Communications and confidence

At LCP we are very knowledgeable about communicating pensions to members. But the real experts – the ones who really understand how members think, what they understand about their scheme, their preferred media, and the information they need – are the members themselves. Talk to a real member (a friend asking for actual advice because ‘you’re in pensions aren’t you?’ doesn’t count) and even pension communication professionals can learn a thing or two.

In our video we asked a couple of questions to pension members who give a wonderful range of answers. Two comments really stand out for me.

Different communication channels

Years ago the main channels of communication in the workplace was word of mouth, memos, and the odd poster. Now we have email, videos, lock screens, Teams, Slack, Messenger, town halls, cascades, intranets, podcasts, apps, blogs and many more. And that list is only growing as technology finds new and interesting ways to reach people we work with.

We asked people how they’d like to receive information about their pension – by letter, via a podcast, or by video. The results were split – which in itself is a very useful lesson, providing evidence that different people prefer to engage with content in different ways.

I thought the most insightful comment was the person who said they’d prefer video, but ‘if I could have my pick I’d have all three’. Bingo, sir! You win.

Whilst most people have a preference, the very best way of communicating with members is via multiple channels. Partly because people have different preferences for how they consume information, but also because every individual has preferences which change depending on various factors – time of day, what else is happening, what I am doing. One size not only doesn’t fit all, but may not even always fit one.

Lack of confidence

One very self-aware member identifies themselves as being risk averse when it comes to complex financial decisions and very reliant on other people. I believe this is typical, and quite normal for many people to ‘socialise’ ideas before taking decisions.

Member confidence is not something that any scheme I know of routinely measures, but lack of confidence leads to disengagement, makes people vulnerable to scams, and causes people to delay decisions and rely on defaults – any or all of which will have adverse impacts on member outcomes.

The challenge for Trustees here is to ensure that the key messages are clear, so that it becomes harder for decisions to be based on hearsay, bias and rumour as people discuss them.