At the tail end of Pension Awareness Week, David Boardman, communications director for MyCSP, the pensions provider for the civil service, will have run his pensions knowledge quiz in six cities: Edinburgh, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool, Swansea and London.

The roadshow his team is running is designed to start the conversation about pensions with employers, HR managers, internal comms professionals and the civil servants that are members of the scheme.

However, Boardman knows pensions are not the sexiest of topics. “This really is a subject matter that people think is dull, difficult and complicated,” he says. But, by bringing a bit of retail tactics, a fun quiz and a sense of humour to bear, he can engage people about pensions without the blank looks or fearful forehead scrunching that usually occurs when encountering a pile of legalese.



The team at MyCSP has worked to pare down the jargon and simplify their language so pensions communications are simpler, more straightforward and focus on action. “Pensions can be very complicated,” he says, “But it doesn’t help itself to enable somebody to understnad what it means to them if the rules block people from understanding.” 



Boardman’s ‘Are you pension savvy?’ game show uses four characters with different perspectives on their pensions. By matching people up with a character, they can begin to understand how to take action about their pension.



But importantly, MyCSP also engages with internal comms managers, HR managers and others involved in communicating with employees. “We give them information that makes their lives easier so that members are more informed,” he says, thus enabling them to answer pensions queries with more ease. 



The roadshow is designed to raise awareness, but Boardman says, “Don’t try and do everything at once. It’s complex, it’s complicated. What we have to do is say, ‘We know this is a big elephant. How do yo eat an elephant? You eat it in chunks.’”



The information MyCSP derives from the roadshow will also feed back into its ongoing customer insights from which it derives much of its insights about pensions awareness and how to approach its communications. 



For more, see our exclusive interview with David Boardman.