Like Minds' Trevor Rutter lays out the essentials of messaging that will drive staff to save more into their workplace pension, in the latest edition of Technical Comment.
If you believe there is a need to communicate to members about this, where is the best place to start? It is tempting to think of all the exciting ways you can get people to engage with this subject.
How about an app, maybe? It is new, fashionable and will reach younger members.
Three action points
Think about your audience – might they need different messages?
How will you make it personal and timely for them?
Only then decide on the best media to use
But you should resist looking at media and communication channels until after you have fully thought about what you are trying to achieve.
If you want your campaign to stand the most chance of succeeding, you need to start from the other end and look at your audience.
It needs to be relevant to them, which means targeted, personal, and timely.
Targeting
This is the most important element. Consider your audience and ask yourself, 'What are they thinking now and what would I ultimately like them to think?'.
Ideally, you will use research to understand what your audience is currently thinking
You will soon see that your audience may not be one homogenous group. An employee starting out in their career may be thinking, 'Retirement is a long way off, I’ve plenty of time and little spare cash right now. Paying in more can wait'.
You want them to be thinking that even a small contribution will make a big difference over the long term. It need not affect their lifestyle and the sooner they start the better.
So a message that demonstrates the power of compound interest will help. You may have seen examples showing that by saving the cost of a single £2 cup of coffee every day, it will be worth nearly £50,000 in 30 years’ time.
This is very effective at demonstrating the value of saving a small amount regularly for a long period.
This sort of message will not be effective if you are only a few years from retirement. An older employee may be thinking that it is too late to make a difference.
You will want them to understand the new flexibility around accessing their pension savings and that the tax reliefs available can make even short-term saving an attractive proposition. So it’s a different emphasis to that used for younger employees.
Ideally, you will use research to understand what your audience is currently thinking and use this to decide if you need to segregate your workers for different messages.
Personalisation
Where possible you should make the communication personal. Use pounds sterling not per cent, and use the data you have to provide individual figures.
This need not be expensive: adding to a benefit statement the impact of paying a further £20 a month in terms of the net reduction in pay and what this could provide at retirement is not difficult, and is far more powerful than any generic example.
Timeliness
Choosing when you communicate is also important. Pay review time is popular, as it can enable a greater contribution without any drop in take-home pay. But why not target specific dates like a member’s 40th birthday, or even Valentine's day (fall back in love with your pension!).
So finally we get to what media to use. This will follow on naturally once you have agreed what your communication is trying to achieve. You will need words, pictures and ideas.
Consider the big concept that will hook people in and get them interested. To be useful and lasting, it needs to make employees:
pay attention;
understand and remember it;
agree/believe;
care; and
be able to act on it.
And this last point is critical – it has to be easy for employees to act. Provide the form or the link and do not make people have to hunt for it or it will be one more barrier to taking action.
Trevor Rutter is a communication consultant at Like Minds
