Less Facebook more money saving!
Fenner Plc engaged Better With Money to help all UK staff. It’s goal was simple. Help it’s people save more for retirement. But, it’s pension governance committee knew it took more than saying “you need to save more” to its workforce. Fenner is a large quoted manufacturer with global operations and 7 sites in the UK. The Company always aim to do the right thing. “As an organisation helping our employees utilise all relevant aspects of the reward package on offer maximises the value to both them and the Business.” Peter Watson, Chair, Fenner Retirement Plan Governance Committee.
With a large manufacturing shift based workforce they know that technology wasn’t their only answer but wanted to re-launch their benefits at the same time as addressing this gap. The Company will contribute 8% to an employee’s pension if the employee matches. Sharon Cairney, UK Pensions & Reward Manager knew this was an excellent level of contribution, but helping employees find the 8% wasn’t easy. Sharon said “We have great advisers and excellent other benefits, but when you want to engage real people with real saving it’s less about what we all know as experts, and more about how we get this message across. Engaging the Better With Money team meant we could look at this from a different angle, and they developed a great workshop and plan to engage, inform and make our employees take action”. Jo Thresher at Better With Money said “The employees at Fenner do a hot manual job – often working with materials at very high temperatures – we had to keep them interested and achieve our goal of helping them get to the 8%!” Keeping this in mind and helping re launch the newly refreshed benefits website, a plan was set to run a fun workshop with tips, some clever free gifts and handouts.
The insulated drink cup emblazoned with the new website address was a very well received gift – staff only received if they attended). The employees were given an action plan and steps to find the extra percentage – to move from 2% to 8% would cost on average £80 per month. So, the plan was to “find” the £80 per month from money saving. The workshop was full of tips and ways to do this. The workshops feedback included 99.1% enjoyed the workshop and 98.6% said they would recommend to a friend.
Comments included “I will spend less time on facebook and more on moneysaving!” “brilliant”, “really useful, made me think”, “A very factuaal but fun two hours, a lot to think about I wasn’t even aware of”. There were also several comments such as “I wouldn’t have upped my contribution without this workshop” as lots didn’t realise the value of doing so. The proof will be in the long term change to contributions but 57% said they would be increasing their pension as soon as possible. There was also an increase and understanding of all the other benefits offered, and employees feedback included comments such as “should be done more regularly” and “I wish I had known this 20 years ago”. This was a large campaign but made enjoyable by the excellent help, humour and commitment of the team at Fenner.
We think they deserve a coffee, where are those cups?
