Following its merger with Certegy, financial technology firm, Fidelity National Information Services had three pension schemes: a stakeholder plan, a contracted-in money purchase plan and a group personal pension (GPP).
To harmonise these pension arrangements, it consolidated the schemes into a new GPP. Julie Chell, Fidelity's HR director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, says: "We wanted to align our compensation and benefits packages and provide a competitive pensions offering to all Fidelity's employees." Between August and September 2007, the firm set up focus groups to discuss what it wanted to do. It also held group presentations about the new GPP, followed by one-to-one meetings with an adviser for its 300 staff.
In these sessions, staff could receive individual advice about the new scheme, their old pension and any scheme they might have been part of with a previous employer. The new scheme went live in January.
"The objective was to help employees understand whether they were saving enough for retirement," says Chell.
Staff who were not on track were offered the opportunity to commit to increasing their contributions in the next two to five years.
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