HESTA Addressing economic inequality

Insight

Australian women retire with an average of 47% less superannuation than men.

HESTA represents the retirement interests of more than 700,000 women working in health and community services across Australia and wants to help make a meaningful difference in their retirement outcomes. Women still face long-standing gender inequities in the Australian superannuation system, which favours those who have higher incomes and unbroken work patterns.

The complex nature of superannuation means many people do not engage with planning until nearing retirement, when it’s often too late to make a meaningful difference.

Idea

Empowering members to improve their retirement outcome.

HESTA appreciates each of its members has a unique story and thus a financial journey and future too. The online experience puts members at the centre, supporting individual needs in the journey towards retirement.

Utilising personalised, relatable and trustworthy design principles, the easy to use, safe and secure digital experience enables members to manage their savings through a simply designed user interface.

Planning for the future

The platform leverages contemporary principles of human-centred design to create an innovative and interactive experience so that HESTA members can better understand their financial future.

It encourages members to address their desired retirement lifestyle, providing access to advice on achieving shorter-term goals when retirement might feel too far away, and a short quiz takes the complexity out of this future planning process.

Impact

Creating a better future for women retiring across Australia.

HESTA’s new online experience now includes an interactive Future Planner tool that provides real insights and personalised free 24/7 advice to HESTA members.

Members are able to visualise, understand and take positive actions towards their retirement savings. Future Planer takes the anxiety and stress out of thinking about what the future might look like in five, 10, 20+ years in a judgement-free and supportive environment.

Future Planner has seen HESTA’s advice-reach increase from less than 1%, limited by the number of advisers and hours during the day, to over 98.5% of its total member base. The tool uptake is increasing as awareness and value of the service gains momentum.

Since launch, more than 133,187 HESTA members have used Future Planner, generating over 103,930 unique member retirement projections.