Engagement remains a huge challenge for pensions
18 September 2017
Experts have called for improvements surrounding pension communications, as part of the UK's third annual Pension Awareness Day.
Pension Awareness Day took place on 15 September and aims to encourage people to plan for retirement and promotes the importance of saving.
Professional Pensions investigated what individuals believe is the most important issue where awareness needs to be raised among individuals. The results of the Pensions Buzz survey showed that adequate contribution levels are high on the agenda (47%). A commentator said: "A lot of people with good savings intentions just don't grasp the importance of making significant contributions or making them early enough. It's a serious issue that far outweighs tax relief. Tax relief, being as it is just tax deferral, is an insignificant consideration for most people."
Four in 10 respondents thought getting people to understand the benefits of saving into a pension is the most significant. "People need to realise they are on their own so they need to make pension provision themselves" said one respondent.
One in 12 said people needed to be more aware of other things like unfunded state pensions and the inadequacy of DC schemes. Just 4% thought increasing people's awareness of at-retirement options was the most important, and only 1% selected tax relief.
In aid of Pension Awareness Day, the Like Minds team have put together a list of top 10 ways to engage members in their pensions. Like Minds director and co-founder Nick Throp said:
"After decades of failing to engage people in saving and managing their money into retirement, employers and the pensions industry need to look beyond providing factual information and apply more emotional intelligence to their communications. We need a different conversation with people - one that recognises the role of emotion and different behavioural characteristics to get them interested and inspired."
- Make your message interesting - inspiring, even
- Play the "missing out" card
- Don't overwhelm
- Be relevant
- Be adventurous with communication channels
- Use clear and simple language
- Give support
- Make the savings process easy
- Provide reassurance
- Consider the bigger picture - financial wellness
Read more about the ten ways to engage members in pensions.