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YOUR NO.1 PENSION FUND. COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES. From time immemorial the need to communicate was always a primary instinctive urge of man . The communication hurdles and challenges that pertain to both developed and emerging economies also apply to the MEPF. 1. LITERACY.
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COMMUNICATION CHALLENGES From time immemorial the need to communicate was always a primary instinctive urge of man. The communication hurdles and challenges that pertain to both developed and emerging economies also apply to the MEPF.
1.LITERACY Literacy and numeric inadequacies present the Fund with themost major impediments to communication flows. The Fund, however, views these stumbling blocks as roadside challenges, and has initiated action plans to by-pass these!
2. GEOGRAPHIC LOCATION HURDLES Members of the Fund are employed in five provinces Gauteng,Mpumalanga, Northwest, Limpopo and Eastern Cape. However they may be even more widespread and scattered as their birthplaces are all over South Africa and its neighbouring states of Lesotho, Swaziland, Botswana, Mozambique and Zimbabwe.
COMMUNICATION STIMULATION To manage the communication milieu better now and in the future the MEPF has identified and prioritised the following landscapes, all designed to intensify the Fund’s visibility, accessibility and its tangibility as a distinct product brand with the view on member participation and benefit. To stimulate its visibility the Fund has and will continue to reach its members, both illiterate and sophisticated We continue to ensure that communications now and in the future is a two-way between members and fund.
STAFFING AND MULTI-LINGUALISM The Fund has placed a high value in appointing personnel that are multi-lingual. We are sensitive to our multi-cultural society. The diversities are mirrored by the environment the MEPF conducts its business in. Respect and sensitivity to all the Fund’s members and pensioners’ languages, cultures and values hold high ground in the Fund’s daily business practises and communication. Albeit so, the official lingua franca of the Fund remains English.
COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND ROLL OUT The MEPF has a well-conceived Marketing and Communication strategy aimed at its business development and growth for the ultimate benefit of its members, pensioners and all other stake-holders, all driven by communication. • The strat plan is rolled out at • Strategic Level in the Board Room • Management Level as well as • Operational Level, all working in unison and very member focused.
1. BRAND PROMOTION THROUGH COMMUNICATION The Fund expends a sizeable budget each year on brand promotion driven by its communication infrastructure. T-shirts, caps, corporate diaries, calendars, pens, letter-heads and countless other complimentaries of value are handed out to the Fund’s members on a cost-per-item promotional drive at every communication opportunity that presents itself. The MEPF remains convinced that these promotional items are valued by the membership in general, based on feedback talk we receive from pensioners and members from time to time. This goes far toward distinguishing theMEPF from a host of other Municipal and or Union funds.
2. PERSONAL MEMBER CONTACT The Fund has, and will continue to keep open lines of personal contact with its entire members by, inter alia: 3. EASY ACCESSIBILITY Both active members of the Fund, pensioners and other interested parties who wish to visit the Fund’s offices for all manner of personal retirement issues, trust and estate advice, housing assistance, and other myriad of pension-related topics, are welcome and encouraged to do so because Communication lines are open to all in the MEPF family.
4. ON-LINE COMMUNICATION NETWORKS Those members who elect to contact the Fund for whatever fund-related matters by telephone come through either on the mainlandline (011) 422-6883 where a full-time receptionist will connect them with the relevant Department for their enquiry. The Marketing Department also have cell phone accessibility (whilst mobile) to ensure that clients of the Fund get added optimised service.
5. MEMBER COMMUNICATION MEETINGS A very high priority is placed on arranging for member communicationmeetingsever so regularly, at least twice a year in compliance with the Pension Funds Act. These communication meetings do not only serve as information sessions to the Fund’s most valuable asset, its members, but also serve to hear and listen to what the membership is feeling and thinking on Fund issues that affect them.
6. HUMAN NETWORKS The MEPF places a very high premium on the men and women officials in all the municipal offices with which the Fund networks on behalf of its members. These men and women include everyone from Municipal Managers, Councillors, Human Resources and Treasury officials. Shop stewards and the Fund’s elected member representatives also form part of this network channel. The Fund not only acknowledges their collective support and assistance in rendering better en loco communication to the members, the Fund also appreciates their interventions and invaluable sacrifices in explaining concepts, sometimes repeatedly, that members with lesser schooling grapple to grasp.
7. WORKSHOPPING AND CONFERENCING The value of focussed workshops among the Fund’sstakeholders is a price-less objective of this Fund. The distinct stake-holders in this instance refers to: 8. MUNICIPAL DECISION MAKERS The Fund has, and will continue to welcome and honour all invitations it receives from Mayors and Municipal Managers’ Forums. To this end the Fund has also extended a helping hand by participating in some specific needs of these forums as a way of ploughing back appreciation and support to the Municipalities for their faith in the MEPF.
9. ANNUAL PROVINCIAL MEETINGS • The Fund engages all HR and Treasury functionaries together with their elected Fund’s REPRESENTATIVES provincially once every year. • These Provincial Forums have proved immensely valuable in: • Deepening work relationships • Building ties as entry point to their constituencies. • Speeding up tracing etc. in their respective areas with its spin-offs to faster settlement of claims. • Introducing new Fund products. • Clarifying grey areas not fully understood. • The Annual Provincial Meetings are held in each of the provinces in which the Fund has members, and special efforts are taken to invite even the Fund’s pensioners in the vicinity.
10. ANNUAL CONFERENCES The Municipal Employees Pension Fund, in its 32 years of existence, has held 31 Annual General Meetings for all its stakeholders. The Fund attaches fundamental importance to these annual events, and for that reason expends vast resources of time, effort and cost to ensure that the membership is updated on their Fund’s state of finances ad overall well-being. The Board of Trustees is also democratically elected at the AGM. The audited financial statements are discussed fully for the membership, to know and endorse. Being the most colourful event of the Fund’s calendar, VIP’s such as Executive Mayors, Premiers and other Provincial Heads of Departments, Councillors as well as Bankers, Asset managers and other shakers and movers of the retirement industry converge in these Fund AGM’s together with the elected representatives of the broad membership of the Fund. The elected representatives then return to their Municipal constituencies to hold feedback member meetings on the AGM’s deliberations.
11. BENEFIT BROCHURE-FLYERS The Fund’s Rules and Regulations have been compacted into a Benefits Brochure, which is revised and updated each year for benefits communication with members. The brochures serve as a quick and user-friendly referral to the benefits structure and regulations that govern them. Each member is handed these brochures at every member meetings, and effort and care is given to communicate the contents and interpretations of these information flyers.
12. ANNUAL BENEFITS STATEMENTS The Fund has a legal duty towards its membership, being to update each one of them on their accumulated benefits. The Fund sends annual benefit statements to every member’s workplace through their Pay Office or HR Dept depending on circumstances. Plans are under way to forward these annual benefits statements direct tothe member’s home address. The outcome of the Fund’s research into the viability of this option will determine whether it will proceed with this.
13. NEWSLETTER The Fund ensures that its members, pensioners and all other important stakeholders have a birds-eye-view of the activities of the Fund through it’s Newsletter.
14. INTERNET AND WEB SITE TECHNOLOGIES The MEPF is keeping abreast of the best in modern information technological advances. The Fund is fully accessible on the Internet for those who wish to do so on: E-mail: pension@mepf.co.za The Fund’s Website may be accessed on www.mepf.co.za
PERIODIC SURVEYS AND OTHER COMMUNICATION CHANNELS Two surveys were carried out in the middle of 2001 and 2002 to measure the effectiveness of the Fund’s communication with its members and pensioners, with a view to improving service delivery. The two survey samples showed that the area of communication was on the upward direction although room for improvement was still there. All 5500 pensioners were sent letters in 2001 that were translated into their home languages to elect their own pensioner representative to the Board of Trustees. Their interest in the matter was mind-boggling. One pensioner cycled 25 kilometres single trip to ensure that his nomination form was received by the Fund!
