Are your employees retirement ready? Support for Pension Engagement Season

Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. I'm delighted to welcome you all to this webinar on how we can prepare for pension engagement season together. There's lots coming up over the next few weeks to raise awareness of pensions and we want to support you with engaging your employees and support them in achieving the retirement lifestyle that they deserve.

Remember that we run these webinars quarterly and we aim to cover a variety of topics that we hope you find beneficial. At the end of today's session, we'll send an e-mail which will ask you for future suggestions of what you would like to hear from us on these webinars. We'd really appreciate if you could also spare the time to complete this so that we can shape the information in these webinars to be relevant and helpful to you. We'll also follow up with useful resources we covered today and a link to today's recording and slides so you can revisit any of the information whenever you need to. So let's get started.

Firstly, we'd like to introduce ourselves. My name is Joseph Kowbel and I'm an employee engagement consultant here at Royal London. I work with employers to help bring financial education to life for their workforce through member webinars, on-site visits and employee wellbeing events. And today, I'm delighted to be presenting alongside Andrea Ball.

Hi everyone, I'm Andrea. In my role as a Workplace Communication Specialist, I work closely with a number of employers to help them strengthen their employee communication and engagement with their pension.

So that's a little bit about us, but what are we going to cover today?

Well, we'll be exploring a range of important topics, including pension engagement season and why it's essential for us to get involved. The importance of employees understanding how much they need in retirement, including living costs. How you can help your employees get on track by understanding their state pension allowance, their current pension pots, and the different options that people have to reach their retirement goals. We'll cover the different tools, support and resources that we have to support you and make sure you're well prepared for pension engagement season. And we'll summarise all the next steps at the end for you.
So, Andrea, can you tell us a little bit about pension engagement season?

Sure. So pension engagement season runs through September and October. It starts with the pension attention campaign, which is a coordinated industry campaign led by the Association of British Insurers and Pension UK. And it starts on the 4th of September. Its aim is to inspire the nation to engage with their pension. Its theme this year is Grow Your Pension.

Moving on to Pensions Awareness Week. This is an annual event which was started in 2014 by pensions communication consultants Pension Geeks. It's all about encouraging people to engage and understand their pension better. And we've been an ambassador for a number of years, including this year.

For 2026, the key pensions awareness message is ‘Take just two minutes to check in on your pension.’ That's less than it takes to make a cup of tea, yet a small step that could make a big difference to your employee's future.

On the 15th and 16th of September, there's a number of live webinars covering various topics. Our pension expert, Justin Corliss, and consumer finance specialist Sarah Pennells will be hosting the Royal London webinar at 10am on the 15th of September. The webinar is titled ‘How to make the most of your workplace pension.’ And within the webinar, they'll cover some pension basics like how a pension works and what you can do to help keep on track for retirement. There will also be live webinars that day by other ambassadors.

As you can imagine, there'll be a lot of activity to promote the webinar, including e-mail, app notifications, and we'll be spreading the word on our social media channels too. There's also an e-mail template, which includes a link to the pensions awareness site.

Now, this is the only way that people can actually sign up for the live shows.
We'd love for you to invite your employees along to take part and ask any questions they may have. So please check out our webpage on the employer site for more information, including the e-mail template I just mentioned. We'll send you a link after the webinar.

The final thing for pensions engagement season is pension tracing day on the 25th of October, when, as an industry, we encourage people to use the extra hour when the clocks go back to trace their lost pensions. The great thing about pensions awareness season is that it creates a natural reason to start conversations with your employees about engaging with their pension.

Great, thanks Andrea. So why does pension engagement and awareness matter?

Good question, Joe. So government research shows that 43 percent of working age people are under saving for their retirement. Our latest financial resilience research also shows that 47 percent of workers don't know their own pension contribution rate and 54 percent don't know how much their employer contributes. 72% don't know how much is in their pension or prefer not to save. And quite worryingly, one in five adults at retirement age didn't know.

It's really this lack of awareness and preparation which can lead to financial insecurity in later years and even more dissatisfaction with their standard of living. That's why it's a good idea to think about starting to save early and understand the various aspects of a pension plan.

So you may be wondering what your role is in this. If we’re educating our customers on pensions and how much that should be saving, do employers really need to take action?

It's true, we share information with your employees on a regular basis to help them maximise their pensions potential. But we all live busy lives and not everyone will open that e-mail, check their statement when it comes into their inbox or through their letterbox. And many just don't think to check their pension contributions regularly in the same way as they check their banking app. And this is where prompts from employers like yourselves can really help cut through the daily noise.

Our latest workplace pensions report showed that almost 1/3 of employees would turn to their employer for information about their pension. And with nearly half of employees ranking pensions among the most valuable benefits when considering applying for the new job, there's real benefit in making sure your employees realise the true value of the pension benefit that's available to them.

Of course, your role isn't to give financial advice, it's to help employees know where to start and encourage them to engage with their pension. So, what steps can you take to support this?

The good news is it doesn't have to be complicated. You can make a real difference by taking four practical steps which aim to help employees picture their retirement, encourage your employees to check what they already have, prompt one small improvement and make use of the ready-made support available.

So, Joe, can you tell us about the retirement living standard and what employers can do to help share this information?

Of course, one of the ways to help employees understand the importance of saving early into their pension and saving enough is to educate them on the retirement living standards. It's a great conversation starter which can encourage your employees to really think about what kind of lifestyle they'd like when they retire, how much they need to save, when just starting out or how to get on track if they've been working for some time without giving the pension much thought.

The retirement living standards are based on independent research by Loughborough University and they show how much you might spend each year in retirement across 3 levels of living.

They've been developed to help people think in a practical way about what they'll need or want to spend their money on in retirement. They show what life in retirement could look like across three different incomes and what a range of common goods and services would cost for each level. For example, you can see here that a moderate lifestyle for a single person would need an income of £32,700 each year and that this provides more financial security, a car, a holiday abroad each year compared to the minimum lifestyle which doesn't include this. The comfortable lifestyle affords a little more luxury.

Now it's important to stress that these are just estimates and to cover these costs you'll need enough income after tax if applicable.

They also don't include having a mortgage, rent or any social care costs and there could be income tax on pension income.

For most people who have worked and paid 35 years qualifying years of national insurance contribution, the current state pension of £12,547 goes a long way to help them achieve the minimum standard. However, for those aspiring to a more moderate or comfortable lifestyle when we retire, which I think most of us would prefer, it's important to understand how much we might need and how much we need to be saving to reach this.

Our workplace pensions 2025 research shows that as much as 37% of people haven't heard of the retirement living standards. Yet when prompted, our research showed that 45% of people expect a moderate lifestyle and 33% expect comfortable. Only the minority expect the most basic lifestyle. And this is why we, and that's you and us, take the time to help with people's engagement and understanding of pensions. The earlier your employees start being more pension aware, the longer they have to consider retirement, giving them more time to picture the future and realise what they could do to prevent regrets later down the line. And they're more likely to engage when retirement feels tangible.

Once your employees have a good understanding of how much they might need in retirement, we'd recommend encouraging them to get closer to their pension savings by checking in on them regularly, reviewing their contributions and understanding if they're on track for the lifestyle they want. Andrea, how might employees do this?

So a good starting point, I encourage employees to check their state pension forecast on gov.uk/check-state-pension. Assuming they've paid 35 qualifying years of national insurance, which Joe previously mentioned, the weekly state pension for the 2026-27 tax year £241.30. For most people, it's unlikely that this will be enough to maintain their current lifestyle when they retire, bearing in mind that people are also living longer too.

The next important step is to encourage your employees to download and log into the mobile app. Once logged in, they can check their current value of the Royal London workplace pensions and their contribution levels.

The mobile app is one of the easiest ways for employees to build the good habit of checking in on their pension regularly. It's generally one of the first things that I would encourage employees to do. They can clearly see how much is in their pension, as well as transfer other pensions into. It's also got access to a wealth of tools and articles to support their financial resilience.

We know that if an employee is downloaded and logged into the app, they have a higher engagement with other communications we send. Across our workplace schemes, at the moment, 32% of employees have downloaded the app. We'd love your support in increasing this average so that we can help more people secure a good retirement.

Another way to help your employees is to make sure that they don't lose track of any old pensions. When people move home, they often forget to give their pension provider their new address and so easily lose track of the old pensions. That's why providing us with as many digital contact details for your employees is important. It helps us stay connected, even if your employees leave your employment.

According to the Financial Times, one in 20 employees could be missing out on lost pensions. Imagine the difference finding a lost pension could make. It's been estimated that there could be about 3.3 million lost pensions or forgotten pension plots out there, worth an average of £9,470 each. Over £31.1 billion in total.

The Pension Policy Institute has just completed its latest survey, which won't be published until October 2026. So it'll be interesting to understand if this has improved at all.

Imagine the impact finding a lost pension could make to your employees. It could be the difference between a minimum retirement lifestyle and a moderate or even comfortable one. That's why it's more important than ever to track those old pensions down. Even a few of those small or forgotten pension pots could add up and make a difference big difference to your employees' savings.

Maybe you could help your employees find old pension pots.
So, where to start?

Every pension provider has to send an annual statement. If your employees know the names of their previous pension providers, they can reach out to them directly. If they don't, they should try contacting their former employer who might be able to give them the pension provider's details.

The government also has a free service called the Pension Tracing Service, which can help. By using their website, users simply enter the name of their former employer and receive contact details to hopefully help reunite them with any lost pensions. Pension Tracing Day is Sunday the 25th of October, so again, it's a good time to make them aware. We have ready-made communication on our communication toolkit that can support you.

If your employees are lucky enough to trace any lost pensions or for any pension pots they're already aware of, it may be worth considering transferring these into one pension plan. We'd love to accept all transfers, but like all providers, some plans have valuable benefits or guarantees that stop us doing this.

Some of these include, if there's a guaranteed annuity, there's protected tax-free cash, there's defined benefit or final salary plan or the benefits have started to be taken from the pension plan.

Transferring may not be right for all of your employees and some plans can't be transferred. We do recommend that your employees talk to a financial advisor if they're not sure about whether transferring is right for them or not.

If your employees decide transferring is right for them, this can be done on the mobile app or they can get in touch with our customer service team to discuss the next steps.

Thanks, Andrea. Now, small changes today can have a bigger impact over time, but employees need clear, timely prompts to consider their options. It's worth focusing on one or two examples only so that your employees aren't overwhelmed with messages. Let's take a look at some options and when might be the best time to speak to employees about them.

The first thing employees should think about is are they contributing enough? You may know that the government announced the formation of a pensions commission last year and one of the key issues the Commission will tackle is contribution levels. While there is a consensus that the current minimum amount of 8% under automatic enrolment is insufficient for most people, there is less agreement on what the appropriate level should be, how it should be shared between employers and employees, and when any increases should be introduced. The government has ruled out any increase in contributions for the remainder of this Parliament, which is expected to run until the middle of 2029, although this could change with the new Prime Minister being appointed.

It's therefore in the employee's hands to really think about whether they are contributing enough. Encouraging them to review the contributions at appropriate times, like a pay review, and consider whether they want to increase could be that regular nudge or reminder that they need.

You can see from the example on screen that increasing a pension contribution by as little as 1% over five years can have a big impact. These are illustrative figures based on a salary exchange scheme and with some assumptions of investment growth, inflation and pay rises. But in this case, a small increase could result in £122,000 increase in the amount of the pension pot.

If you offer a bonus, this could equally be a good time to help employees understand the difference a one-off contribution could make. Here's an example of what to expect if a bonus is paid into take-home pay versus the potential long-term value of exchanging it for a pension contribution. £1,350 invested in pension savings and projected to increase in value until the chosen retirement age of 65 could be worth £3,300 in your pension. So if you have pay reviews or bonus months coming up, it may be a good time to consider this.

If you offer employer pension contribution matching, helping your employees understand what pension contribution matching is and how they can benefit from it can strengthen pension engagement and improve financial resilience in retirement. Communicating this effectively can also demonstrate the investment you're making into your employee's pension is recognised and valued.

For those who don't offer it, this is a workplace benefit where you, the employer, increase your pension contribution when an employee chooses to contribute above the minimum level. And it can be a good way of strengthening your pension benefit offering.

This slide offers a good representation of the difference it can make to employee pension savings each year. And if you think back to the figures we've just shown for increasing regular contributions and the bonus case study, you can start to see how these amounts could then add up over time once invested.

Based on a 22 year old earning £30,000 and no pension savings, a 4% matched contribution rate each year could provide an estimated pension value of £250,000 at retirement. That could offer an income of £19,500 a year.

When increased to 7% matched contribution each year, this increases the potential pension value to £438,000 and a yearly income of £24,700. So edging closer to the moderate lifestyle of £32,700. And it's worth noting that these figures are based on state pension income plus income from the pension pot.

Now, we know a strong pension can be a good retention benefit. So if you offer pension contribution matching, it's important to make sure your employees know how it works so that they can really benefit from it.

Thanks, Joel.

So we've covered a lot in this webinar. So I just wanted to take a few minutes to remind you that we have a selection of ready-made resources to support you with each of the steps we've discussed today. There's a link to our communication toolkit on the dedicated pension engagement hub to make it easier for you to find. This includes a range of e-mail template, guide, posters, internet banners, videos and animations to really bring up all of these topics we've discussed to life. We'll share the link with you after the webinar.

Jo and I appreciate everyone who has taken time to join today, as we know that pensions engagement may not always be your top priority at work.

If you only take one action after today's webinar, I suggest the most valuable step to take would be to share the pension checklist and encourage employees to sign up to the app, which is one of the first actions on the checklist. You can find the checklist on the hub I've just mentioned.

If you have a little more time, firstly, share the checklist I've just mentioned.
Once you've done this, maybe a couple of weeks later, I'd suggest sharing the retirement living standards content and prompting your employees to really think about what they'd like their retirement to look like. And finally, and if it's appropriate for your business, you could suggest that employees review their contribution levels.

Getting employees to sign up for our monthly member webinar is also another good one to suggest. There's ready-made material available which can support you with all of this.

Lovely, thanks Andrea. We're now going to finish with a few questions on the topics we covered today, including some of the great ones you've submitted beforehand. One of the questions we received was how can we measure whether pension communications are working?

Andrea, I think I'll pass to you for this one.

Thanks, Joel. So depending on your focus, you should start to see an increase in engagement levels. For example, employees who have downloaded the mobile app or nominated beneficiaries. These are always good ones to check if they're increasing.

Great, thanks Andrea. And I think we've got time for one more question. This one is, if we offer employees a bonus each year, are there ready-made communications to help me tell employees they can add their bonus to their pension?

Yeah, so we have a range of resources that you can use to tell employees about bonus exchange, including e-mail templates, a poster, internet banner and case studies. There's also options for schemes set up on salary exchange or relief at source, so they're suitable no matter how your scheme is set up. It's available in our communication toolkit, but to make things simple for you, we've added this to the pensions engagement hub we've mentioned. And we'll include a link to this in our follow up emails, as I've mentioned.

Great, thanks Andrea. And finally, thank you for joining our third employer webinar of 2026. Like last time, we'll share an e-mail with links to all the resources that we mentioned along with a copy of today's webinar recording and the slides. I do hope that you found this useful and do you have any questions or need any additional support, please don't hesitate to reach out to us. Thank you once again for your time and participation and have a lovely rest of your day.