This article originally appeared on Benefits and Pensions Monitor. Read the story here.

"It was a wake-up call on further integrating financial planning within our pension service models," said one plan sponsor"

After two days of panels, workshops, and meaningful conversations at ACPM’s annual conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canadian pension plan sponsors, administrators, trustees, asset managers and other retirement income system leaders are returning to their offices with more than just a stack of business cards and session notes.

As many industry leaders told Benefits and Pensions Monitor, the sessions served as both a reality check and a call to recalibrate how the industry and the workplace supports Canadian retirement outcomes.

For Natane Voegtlin, director of pension services at Alberta Teachers' the timing couldn’t have been more aligned.

“This is great timing because we’re doing a modernization project,” she said, adding that connecting with another organization who uses the same vendor and attending sessions together offered a way to bring new perspectives directly into her team’s work at the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund.

It was Voegtlin’s first ACPM experience, who admits the conference took her by surprise, notably the keynote delivered by Peace by Chocolate CEO Tareq Hadhad.  

“The lunchtime speech was very moving. If anyone didn’t feel strong emotions from that, I am concerned for their well-being,” she added.

Kathryn Miller, director of member services at Alberta Pension Services Corporation, agreed that the conference was a needed shift in perspective.

“Oftentimes your head is down, you're doing the day-to-day stuff,” she said, emphasizing that ACPM gave her the space to look beyond the administrative lens.

“There’s a huge part of it that’s big picture thinking about the pension industry and the economic outlook is bleak,” Miller added. “There are lots of unknown factors at play that are big factors at play... it's really hard to see a week out, a month out, a year out.”

While Voegtlin didn’t disagree, the tone of the conference for her was also defined by connection over competition.

“In pensions we really don’t compete with one another,” she said. “You have these people who participate in your plan because they work for a participating employer... It really creates camaraderie and an opportunity to share in the industry that you don't see in the private sector.”

Connor Bays, head of sales at Common Wealth Pension Services, also agreed that conference “feels like a fairly close-knit community” and “into the mission of helping people with retirement,” he said.

While his firm operates outside of traditional DB circles, Bays said the holistic approach to retirement planning stood out.

“There’s this broader challenge that lots of Canadians have figuring out how they’re going to get the retirement income they need. There’s a large share of Canadians who have no pension or something very basic,” he said. “Improving the situation for those people may be the biggest impact if you're a government thinking about this.”

Genevieve Groat, partner at Fuse Strategy Partners, came to Halifax with one question: what’s keeping people in the industry up at night? She highlighted how she’s now leaving with more than she anticipated.

“There’s a lot more keeping people up at night than I thought,” she said. “The opportunities for us to do more and do better are endless and we need to keep challenging the status quo.”

Her focus going forward will be sharpening how Fuse supports clients through transformation, notably using AI, to better understand their members “and member insights to further inform strategy, policy making and decision making... all to ultimately improve retirement outcomes for Canadians.”

Lisa Contini, pension and benefits representative at UNIFOR National, attended ACPM for the first time and left with sharper views on governance risks.

 “I will approach risk with a broader perspective, recognizing not only operational and financial risks but also governance and cyber-related risks that can have a significant impact on boards,” she noted.

Michael Lockhart, director of communications at Ontario Pension Board and vice-chair of ACPM’s national editorial committee, sees data as the lever for long-term change. Notably, how employers and plan sponsors alike use that data to “identify trends, risks, and opportunities that will ultimately lead to efficiencies,” he said, referring to both internal strategy and member engagement.

Lockhart also highlighted the session on member segmentation by OMERS and HOOPP made an impression.

“Understanding how we can optimize communication with members at different life and career stages is critical in ensuring they have the necessary comprehension around their pension and the retirement planning process,” he noted.

He doesn't underestimate the external pressures facing plans either as he emphasized there’ll continue to be pressures on pension administrators, “longevity and an ageing society, economic and trade impacts, and greater workforce mobility and the need for portability,” he said, noting he sees that as an opportunity and not a direct challenge.

“There’s a great opportunity here for us as an industry to be innovative and adaptable as key tools for sustainability,” he added.

Finally, for Joseph Kazibwe, the conference provided a stark reminder about member communication gaps across generations, emphasizing that employers now have four generations in the workforce. He acknowledged that the workshop on financial planning left him thinking about what’s missing in current models and in benefits plans.

“It was a wake-up call on further integrating financial planning within our pension service models,” said Kazibwe, senior director of pension and financial wellbeing at CIBC. “By offering employees unbiased professional advice, we can assist them in making more optimal decisions that benefit them individually and the communities within they live.”