The Danish Labour Market Supplementary Pension Plan (ATP) was fortunate enough to garner two awards this year, and Thor Klief says that the 200 members of the management teams took time out to celebrate their success when the news came through.
“The awards are a great innovation, and an excellent initiative,” he says. “We all like to compare ourselves with others competing in the same arena. The awards allow us to measure our performance against others across the whole of Europe, and in the long term this will be of benefit to everyone. It is also recognition of the work done by the entire team.
“We will continue to work hard and attempt to maintain our position which the awards have bestowed upon us.”
It was back in 1999 that the ATP management team began a root and branch review of its business goals and corporate governance formed an important part of that review. Included in it were disclosure and communication plans which have resulted in significant changes taking place within ATP. This development produced an improved scheme for members.
Klief believes that communication is the key to the success of ATP this year. “Our own surveys have shown that as many as 73% of our 4m members have read our pension fund summary.
“This is a very important issue in Denmark at the moment, and it is vital that we are seen to be good communicators when it comes to getting information to our members.”
One initiative has been the introduction of an electronic newsletter that is accessed by 36% of the fund’s pc literate membership.
“We launched this service at the behest of the membership in the autumn, using the e-box secure system. Not only does it give our members better access to information, it also has significant cost consequences for us as a fund. We are a very low-cost operation, with our members contributing just four euros each to the administration costs. With 4m members just postage was a major item.
“Now using electronic letters we have cut costs dramatically. We are confident that this was one of the items which influenced the judges on our behalf.”

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