The Telegraph Media Group has seen a 34% rise in the proportion of employees making additional voluntary contributions (AVCs) to its pension scheme since it launched personalised communications for its employees.
It issued a personalised newsletter to the 1,000 members of its trust-based defined contribution (DC) pension scheme at the beginning of March 2013, just prior to the open enrolment period for its flexible benefits scheme.
The newsletter included a range of individually tailored information, which included savings options, estimated final pension based on current levels of contributions and the chance to increase levels of life assurance benefits.
It also demonstrated the difference that an additional 1% monthly contribution could make to a member’s final pension.
As a direct result, 60 members started making AVCs for the first time and a number of existing AVC payers increased their contributions.
The newsletter was designed by Shilling Communications.
Dipak Wadher, pensions manager at the Telegraph Media Group, said: “Using personalised communication has been extremely successful.
“Timing is important; we issued ours just before the flexible benefits option window when staff had the opportunity to review their benefits. We have achieved measurable success by making the newsletter meaningful and relevant to each individual member.
“This supports our overall objective: to engage our members more effectively with their own pension savings and to help them understand the support we offer them to make adequate retirement provision.”
Steve Sykes, communication consultant at Shilling, added: “Using actual figures based on members’ salaries along with clear calls to action, we were able to really demonstrate to employees in a powerful way the shortcomings in their retirement savings and the steps that they’d need to take to bridge the gap.
“Achieving such encouraging results from this first piece of personalised communication demonstrates the return on investment that can be achieved when an employer produces tailored documents that are focused on achieving clear and measurable objectives.”