Engaging young employees in pension saving

A new industry campaign has been running on Facebook and Instagram to help engage younger employees when it comes to pensions.

The short film specially designed for social media features a cast of dogs, complaining about the daily grind and talking about their future plans. The final message is that to avoid working like a dog all your life, you should love your pension.

It comes as new figures show that more than eight in ten employees in the UK are now saving for their retirement thanks to the success of automatic enrolment.

Yvonne Braun, director of policy, long-term savings and protection at the Association of British Insurers, said: “Auto-enrolment has achieved amazing things, and take up of workplace pensions has never been higher among the under-30s.”

The policy has “transformed the pension savings landscape,” she added.

When people value their pensions, they are less likely to opt out as contribution rates go up.

“Having enough savings to fund your retirement is a very serious matter, but scaring people about their future finances or trying to lecture them on what they should be doing will not help younger workers engage with these issues,” Braun explained. “Instead we are encouraging positivity about pensions, to complement the policy work we already do to increase transparency and engagement.”

The latest figures from The Pensions Regulator (TPR) show that 84% of eligible UK employees are now contributing to a workplace pension scheme, up from 77% last year.

In its annual commentary and analysis, the regulator revealed that around 100,000 new businesses each year are now putting staff into a pension from the start of their employment.

Auto-enrolment has led to workplace saving becoming the “social norm”, according to TPR’s director of automatic enrolment, Darren Ryder.

The total amount saved into a pension by eligible staff in 2017 was £90.3bn, up from £86bn a year earlier.

Watch the ‘Love Your Pension’ film at https://youtu.be/Ju5RLPcit8k.