The employer increased its matching of employee pension contributions from 3-6% to 3-10% from January 2014 to coincide with its auto-enrolment staging date.
Around one-third of Peel Ports Group’s 1,100 employees were part of its stakeholder pension plan prior to the change in matching rates, according to Amanda Willis, pensions manager. She believes the pension scheme has grown in popularity since.
To highlight the increase in contribution matching, Peel Ports introduced a range of communication initiatives. Willis explains: “We gave all staff the opportunity to have conversations with a pensions professional, either internally or externally, and gave them letters explaining the options.
“In November 2014, we released our first pensions and benefits newsletter covering all the changes to state pensions and the flexibilities. It went down really well. The pension freedoms have made staff see pensions as a savings vehicle and they have become more engaged.”
It sent out its second newsletter in June 2015. This followed pensions briefings held towards the end of 2014 and in March 2015 to highlight the importance of pension contributions.
Willis says: “With the retirement projection and ‘retiready’ site [provided by] Aegon, employees can work out exactly how much they need to be saving.”
Peel Ports Group won ‘Best defined contribution (DC) pension change’ at the Employee Benefits Awards 2015 and was awarded the Pension Quality Mark Plus in November 2014.
