How Weight Watchers tackled AE demographic challenge

The company’s UK head office has 200 salaried employees, paid monthly. However around 1,600 of the company’s employees are leaders, who often work part-time or have another job, with zero-hour contracts and paid on variable pay reference periods.

We needed a scheme that could go across both populations with one provider

The availability of leaders' earnings was a challenge when implementing auto-enrolment. The company had to find an assessment of earnings tool that would make determining eligibility for both employee demographics easier for the HR and payroll teams, Sara Harper-Holton, HR director at Weight Watchers UK said today at the National Association of Pension Funds' annual conference.

Weight Watchers also needed a communication strategy that would effectively inform leaders who were not used to being auto-enrolled what it meant for them, she said.

“The third thing is that I was really clear we wanted to avoid a two-tiered approach, so we have two different populations but actually they’re both equally important. I therefore wanted something that went across both populations,” said Harper-Holton.

The company changed its pension plan from a standard defined contribution scheme to a "group-based pension plan".

“The rationale for that was preparing for when we needed to auto-enrol the leaders because we needed a scheme that could go across both populations with one provider,” Harper-Holton said.

Head office employees were enrolled on August 1 this year, while enrolment of leaders was postponed until this month because more work was required to test the enrolment plans for this employee demographic.

The company used an interface tool that allows both leaders and head office employees to view and select pension funds, as well as other benefits, and has a clear and easy opt-out process.

“Which means as a HR director when you want to talk to your employees about benefits you’re not having to have two different sets of communications, going out at different times etc and is a bit of a win,” Harper-Holton said.

The company carried out employee briefings at the head office but to cater to the needs of its leader employees, auto-enrolment was also communicated online via FAQs, video demonstrations and email.

Martin Freeman, director at JLT Employee Benefits, also speaking on the panel, said that because of auto-enrolment, offering a pension will no longer differentiate an employer's benefit package.

“So if we’re offering it, we need to make the best of it and it comes down to three things: education, communication and engagement," said Freeman.