Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) has launched an online pensions calculator, designed to help educate employees eligible to be members of its defined benefit (DB) pension scheme and to boost take-up rates.
The calculator, provided by Orbit, allows DMGT's 4,800 newspaper staff to forecast their earnings on retirement. It also enables high earners to track whether they are close to reaching their lifetime allowance or not. The allowance was introduced under pensions simplification legislation in April 2006.
Jeremy Williams, pensions manager at DMGT, said: "We want to enable the higher-paid staff to opt out of the pension scheme before they hit their lifetime allowance. We have a lot of high-end employees who have been with us for many years, and these higher-paid people are just not engaged enough around this issue."
The group hopes the new calculator will also encourage more of its eligible staff to join the open DB scheme.
"Take up is poor, so we are hoping that this calculator will help people understand the benefits of saving. We want them to understand what it is we are providing," said Williams.
Each employee who is eligible to join the DB scheme has been sent details of the calculator and a personal log-in for the website via their payslips.
Staff enter information such as their age, salary, details of other pension savings, and the age at which they want to retire, and the online system projects what the employee will receive on retirement.