Employers hold key to super choice

Changes to Australia’s industrial relations environment mean employers have now become more important to industry superannuation funds than unions, according to a director of big super funds bank Members Equity, Anna Booth.

Speaking at the Conference of Major Superannuation Funds, Booth, a former senior union official, said industry superannuation funds would be making a mistake if they embarked on major advertising campaigns similar to those pursued by retail master trusts.

She said while industry superannuation funds had evolved out of the Prices and Incomes Accord between the trade union movement and the former Federal Labor Government, changes to the Australian workplace over the past decade had significantly altered the balance.

“The union role has changed dramatically,” she said. “The role of the employer has become even more important than ever in the choice of funds environment.”

Booth said employers were now enjoying much more power in the workplace than they had previously, and were acting much more autonomously.

She said the implications that flowed from this for superannuation funds had to be seen in light of the new choice of superannuation fund environment and the competition this had generated between superannuation funds.

Booth said the changes that had occurred placed greater emphasis on the need for industry funds to work with employer organisations in circumstances where it was crucial to be selected by employers as a default superannuation fund.

She said there was a crucial interrelationship between industry funds retaining members and the selection of a default fund by an employer.

She said she did not believe member retention was ultimately about advertising brand and spending a lot of money.

“I don’t think it is,” she said. “The conclusion that I come to is that while there has been an enormous shift in the environment, and that may prompt you to suggest that you want to invest in advertising to support your brand presence, the answer lies in putting an awful lot of effort into developing a relationship with employers,” Booth said.