Bravura, the international software technology company, has launched an internal initiative to boost staff engagement with their pensions and build increased recognition around the importance of saving for retirement.
The initiative, which coincides with Pensions Awareness Week in the UK (11 – 15 September), has seen staff from across the world volunteer to take part in a series of surveys and challenges to help demystify how pensions work and how to get the most value out of them.
Although Bravura works with some of the leading financial service, life, pensions and superannuation firms in the world, through staff surveys the company has found that a sizeable number of staff don’t feel confident or take control of their pensions/retirement savings and frequently don’t know where to get help.
To challenge this, Bravura set various challenges for its volunteers in the UK, aimed at helping them find out more information about their personal pensions through signposting them to materials from their pension providers.
The results of the survey and challenges will be used to encourage staff that didn’t take part in this year’s initiative to start engaging with their pensions, sooner rather than later, to help ensure a comfortable standard of living in later life.
Fiona Woods, Head of People & Culture, EMEA, Bravura, said: “Despite working with some of the world’s biggest and best financial service firms, like most businesses not everyone at Bravura has in-depth expertise of how the pensions, savings or superannuation sectors work and all the nuances they can bring. As a leading employer, it’s vitally important that we try to help raise awareness and boost engagement in this area and initiatives like this go a long way in helping people feel more comfortable and confident by demystifying some of the complexity.”
Jonathan Hawkins, Principal Consultant and Pensions Expert, Bravura, added: “This has been a brilliant initiative in bringing people together and building greater awareness about saving for retirement – both in the UK and how this stacks up globally.
“Across the board, we’ve found improvements are needed in engagement and awareness – which mirrors society at large. Notwithstanding the best efforts of some of my colleagues, many struggle to cut through the inaccessible language we often find ourselves using in the world of pensions. If we are going to change this and help more people start engaging with their pensions – something that pensions dashboards is aiming to do in the UK – we need to find a way to fix this and put pensions into everyday language that everyday people can understand. Australia is a good example where talking about Super is more common than in other geographies.”
The initiative follows Bravura and Moneyhub joining forces to showcase for the very first time a fully operational front- and back-end Pensions Dashboard that demonstrates how a saver will be able to find and view their pensions when the programme is launched to the public (currently expected in 2026) at this year’s PASA Annual Conference.
For more information about how to get involved in this year’s UK Pensions Awareness campaign, please visit: https://pensionawarenessday.com/