Banking on tomorrow: a case study on retirement

Why 73% of employees increased their retirement contributions

Retirement can feel like a distant priority, especially when employees are balancing more immediate financial demands. But when a leading financial services organization changed its retirement benefits, it saw an opportunity to do more than communicate what was changing.

It could help employees understand why their retirement decisions mattered and give them the financial education to make informed choices about their future.

The result? Within months, 73% of employees chose to make additional voluntary contributions to their retirement plans.

Here's how the organization turned a complex benefits transition into meaningful employee action.

Helping employees take charge of their financial future

When the organization began a major benefits transition, retirement planning became an important priority. Changes to the company's retirement plan were approaching, and leaders knew that simply explaining the new arrangements wouldn't be enough.

Employees needed to understand what the changes could mean for them personally, how their decisions today could affect their future, and what options were available.

The objective wasn't to tell employees how much to save or what financial decisions to make. It was to give them the knowledge and confidence to make informed choices for themselves.

Turning a benefits change into an education opportunity

Rather than focusing communications solely on the technical details of the new retirement plan, the organization partnered with nudge to put financial education at the heart of the transition.

Employees received education to help them understand topics including retirement contributions, bringing together existing retirement savings, and setting longer-term financial goals.

Personalized, timely communications, or nudges, supported the program throughout the transition. These were coordinated with internal benefits communications and wider employee initiatives so that financial education arrived when it was most relevant.

Instead of overwhelming employees with information all at once, education was delivered in manageable, personalized steps, allowing people to build their understanding over time, and explore the topics most relevant to them.

Making retirement relevant before asking employees to act

Timing played an important role.

The organization used Pensions Awareness Week, a UK campaign focused on retirement engagement, as a natural moment to highlight the education and resources available to employees.

Thousands of employees read retirement content on the nudge platform, and retirement became the organization's most popular financial education topic.

But awareness wasn't the end goal.

Personalized communications encouraged employees to review their retirement contributions and explore options such as bringing existing retirement savings together. Employees could then move directly from education to the organization's retirement portal, making the next step easier to take.

More than three-quarters of employees opened and acted on these communications.

That connection between education and action was important. Rather than simply telling employees that a retirement decision was approaching, the organization helped them understand the decision first, then made it easy to take the next step.

Combining personalized education with human support

Digital education wasn't the only part of the strategy.

Live webinars and retirement provider events gave employees opportunities to explore topics in more depth and ask questions.

By the time employees joined those sessions, many had already engaged with personalized retirement education through nudge.

They weren't starting from zero.

They arrived with greater context, more informed questions, and a clearer understanding of the decisions they needed to consider.

This combination of personalized digital guidance and human support helped employees build their knowledge at their own pace while still providing opportunities for deeper engagement when it mattered.

The impact: 73% increased their retirement contributions

Within months, 73% of employees chose to make additional voluntary contributions to their retirement plans.

The impact also extended beyond contribution rates.

The organization's Financial Health Score increased, with particular improvement in the Planning pillar, which looks at employees' ability to prepare for longer-term financial goals, including retirement.

For the employer, those results showed that employees weren't simply consuming financial education. They were using it to better understand their options and take action.

From benefits communication to better financial decisions

A retirement plan change could easily have become another complex benefits communication exercise. Instead, the organization used the transition as an opportunity to strengthen employee financial health.

By providing impartial education before asking employees to make decisions, personalizing communications around relevant moments, and connecting education directly with opportunities to take action, the organization helped employees navigate change with greater knowledge and confidence.

And the impact didn't end when the benefits transition was complete. Employees had built knowledge they could use beyond a single retirement decision, helping them think more confidently about planning for their financial future.

For Benefits and Total Rewards leaders, that's the bigger opportunity. When employees face an important financial decision, don't just communicate what's changing. Help them understand what it means for them and what they can do next.

Talk to nudge about using personalized financial education to help employees understand their retirement benefits and make informed decisions about their financial future.

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