This is Part 1 in our coverage of the 2012 DC Plan Summit, held in Mont Tremblant, Que.
Check back to BenefitsCanada.com for more coverage coming soon.
It’s becoming increasingly clear that social media and technology are offering new ways for DC plan sponsors to connect with their members in a more timely and meaningful manner.
Tod Maffin, a digital communications strategist with EngageQ Digital in Vancouver, kicked off this year’s DC Plan Summit by sharing what plan sponsors need to know about their employee groups—particularly gen Yers who were born between 1980 and 1994—in order to keep them engaged.
In a few short years, gen Yers will dominate the workforce, and there is one key thing employers need to understand about them, said Maffin. This generation responds to value-based information. The way to connect with them isn’t by saying you’ve got flex hours and a healthcare spending account. It’s by knowing the core values of the organization and communicating them clearly. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are useful tools for demonstrating and sharing values. In fact, recruiting will soon be a big part of these sites, he said.
Watch: Tod Maffin discusses the Facebook generation
Maffin explained that even now, a company can buy ad space for a job posting on Facebook and specifically select who will see it. For example, a company can place an ad that’s shown only to female university graduates over the age of 32 living in Calgary who have worked for insurance companies and like job hunting. This allows an employer to pinpoint its recruitment efforts. A targeted approach, combined with clearly articulated values, will help employers attract gen Yers.
Another element driving the growth of social media is mobile technology. In her presentation, Nadia Darwish, vice-president, client relationships and business development, with Sun Life Financial in Toronto, said technology combined with social media provides a great opportunity to engage employees in their plans while ensuring they understand their options and can make decisions to achieve a bright financial future.
“Mobile technology can enhance the way we communicate and connect with plan members,” she said.
Recent research from Sun Life showed that different generational groups in the workforce have different preferences when it comes to communication material from their employer.
“The boomer groups have the highest comfort level and preferences for paper-based communications. Gen X appreciates the benefits of online communication but doesn’t have the same comfort level for having everything digital. And the Y generation prefers the concept of online communications to anything else,” explained Darwish.
She believes the lack of urgency around mobile communications in some plans can be attributed to the fact that a large segment of the workforce—namely, the boomers—are still comfortable with other forms of communications.
“But by 2020, [gen Y] will be the dominant group, representing 40% of all employees. So the shift to digital communications, including mobile, will need to happen at a much faster rate than you might have thought,” she said.
Watch: Nadia Darwish talks about members going mobile
Used correctly, mobile technology will allow plan sponsors to engage the gen X and gen Y groups. So what will this look like in DC communications? Darwish expects there will be apps that incorporate game-like and interactive characteristics to engage members. For example, in the U.S., a Stanford University study leveraged age-morphing technology to allow members to view themselves as avatars.
“Those who interacted with an avatar of themselves at retirement actually allocated twice as much to retirement savings as those who saw avatars of themselves at their current age,” she said.
Down the road, Darwish expects there will be technology for plan members to move money between accounts using surface computing (think Robert Downey Jr. in Ironman).
For now, Darwish advised plan sponsors that want to think about getting into mobile to remember to keep their apps simple. Overly complicated or hard-to-use apps will repel members rather than engage them.
Leigh Doyle is a freelance writer based in Toronto. leigh.doyle@gmail.com
View more exclusive on-site video coverage of the conference on BenefitsCanadaTV.
Get a PDF of this article and other coverage from the 2012 DC Plan Summit.
For more on using social media and new technology in your plan, watch for Benefits Canada’s new media issue, available June 2012.