CSC focused on financial education as the basis for its corporate wrap 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 firm’s corporate wrap is continually evolving, but is designed to begin with financial education.
She added: “We did a lot of research prior to launching the corporate wrap and all employees said they needed some sort of financial education, but were unwilling to pay for it themselves. When we launched the corporate wrap we wanted to get the education piece embedded first.”
The corporate wrap, which is 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, while 80 staff have joined the cash Isa since it was introduced a year ago. The equity Isa, which was introduced during the flexible benefits enrolment window in December 2011, has achieved no take-up.
Davidson said the reasons for the lack of take up for the equity Isa are three-fold: the timing of the launch, the lack of contributions from CSC, and the fact that there was very little communication around it.
The corporate wrap platform has been designed so that employees go through financial education first, by reading case studies and using the online pension modeling tool.
“We chose the corporate wrap because of its financial education element,” said Davidson. “It has got employees really engaged with their pension.”
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