Re-inventing member engagement
Oval’s Michael King explains how the firm’s ReWarding Benefits web solution is transforming the way members engage with retirement.

One of the biggest and most embedded pension management issues is member engagement – or the lack of it. In our experience, as much as 80% of people in a pension scheme will simply enrol on default settings and promptly forget about it. It’s no surprise – many people perceive their pension to be an intimidating, complex or boring millstone for much of their working lives, one that only starts becoming important as they begin to hit the key stages of marriage, family, middle age and beyond. To us the pension is aspiration, hope and expectation. It’s comfort, security and protection as well as choice, leisure and pleasure. It’s about giving members the power to live later life the way they want and when they want; so that when they choose to stop working, retirement is on their terms.

Making it easy for trustees and members
That’s why we invest much intellectual capital in our pension communications – not just the tone, but the medium as well. It’s our belief that the more accessible, simple and convenient you make it for people to engage with what they hitherto regarded as difficult, dry and uncertain, the more interest they will take and the more interactive the whole process becomes.

At Oval, we have refined this employee benefits philosophy for the digital age with our ReWarding Benefits web solution for our DB and DC scheme clients. We’ve honed our reputation for intelligent data handling and migrated it to a secure, multi-client web portal that we host and we have designed the user journey and functionality specifically for trustees and members. ReWarding Benefits works on two levels:

• All benefits, transaction, investment and tax data for active, deferred and pensioner members
• A full suite of communications materials tailored to each category and stage of the pension journey.

It’s a tailored, secure and 24x7 solution
We then bespoke the site structure to match the needs of each client scheme. It’s a unique solution in the market, one that covers the full pension lifecycle to give trustees and members a clear picture of their scheme. This includes performance at the individual member level across value, funding positions, taxation, investment and contributions – plus clear, easy-to-follow statements. Nothing gets hidden and we update the information feed according to what each client wants – typically weekly or monthly with reporting summaries that track cumulative performance over longer periods.

ReWarding Benefits is part of the Oval commitment to member engagement with clients like leading supply chain 3PL Wincanton making up our growing portfolio of enthusiastic users. It’s value-added service that we believe enables members to take an active interest in their retirement planning, whatever their knowledge levels and to whatever degree of detail they wish.

ReWarding Benefits isn’t a static solution; we are constantly developing it. The growing ubiquity of smartphones like the Apple iPhone and others using Google’s Android platform opens up a whole new style of accessibility and engagement for pensions. Will we see an Oval mobile pensions web application in the future? You can bank on it.

1 Office for National Statistics, 2008.

Like to find out more about how ReWarding Benefits can help your people engage with their retirement? Contact Michael King on 0208 799 1290 or email: michael.king@theovalgroup.com.