Leading HR body gets top marks for it's workplace pension

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) has been given the pensions industry’s top mark of excellence for its staff pension scheme.

The Pension Quality Mark PLUS standard is given to those employers who provide high-quality defined contribution (DC) schemes to their employees.

Commenting on the award, Lisa Sarjeant, HR Director at the CIPD, said:

“At the CIPD we’re constantly advising employers of the contribution to employee engagement that a good pension scheme can make. 

“However, we’ve also repeatedly warned that many employers are not maximising the benefit they can reap from a quality pension scheme as a result of ineffective communication to employees. 

“We welcome the Pensions Quality Mark as an independent benchmark to help employers with this important communications task, and we’re delighted to practice what we preach in securing the Pension Quality Mark PLUS for our own scheme.”

Joanne Segars, Chief Executive of NAPF, said:

"The HR profession has a key role to play in helping employers understand the value of providing high-quality occupational pension schemes to employees.

“We are delighted that the CIPD has attained this mark of pensions excellence. The CIPD is a champion of best HR practice, and we hope their support for the Pension Quality Mark will help emphasise the importance of high quality workplace pensions.”

The Pension Quality Mark (PQM) was launched by the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) in September 2009. Over 70 schemes now qualify and over 150,000 active scheme members are now covered by schemes that carry the Mark. There are two standards, PQM and PQM PLUS.

PQM PLUS is the superior standard, which recognises DC schemes whose contributions are of at least 15 per cent, with a minimum employer contribution of 10 per cent. 

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