Ian Drysdale, HR director at Glenmorangie, says: “As an employer, we were very keen to increase membership of our scheme.”
Take-up of its DC scheme was 53% higher than that of its previous defined benefit scheme, which closed in 2002. The rise was credited to the communications strategy, which included employee presentations.
“These were exceptionally good and in fairly easy-tounderstand language, explaining why staff should be thinking of the pension scheme and what their options were,” says Drysdale.
Employees also receive newsletters about the scheme. Drysdale adds: “It is something staff welcome: regular communication, newsletters about what is happening with their fund.”
Glenmorangie’s pension scheme has 161 members, with employer contributions of up to 10% for staff who contribute 5% of gross pay.
The platform’s modelling tools can help staff understand their likely retirement income based on their current savings levels, says Drysdale.
Glenmorangie currently uses the platform only for pensions, but it will consider offering employees access to individual savings accounts (Isas) in the future.
“They are the first thing we will look at next,” says Drysdale. “We decided to let the platform run with pensions in the first year and then review the alternatives.”
Implementation of the platform took six months. “It takes a long time to get communication tools right,” he adds. “We probably set an ambitious timetable because we didn’t understand how onerous it would be to get the platform up and running.”
