Scottish Widows Workplace Savings Podcast

Pensions Dashboard(s)

In this special, Robert Cochran is joined by ‘Mr Pension Dashboard’ Richard Smith, who has travelled the length of Europe by train analysing all that European pension dashboards have to offer.
For the younger perspective, he is also joined by 20-something Oliver Webster as they discuss what the latest announcements from the government mean for pension dashboards– and just how big a revolution for pension engagement the dashboards promise to be.

Graeme Bold - doing good things at scale

In this episode, Robert Cochran is joined by Graeme Bold who has led the Workplace Savings Business at Scottish Widows for 5 years and overseen a digital revolution at Scottish Widows - growing the business to over £100 Billion of assets - whilst delivering best in class digital tools for scheme members and employers. We discuss his 5 years at Scottish Widows, his hopes for the next 5 years, pension dashboard and of course his love for Pension Engagement Season - he even dons the t-shirt.

Bringing our Responsible Investments and Stewardship Report to Life

When you're the caretaker for £181 Bn of funds from 8.3 million insurance, pensions and investment customers, it’s both a massive responsibility and also an opportunity to make a difference. That's what we're discussing today with Eva Cairns, Head of Responsible Investment at Scottish Widows, and Adam Paterson, Investment Director.
We’ll cover highlights from the 2023 Responsible Investment report, including our stewardship activities, investment strategies and the positive impact we’ve achieved.
Really excellent insight - and I also learned about SDG's - and that children are learning this at school!
 
Full report link https://adviser.scottishwidows.co.uk/assets/literature/docs/61305.pdf

Retirement Report at 20

In this episode I'm joined by Pete Glancy to review the 20th Scottish Widows Retirement Report. We look back at 20 years of this landmark report - I spread a bit of pension love and happiness through some of the really good stories in the research - Pete brings us back down to earth explaining the plight of those struggling towards a tough retirement.  Full report here
https://adviser.scottishwidows.co.uk/assets/literature/docs/retirement-report-2024.pdf

Can you gamify pensions?

Can you gamify pensions?
Of course you can! Just like learning, health, fitness and other areas of your life, gamification techniques are being applied to encourage better outcomes.
In this fascinating podcast I'm joined by real experts designing gamification into the Scottish Widows Pension experience.

Bringing Digital Banking to Pensions

What can pensions learn from successful adoption of digital banking?
For this episode, Robert Cochran is joined by our own Scottish Widows digital pension and banking guru Phil Allen and  a new to it all digital native Connor Strachan.  The discussion focuses on what pensions  can learn from the massive take up of digital banking, and what dashboards can learn from open banking.

Decumulation - Understanding the Needs of the Nation

What if you take away all the product labels and ask people what is important to them when it comes to funding their retirement and spending their pension savings?
In this podcast I'm joined by Pete Glancy one of the authors of the recent Scottish Widows report  into Decumulation - 61266.pdf (scottishwidows.co.uk) we review the fascinating findings, introduce the retirement decumulation cube and look at the guidance and advice people tell us they want at retirement.
 
We look at the 3 key drivers of retirement products -  Control, Consistency and Legacy and plot everything from Drawdown, to annuities and CDC in the Retirement Matrix
 

An Award Winning Customer Vulnerability Strategy

Creating an Award Winning Customer Vulnerability Strategy
Improving support and outcomes for vulnerable customers has become a real focus for providers over the last few years.  In this podcast we hear from those leading the Workplace Support Teams at Scottish Widows about how vulnerable customers are identified, including some heart stopping stories and they share what has gone into creating the Award Winning Strategy to support our most vulnerable customers.
Superb sharing from Scott Gunderson and Niamh Whelan

The AI Pension Revolution has begun

AI and Pensions - it's already happening
I'm joined by 2 experts explaining how Scottish Widows have deployed AI to improve the colleague and customer experience.  Supporting me on the questions is a rookie student interviewer bringing the younger perspective to the AI Discussion.  
 
It's a fascinating discussion about how AI will revolutionise the pension experience for customers featuring Gillian Henderson, Oojal Jhutti and Maciej Miazek
 

Mindful Pensions and Jimmy Hendrix

In this episode I'm joined by industry big hitter, veteran, free thinker, diversity champion and entertainer David Butcher
David tells us his story of how he went from being Jimmy Hendrix stage manager in Germany to CEO of a large UK pension organisation. He shares how embracing mindfulness helped him recover from some terrible personal tragedies and how his own experience inspired him to launch Mindful Pensions.
David is both a Trustee for Master Trusts including for Scottish Widows and is a member of the Scottish Widows IGC too and he has a vast back catalogue of pension and life experience to share here.