Meet the team: Pensions Technical Enquiries
For information
Pensions Technical Enquiries team manager, Jeanette Stevens spoke to us this month about her team who help both employers and members with a whole range of queries from complex tax questions to benefit queries…
What team do you run?
I run the Pensions Technical Enquires team (PTE) which is one of the specialist teams on the pensions department.
We used to be called the Correspondence Team which is probably a more familiar description of what we do – reply to queries that arrive in the office via email, post, fax or online on any topic that's not picked up by one of the other teams.
Can you tell us what you like about working at USS?
I have been here a long time and it has always been, and still is, a friendly place to work. There is help and support when you need it and people are genuinely enthusiastic about providing a good quality service to members and employers.
Tell us about the role of the Pensions Technical team, what do they do?
We respond to benefit enquires from members, employers and financial advisors that are not specifically related to another team on the pensions department. We also reply to enquiries regarding Annual Allowance, Lifetime Allowance, Scheme Pays and implement the splitting of pension on divorce.
Who is on your team?
I run the team and have assistant team managers, Miriam Brown and Rachael Latham.
The rest of the team are: Asia Allen, Lisa Collins, Colette Dowling, Lowri Davies, Neil Ellis, Gareth Davies, Pauline Berry, Sarah Jackson, Laura Christian and Mandy Chen. Between them they can pick up anything that comes in.
Due to the nature of our work we have a really experienced team and so there is a wealth of knowledge to draw on. I started adding up the years of pension experience on the team but stopped at 100!
What's a typical day like for you and your team?
Last thing at night I distribute the case work that has arrived in our group tray that day to each team member.
The day then consists of processing and checking the casework. Team huddles to discuss improvements and any changes coming our way. There are busier periods in the year such as after annual member statements have been sent out or Annual Allowance statements.
Continual improvement is proving to be a real theme through the meet the team interviews with the Pensions operations department…what have you been up to on PTE?
We recently changed our standard letter to financial advisors to contain a table of information that is much more convenient for them. It's worked well so we're going to use a similar template for active members when they request current information about their benefits.
We work in partnership with employers, do you have any special requests of our clients to make our processes work even more smoothly?!
It helps us if employers are able to keep us up to date with any change to the member's address when we've got a case in progress. You can do this via the HR interface. This will decrease the number of letters we send to members via the official contact and so speeds up the process and reduces the administration burden on employers.
If our clients have any particular queries, who should they contact?
Queries should be directed either to our team telephone number which is 0151 556 0626 or email correspondence-team@uss.co.uk
All our contact details are available from the employer portal Contact USS page.
And finally! The Quick Fire Favourite Five! Share with us your favourite:
Film: Jaws – it's a classic!
Musician: Too many to name, my favorite song is Clair de Lune by Debussy
Drink: Wine
Food: Risotto
Holiday destination: USA and Jersey.