Having a website for pension employees isn t just good for the employees, it's also good for employers. A website for pension employees can save an employer time and can help communicate retirement benefits. And in today's world, some employees will be more comfortable doing as much as possible online.

Communicating directly with employees through a participant website can often be a time-saver. A participant website can allow employees to send emails to the employer. Certain self-service functions can also be made available on the participant website. This would include allowing employees to change their beneficiaries, or current addresses, or even begin termination/retirement processes, all online. Another self-service possibility on the participant website is allowing retirees to change their direct deposits or tax withholding information online. This is an always growing area and, as time goes on, more and more self-service functions will be made available to employees.

A website for pension employees can also save an employer time by making certain documents available there. Frequently requested documents can be made available for download, including summary plan descriptions, annual funding notices, beneficiary designation forms, frequently asked questions, and more.

Benefit calculations can be posted directly to an employee's portion of the website. Periodic benefit statements can also be posted online and are thus always available to employees. This gives employees an opportunity to see past statements and how their pension benefit is growing. Any types of calculations can be posted on the website and only made available to targeted employees. This includes final termination or retirement paperwork that the employee must fill out.

But perhaps the biggest benefit of a website for pension employees is allowing employees to project their retirement benefits and become comfortable with their retirement incomes, using online tools to run projections at different termination and retirement dates. Employees can see their accrued benefit as well as what their benefits would be if they stayed employed with the employer up to their normal retirement dates.

The website can also estimate Social Security benefits at various beginning dates and can even include the defined contribution (DC) benefits (401[k], 403[b], etc.) offered through an employer. Enabling employees to combine all of their retirement benefits and other retirement income, as well as their spouses retirement income, can give employees a picture of their total retirement income. Employees can run various "what-if" scenarios to see how their retirement choices might affect future benefits. A participant website is one way to show employees the value of total retirement benefits packages.

If you are an employer who would be interested in creating or enhancing a website for your pension employees, then now might be a good time to investigate further.