Which? has used pensions auto-enrolment as an opportunity to promote its reward strategy to its 587 employees.
The consumer organisation, which has been heavily involved in raising awareness of, and educating consumers about, the debate around auto-enrolment, wanted to be an early adopter and subsequently staged when this came into effect in October 2012.
Kim Brosnan, director of talent at Which?, said: “We thought [our early adoption] was consistent with our mission and campaigning.
“We wanted to use the opportunity to convey all the work that we’ve been doing with our total reward strategy [which launched in 2011].”
The organisation also used pensions auto-enrolment to address an issue identified through its internal analysis, which showed that many employees opted to leave within their first year.
As a result, Which? has altered the structure of its pension contributions so that employees in their first year of employment receive slightly above the minimum required under auto-enrolment legislation. After a year, this increases to the organisation’s pre-existing pension contribution level.
“We are trying to get people over that first year hump,” said Brosnan.
When it came to complying with auto-enrolment, ensuring a cross-divisional team was in place was key. This involved members of Which?’s pension, payroll, HR, internal communications and IT departments.
“They key thing for us was to have good planning and having all the right disciplines involved in the project,” Brosnan explained.
“That gave us a real opportunity to look at the project in a holistic way.”
Kim Brosnan will be speaking at Employee Benefits Live at Olympia, London on 25 September 2013.
