AI to transform the pensions market and boost member engagement
- Where next for auto-enrolment – and the challenges ahead
- Adequacy and retirement journeys in future: how can the industry make retiring easier and more secure, make options clearer for employees and support better understanding of the retirement lifecycle?
- Engaging and educating employees on pension saving and financial literacy
Moderator: Debi O’Donovan, Founder and Director, REBA
Spotlight 4: Creating a savings culture in the UK: what role employers can play?
Spotlight 5: Challenges facing the UK pensions system and implications for retirement
