Justine Peddle was named Global Compensation and Mobility Manager for UPS in May of this year. She is responsible for the design and administration of UPS's Compensation plans. Plan designs are performance-based, using a mix of base salary and equity-based incentive compensation that promotes the efficient management of UPS's business and supports UPS's long-standing culture of owner-management.
More recently, Justine had responsibility for managing the administration and plan design of the UPS Retirement Benefit Portfolio including UPS sponsored defined benefit and defined contribution plans.
She worked for accounting firms Grant Thornton and Ernst & Young before joining a UPS affiliated company, Overseas Partners Ltd, in 1998. In 2000, Justine moved to the U.S. where she held assignments in Product Development, Finance & Accounting, Operations and Controller of UPS Health & Welfare plans.
Justine is a Chartered Accountant who earned her Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting from Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
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PROspective Justine Peddle - Communication
PROspective Vol II No X November 2011
We asked Justine Peddle, Manager of Global Compensation and Mobility at UPS, to share with us why participant communications is so important to UPS, and why its efforts have been so successful.
Chuck Miller: Your company, UPS, has been recognized for its 401(k) communications program. What makes it special?
Justine Peddle: Whether UPS is implementing plan design changes, rolling out a new feature or developing an outreach campaign, we’ve learned the time spent on planning these communications can make the difference between success and a missed opportunity. For us, creating and following a comprehensive communication plan typically includes more than one audience with more than one goal, as well as more than one communication channel.
I think our communication program is successful because we take the time to plan our communication goals on an annual basis and then revisit them periodically throughout the year to ensure we are on the right track.
It is important to clarify your communication goals and evaluate why you are communicating and what you hope to accomplish. Know your audience by working with your recordkeeper and determine the benefits to the audience and what action you want them to take. Different audiences may require variations of your message.
For example, in one of our campaigns, we addressed participants who potentially needed to reevaluate their investment strategies. Some of the participants were invested in only one fund while others were invested in ten funds. We were looking for a similar outcome for both groups, but needed to adjust our messaging to be impactful to each audience.
CM: What are the most important drivers when creating a 401(k) communications program… plan design, demographics, media, location, or something else?
JP: Delivering relevant messages to targeted participants through more than one channel can greatly improve the impact of the message being communicated. Participants are often overwhelmed with educational materials that don’t pertain to their individual situations, having little or no influence on the decisions they make. Segmenting the population by demographics including factors such as age, investment styles and savings levels allows us to tailor our message specifically to relevant groups, ensuring the intended message reaches the right audience and drives the right behavior.
Communicating a message once through one channel is not enough. A successful communication program uses different methods to deliver the same message—mail, web, video, email and mobile devices. Participants need to hear the same message several times to overcome inertia and take action. Our outcomes are more successful when layers of messaging are leveraged rather than just making one attempt through one channel.
CM: What are the measures of success for your communications program?
JP: Metrics are important because they help identify the ideal communication channels and assess the overall effectiveness of the communication. If participants don’t change their behavior and take action, we know that we need to go back to the drawing table and revaluate our communication plan, messaging, and delivery.
We also use data collected through participant surveys. Partnering with our recordkeeper, we created a series of educational videos on diversification, target date funds and core funds. The video trio received almost 20,000 hits and downloads and provided some outstanding feedback: 87 percent of viewers said that after viewing the videos they had a better understanding of diversification, and 99 percent stated they understood that diversification was a critical component in their retirement savings strategy.
Due to the positive comments from employees, we are continuing to provide education to employees through this communication channel.
CM: With UPS offering services in over 200 countries, you must have other defined contribution plans. What unique communications challenges do those plans present?
JP: UPS has more than 50 defined contribution plans outside the U.S. These plans present a challenge on many fronts—legal and regulatory, market competitiveness, as well as, responding to cultural differences and norms. Within the context of our global benefit management philosophy, local benefits governing committees ensure that these programs are managed properly and communicated effectively.
A global governance framework exists to manage all of our international benefit programs to ensure that our benefits strategy is adhered to while ensuring that the tactical plan management responsibilities such as plan communication are understood and followed.
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