Everywhen’s research shows that just one in five employers (20%) said they know a lot about the Pensions Dashboard. While 38% said they know a bit about it, 20% had heard of it but know nothing about it, and 21% have not heard of the Pensions Dashboard at all.
Sorangi Shah, client director and pensions expert at Everywhen, said: “We encourage employers to keep track of the Pensions Dashboard developments as it will be a powerful way of boosting pension engagement for their employees.”
The Pensions Dashboard is a government initiative to allow individuals to view all their pensions – state, personal and workplace – in one place, online. Joining the Pensions Dashboard is mandatory for all UK occupational pensions schemes with 100+ members and FCA-regulated personal and stakeholder pension providers.
The legal responsibility for connection and compliance sits with pension scheme trustees and providers. Whilst employers themselves have no direct legal obligations under the Pensions Dashboards framework, they can play a valuable supporting role by maintaining accurate employee data and helping raise awareness among employees.
Benefits for employers
“While the Pensions Dashboard is fundamentally there to ensure individuals have a full view across their various pension plans, it is also a valuable tool for employers to be able to present the details of the workplace pension schemes they are providing and their worth,” explains Sorangi Shah.
The Pensions Dashboard ecosystem is delivered by the Money and Pensions Service, with the public dashboard hosted by their consumer service, MoneyHelper. This is a Government-backed system with a secure log-in process. The digital tools aim to help individuals to keep track of different pensions schemes, to locate lost schemes, and to better plan for their retirement.
Financial education and engagement
The implementation of the Pensions Dashboard is a good opportunity for employers to support the financial wellbeing of their employees. They may choose to take advantage of this change to implement financial education themselves as part of their employee benefits programme. The Pensions Dashboard aims to improve the trust employees have in workplace pension schemes and to help increase employee engagement with pension and retirement plans. This makes it the ideal time for employers to raise awareness of the pension schemes they offer and the value they provide.
Action points
There is very little input required from employers but they play an important role in supporting data accuracy, which will improve member matching. By ensuring their pension scheme records are up-to-date and complete with employees’ names, date of birth, address and National Insurance numbers, this will help to make Pensions Dashboard a success.
Sorangi Shah concludes: “This is a transformative time for pension holders and for employers offering workplace pension schemes. For the first time, employees will be able to view all their pension schemes online, in one place, including accrued benefits and projected income. This is a big step forward in making workplace pension schemes transparent and easily accessible so that employees can understand the true value of this crucial employee benefit.”
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