Joe Dabrowski
Deputy Director of Policy, PLSA
As people face difficult financial choices over the coming months, it is more important than ever that they have confidence in their workplace pension and understand how to keep track of it.
Nearly all working people (8 in 10 employees) in the UK have a workplace pension, yet many say they don’t know how to find information about these savings.
The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) and the Association of British Insurers (ABI) have launched a new, nationwide saver engagement campaign uniting the industry behind a single message — urging savers to ‘Pay Your Pension Some Attention.’
Reaching the disengaged
Running through the autumn, the campaign represents a collaborative effort across the financial services sector and is backed by some of the best-known brands in pensions.
We want to reach people we don’t normally reach and empower them to understand what pension savings they might have; how easy it is to keep track of and how powerful pension saving is in giving people choices and freedom when they retire.
That’s why we went to an unexpected source and challenged them to produce a new music track and video: grime artist and Bafta award-winning TV personality Big Zuu’s lyrics encourage listeners to ‘ask questions,’ ‘make connections’ and think about ‘future intentions.’
It is not about asking people to contribute more but about helping savers reconnect with their pensions and feel good about having retirement savings.
Understanding the basics
The song directs people to Pensionattention.co.uk for basic information on how pensions work, including how everything you save gets a boost from your employer and the taxman, too. There’s also help with tasks such as tracking down forgotten pensions from previous jobs.
The aim is to generate conversations among friends and family. Big Zuu has recently started his own pensions engagement journey, tracking down pots from early jobs as a teenager in retail and hospitality, so he understands what people need to do to pick up the basics.
Pensions don’t need to be boring
The Pay Your Pension Some Attention campaign urges everyone to take simple steps to ensure they know where their money for the future is and how to keep track of it.
It is not about asking people to contribute more but about helping savers reconnect with their pensions and feel good about having retirement savings.
It’s crucial to people’s retirement outcomes that we challenge the perception that pensions are difficult or boring and make a difference in people’s financial lives through better member engagement.
