Bringing workplace savings benefits, such as pensions and share schemes, all together into one place on a workplace savings platform is the way forward, said Kevin O’Boyle, head of pensions at BT Group speaking at Employee Benefits Live on 25 September.
“But it can’t substitute with live face-to-face action,” he added.
The telecommunications organisation offers a range of workplace savings benefits to employees, including a defined benefit (DB) pension that was closed to new entrants in 2001, a contract-based defined contribution (DC) pension that currently has 23,000 members and a sharesave scheme with a 60% participation rate.
Each of these schemes is accessed through a different site. O’Boyle said: “It is not as joined up as they could be.”
BT also has a strong history of long service among its employees. “A third of employees used to retire on a final salary pension after 40 years of service,” said O’Boyle. “We still have that tradition of long-serving employees. It is in our interest to ensure those people have enough to retire on.”
The organisation communicates to its workforce in a range of ways, including newsletters and fact sheets in the run up to the sharesave scheme’s maturity, personalised booklets, face-to-face seminars and access to one-to-one financial advice.
“It is important for the organisation to maximise share plan and pension options in employees’ workplace lives,” said O’Boyle.
“It is about getting employees to understand that, we can do our bit, but it’s really down to them.”