The Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association (PLSA) has published a toolkit for pension schemes and investors.

'Understanding the worth of the workforce' has been designed to give pensions schemes and investor guidance on what data and commentary they should request from the companies they invest in.

UK pension schemes invest billions of pounds in listed companies around the world to secure pension incomes for millions of savers.

PLSA says there is a growing recognition that companies committed to investing in training and development for their staff perform better in the long term.

It says clear, consistent and structured reporting about how companies manage their workforce is a vital component in allowing investors to understand how the asset of employees is being managed and developed.

The toolkit recommends pension schemes ask investee companies to report on: gender diversity, employment type, staff turnover, accidents injuries and workplace illnesses, investment training and development, pay ratios, and employeeengagement.

Luke Hildyard, policy lead: stewardship and corporate governance, at PLSA, said: "We are all familiar with the phrases in annual reports affirming how important employees are to corporate success.

"But as our report last year highlighted, too often there is too little information in those same reports about how these employees are managed, developed and valued.

"Our new toolkit has been designed to provide pension schemes and other investors with a clear and structured approach to interrogating the data already available in corporate reports and guidance on what other information to request and how to analyse it."

The toolkit builds on the Association's report 'Where is the workforce in corporate reporting?', published last year.

Following the publication of that report, the Association set up a series of discussions with members, their advisers and asset managers along with other experts and corporations themselves and these informed the recommendations in the toolkit.

The toolkit will be shared with both corporations and pension funds and PLSA also intends to arrange private meetings between its members and investee companies to discuss how its recommendations can be implemented over the long-term.

First published 21.07.2016

Lindsay.sharman@wilmingtonplc.com