Peter Nicholas uses the festive spirit to inspire new ways to engage with employees.

I have just returned from our office in Australia where the streets of Melbourne are adorned with Christmas decorations.

They have been like this since the second week in November. Is this too early? Apparently not.

There were queues of people lined up to view the Christmas window displays of the Myer store in central Melbourne. Snowy images as people were walking around in shorts and flip-flops.

Definitely a degree of incongruity but what was undeniable was the excited faces of the children, full of anxious anticipation of what Christmas might bring. Do children still have to be "good" to get the full benefits of Christmas?

Naturally my thoughts went to their pension savings (in Australia, superannuation). What would need to happen to create the same anxious anticipation for their retirement day and the reward of a great pension?

What does being "good" look like in a pensions context? I'm sure for many parents they are only able to extract the value of "being good" in the few weeks leading up to the big event. Does it really mean anything to a 5 year-old to be warned in January "if you're not good Santa might not come this year!?"

The pension parallel is palpable. How do we expect to engage the behaviour of millennials by saying "be good now or you won't have a comfortable retirement"? To them the concept of retirement is so distant it might as well be a myth. It doesn't work on our children and it doesn't work on us.

As with our children, we need to change our communication. Parents break down the year into a series of short-term rewards to look forward to: birthdays with parties and presents, Easter with chocolate indulgences, holidays with fun in the sun, etc.

Let's start doing the same with pension fund communication. There is no point overwhelming a new entrant to the workforce with their savings destination of retirement.

Why not break down the journey with milestones and celebrations.

We call them pension opportunity points – celebrate each contribution with "congratulations you've been paid twice, you second pay is in your pension pot"; celebrate contribution milestones with "congratulations, you have just made your 50th pension contribution"; celebrate balance milestones with "congratulations, your pension balance is now more than your annual salary"; even better, encourage new behaviours with "if you increase your contribution by "£x" you'll reach £50,000 "y" months faster".

For me Christmas is way too close!

Peter Nicholas,Managing Director & CEO, AHC.