BBC internal comms team delivers bad news well

By James Bennett, Head of Content, Melcrum

UK newspaper, The Guardian, has managed to get hold of an email sent out by the BBC's internal communication team to its staff notifying them of it plans to close its final-salary pension scheme to new joiners, and restrict its benefits, in order to stem a £2 billion ($3bn) deficit.

There's never an easy way to announce to your staff that there's a whopping great hole in your company pension fund and that from April 1st 2011 future salary increases for calculating pension benefits will be limited to 1% per year.

They even go on to explain: "In other words, after this date pensionable salary will grow at a maximum of 1% per year, no matter what actual salary increases an employee receives." Brutal but honest and equally inevitable considering many assets within many other pension schemes around the world have also performed poorly due to the global economic downturn. If any of these grand schemes of old are to be successfully phased out and new "sustainable" versions take their place, as appears the case within most large organizations, then this is potentially the only way to go.

Give the BBC internal comms team some credit though, they deliver the news (that many expected) in a very clear and precise way allowing employees to give their feedback via a hotline, email address, and a series of staff seminars hosted by its pensions team from 5th July who will explain the proposed changes in greater detail and give staff the chance to ask questions face-to-face. All existing scheme members will also receive an email from Jeremy Peat, chairman of the BBC Pension Scheme Trustees, with further details of the 2009 interim valuation of the scheme.

So who's next and are you having to deal with a similar change? Let us know.