Technology firm CSC focused on financial education as the basis for its corporate platform when it was launched two years ago.
Speaking in a panel debate entitled ‘Holistic approaches to workplace saving - new era or false dawn?’ at the Employee Benefits Pensions and Workplace Savings Summit 2012 on 9 March, Jenny Davidson, director of compensation and benefits, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) for CSC, said the company’s corporate platform was continually evolving, but was designed to begin with financial education.
“We did a lot of research prior to launching the platform and all employees said they needed some sort of financial education, but were unwilling to pay for it themselves,” she said. “When we launched the corporate platform, we wanted to get the education piece embedded first.”
The platform, provided by Scottish Widows, includes a group personal pension (GPP) scheme, a cash individual savings account (Isa), and an equity Isa.
The GPP has a membership of 1,600 employees, and 80 have joined the cash Isa since it was introduced a year ago. The equity Isa, which was introduced during CSC’s flexible benefits enrolment window in December 2011, has achieved no take-up.
The reasons for the lack of take-up for the equity Isa were threefold, said Davidson: the timing of the launch, the lack of contributions from CSC, and the fact that there was very little communication around it.
The corporate platform has been designed so employees go through financial education first, by reading case studies and using the online pension modelling tool.
“We chose the corporate platform because of its financial education element,” said Davidson. “It has got employees really engaged with their pension.”
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