Next stop: workplace pension communications

Working in London, you get used to seeing some strange things on the Tube.

People fighting…

People changing clothes right there in front of you…

People in fancy dress (at least I assume it’s fancy dress, although on the Tube you can never be sure…)

People reading classified work documents, oblivious to the passengers reading over their shoulder.

Still, when I received the results of our recent survey of over 2,000 UK employees¹, I was a little surprised to see one particular stat.

It showed that 45% of Londoners regularly perform a particular task on their commute…

That task is their financial housekeeping.

The trend was particularly pronounced amongst younger people, with 40% of 25-34 year-olds across the country keen to multitask in this way on their way into work.

I was surprised because to me, the Tube doesn’t seem like a particularly comfortable place to sort out your financial affairs.

But once I thought about it, it made perfect sense.

If there was one thing our survey showed loud and clear, it’s that people in the UK prefer to take care of their financial issues outside of the office.

85% said they do their admin in the evening, after work, and 70% said they do it at the weekend.

And even though the Tube is as public as you can get, often people tend to treat their seat on the Tube as an extension of their personal space.

So, if part of your job is to get your employees more engaged in their pensions, and to save more, these little stats have big implications.

We send emails to people’s work email addresses. We put information on the Intranet, which can only be accessed in the office. We hold face-to-face sessions during work hours.

Yet, apparently that’s not when most people prefer to think about and deal with their finances…

…they want to do it on their own time.

By delivering pensions comms to them in the wrong place, we make it less likely that they will engage with it or act upon it.

So, if you’re aiming to change people’s behaviour around pensions, you may need to adapt.

Check out our:

Guide to UK Employee Benefits

First, you need to find out whether your own employees share this preference, particularly in London where it was most pronounced.

And if they do, you may have to help them access pensions-related material outside of work.

Given that you can’t send out pensions statements C/O the Central, Circle or Northern line, what are your other options?

Our survey respondents expressed a clear preference for receiving letters and hard-copy guides about pensions to their home address, and emails to their personal address.

How else can you adapt the way you provide your pension comms, so that people receive them where they actually want to deal with them?

To find out more, get in touch with your usual Punter Southall Aspire contact - we'd be happy to share our best practice tips with you.

¹ PS Aspire report: It's time to change: A research-driven guide to optimising your pension communications (July 2018, 2,035 respondents).