Video tutorial: How Nationwide is using technology to help employees manage workplace savings

Behavioural nudges can work incredibly well in terms of getting employees to change what they are doing around pensions and benefits, according to Ian Baines, head of pensions at Nationwide.

Speaking at the REBA Innovation Day Baines presented a case study, alongside partner Hymans Robertson, into changes made at his business.

He explained that the company started looking at the definded contribution (DC) scheme in 2015 in an effort to get people saving more.

“One of the big changes in 2015 wasn’t the benefit design but the really interesting thing was there were so few people who were paying more to get more. We started a campaign to get people talking about pensions and what their dreams and aspirations were,” said Baines.

“Then we launched the changes we talked about. The really interesting thing was we went from less than 10 per cent paying more to get more and now it’s about 80 per cent,” he said.

Baines explained that part of the change came from evidencing the value to employees. However, the company also reset the default so that contributions were set to maximum, with employees required to actively go into the benefits system and turn down their contributions if they wanted to reduce it.

“One of the consequences we hadn’t expected was opters out went down too,” he said.

In the last couple of years he said the company had also used Hymans Robertson's guided outcomes platform with DC – firstly on paper in 2016 and then through an online portal last year.

He said the management information the company had gained has allowed it to plan a more targeted approach to communication. “That’s the next phase for us, when we can start to nudge people in that segmented way rather than blanket message,” he said.

This video was recorded at the REBA Innovation Day in London, held on the 23 November 2017.