How to use data from your pension provider to shape your employee benefits strategy

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Are your employees saving enough for retirement? Using data can help you understand who’s on track to meet their retirement goals – and help you pivot your employee benefits strategy.

Just over a third (37%) of people think they’re saving enough for a comfortable retirement, according to our Retirement Voice 2023 report.

That means most people aren’t confident that they’re putting enough money away for their future. 

Our insights also show that managing finances in general is weighing on people’s minds, with approximately 1 in 5 (18%) saying they’re unable to focus on other things. And almost 1 in 10 (8%) have needed to take time off work.

It’s clear that financial worries are impacting people’s wellbeing – both inside and outside of work. 

The good news is that employers are in a great position to support their people’s financial wellbeing, particularly through their workplace pension offering. Indeed, having a plan for retirement – such as saving into a pension – is a key part of feeling financially well.

However, it’s difficult for employers to know how many of their employees are on track for the retirement they want. 

That’s where access to meaningful data from your pension provider can make a world of difference – both to your employees and your reward strategy.

The power of using data from your pension provider

Utilising data from your pension provider removes the guesswork. It could help you gain insights into how employees are interacting with their pension scheme, allowing you to spot poor engagement levels, low retirement savings, or even missing beneficiary details.

Using this data allows you to create a benefits strategy based on what employees really need, and what could help them achieve their retirement goals. That means you can build a strategy that pivots depending on an individual’s circumstances, and dial up areas of support where it’s needed most.

At Standard Life, we built our Client Analytics platform to give employers actionable insights into how their employees are engaging with their pension. We listened to clients and members to understand the key barriers that prevent members from engaging with their pensions, and what data and tools could help overcome them.

Here are a few ways that Client Analytics could help you:

Identify where members are projected to fall within RLS

Client Analytics incorporates data from PLSA’s Retirement Living Standards, allowing you to see at a glance where members are projected to fall within each RLS band.
 
That means you can support those who are most at risk of falling into the ‘minimum’ or ‘below minimum’ bands. Plus, you can get suggested next steps to help you take action quickly, such as delivering targeted Ready to Go campaigns or providing financial wellbeing support.

See how you compare against the industry

Not only can you see where members fall within each RLS band, you can also see how this compares against industry norms.

This built-in benchmarking can help you understand if you’re lagging behind, and if you need to review your benefits strategy to better align with members’ needs.

Discover how members are engaging with their pension

Client Analytics allows you to get key insights into member behaviour, including how often they engage with their pension, which channels they’re using (mobile or dashboard), and what actions they’re taking. You can also segment data by filters like pot size or number of years to retirement, to help you uncover any trends or gaps.

Understanding member behaviour allows you to see where engagement is low or falling. That way, you can tailor and target your communications to specific groups – and get those engagement levels up. 

Segment data by gender to focus your communications

Clients told us that they wanted to understand more about how they could help tackle the gender pension gap. We’ve made it so all data points within Client Analytics can be split by gender, giving employers a clear view of where they may need to focus their engagement efforts. 

For instance, you could use this data to ramp up your communications to women who’ve taken a career break, when pension savings generally take a dip. Employers could create a campaign to help members decide if they should make extra contributions when they return to work. 

Ultimately, data from your pension provider is key to helping you understand your members better, so that you can build a benefit strategy that helps more people get on track for the retirement they want.

For more information on financial wellbeing, including resources on how you can help support your employees, take a look at our Financial Wellbeing hub and read our articles.