Top tips to integrate your pension scheme with your wider financial wellbeing strategy
With pensions still being somewhat of an alien concept to the vast majority of the workforce, it makes sense to pay particular attention to this area in your wellbeing strategy and here are some tips on how to do that.
Research: Understand your workforce
Research is a key element of any strategy, especially when it comes to people. Understanding the behaviours of your workforce is the most important part - You need a clear vision of the services are going to get maximum engagement. Once you improving your employees’ pension knowledge and empower them to take control of their financial future, a greater financial wellness is sure to follow.
Segmenting your messaging: Keep it light for the younger ones
Basic, simplistic overviews of what a pension is and how it works is enough for this audience – as tempting as it may be, don’t try to make them experts in one session. You must drip feed them information over time so they don’t get turned off the concept.
Communication planning: Repetition and timely reminders
The digital communication space is a saturated one, and it may seem counterintuitive at first, but repetition is a powerful tool for any internal communication. Repetition is a great learning tool and is used subconsciously throughout our lives. This technique should be used for any important topic, and what’s more important than financial wellbeing.
Key life moments throughout the year can also act as good reminders to take action. Anniversaries such as birthdays serve as a great reminder to think about retirement planning – “one year older, one year closer to retirement”. Making a message personal will resonate much more with your people, making any communication much more effective.
Communication methods: Tools & Videos paint the picture
Bringing the information to life is perhaps the trickiest part of educating people on what pensions are and their importance to us. So try to utilise tools & videos to help get the point across, better yet, try personalised videos which combine both!
Constant monitoring: React when necessary
Economic trends will have both good and bad effects on people’s pension funds but when major incidents such as COVID 19 strike, we must react and inform our pension members on what this means to their retirement funds. Many people will have suffered severe dips in their fund performance and making financial advisers available for those who are nearing retirement will be gratefully received by members.
Financial advice: Talking to an expert
As good as all the websites, videos, tools, flyers and webinars are, nothing comes close to sitting down with a financial adviser and having a personalised advice meeting. Offering these will go down very well with your workforce.
Essentially, pensions should be an integral part of your wider financial wellbeing strategy.
Communication is always key, but it’s important to strategise correctly, from researching into what makes your employees tick to ensuring you always have expert advice to hand. Understanding your workforce has never been more important, so you can provide them with the right services and tools that are going to engage and empower them to take action and improve their financial wellness.