Rosemarie McClean came to the position of Chief Executive of Pension Administration of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF) after 32 years of experience in pension administration and management. She highlights her greatest achievements in the role and the aims for the future.
You have been in the job for a little over four years. What have been your biggest professional achievements?
When I joined in 2020 as Chief Executive for Pension Administration, the UNJSPF was experiencing significant challenges.
A problematic IT system roll-out had led to substantial delays and severely impacted the Fund’s reputation. This situation not only affected our clients and stakeholders, but also took a toll on staff morale. However, since that difficult period, I am proud to say that UNJSPF marked its 75th anniversary this year as an efficient and dynamic organization.
I would like to highlight two significant achievements that have contributed to reaching this position. Firstly, when I arrived at the Fund, there was no explicit strategy for pension administration. One of my first initiatives was to request all services to identify their strategic priorities and objectives. As a result, we developed the C.A.R.E. (client-focused, action-oriented, relations-builder, efficacy-driven) strategy for the Fund, with three interrelated priorities: improving client experience, strengthening the relationship with our stakeholders, and modernizing pension services. For each of them, we monitor performance indicators on a regular basis.
Secondly, since I joined, we have made great strides towards making the UNJSPF an exceptional and inspiring place to work. We are measuring our progress through yearly UN System Staff College Leadership Culture Assessments (LCA). This year, 84% of Pension Administration staff responded to the fourth LCA survey, and the results show that an increasing majority of staff agree that we have a culture of teamwork, feedback and inclusion, which fosters empathy and respect across the Fund.
I am very pleased that the Fund is increasingly seen as an employer of choice within the UN system, and that we are establishing best practices in areas ranging from mental health to innovation.
What are the main changes you have introduced to the Pension Fund in order to improve clients’ service, and what has been the impact of these changes so far?
Providing outstanding service to our participants and beneficiaries is my utmost priority. After joining the Fund, I introduced some key structural changes. Above all, the creation of a dedicated client services function has enhanced our performance, even as our client base continues to grow (over 235,000 clients
as of December 2023, a 3.6% increase from the previous year). For example, our average call wait time has been well within the one-minute target since the end of 2023, and the average resolution time for queries categorized as high priority has been four days throughout 2024. I also established a dedicated team to work with our member organizations, pursuing the critical objective of shortening the overall separation-to-pay time.
Additionally, we have placed a special emphasis on modernizing the Fund’s pension services to improve our clients’ experience. For example, we are pioneering the use of emerging technologies like blockchain and facial recognition to address our global clientele’s needs. A notable example is the Digital Certificate of Entitlement (DCE), which has been in production since 2021. The DCE is a state-of-the-art mobile and web-based authentication solution to verify the identity and location of our retirees and beneficiaries. Through the DCE, UNJSPF clients have the option to complete their annual proof-of-existence exercise entirely in a digital format, instead of relying on paper and postal services and waiting for months to complete the process. The DCE has won several awards, including the United Nations Secretary-General Award in the innovation and sustainability category. The greatest recognition is that our clients find it useful: over 40% of retirees and beneficiaries have enrolled so far, and the numbers continue to grow. Our modernization efforts also include a new client relationship management platform and several upcoming interface upgrades.
Lastly, our communications and outreach have grown consistently, now including multilingual products and initiatives to boost information-sharing and transparency. I encourage UN Today readers to explore our website for valuable resources, including our monthly newsletter. We’ve expanded our social media presence on LinkedIn, WhatsApp and YouTube. This year, we also launched virtual pension townhall sessions, covering topics from participation to retirement, to keep our stakeholders well informed and maintain transparency.
There has been a lot of attention paid to ensuring most staff get their first payment within 15 business days of the Fund receiving separation documents. But there is also a long tail of beneficiaries such as widows and orphans, many in the field, who are waiting considerably longer. How can you help them?
The Pension Fund manages survivor benefits with high priority. In 2024, we will have processed 90% of survivor cases (widows, children, and orphans) within 15 business days of receipt of the required documentation. Although the benchmark is 15 days, benefits are typically released within nine days due to their priority status, so it is rare for a widow or orphan to wait longer than that. In most cases, the issue with wait time lies in the collection of documents from the survivors.
To lessen the wait time, the Fund, upon receiving a death notification, contacts the family within five business days to explain the required documentation. If there is no response, we have a procedure in place to make additional attempts to reach the family and, if necessary, we seek help from member organizations or retirees’ associations. Additionally, the Fund is improving the collection of emergency contact details to locate family members promptly.
The Fund continues to monitor and enhance the process, ensuring most benefits are processed within the 15-day benchmark.
What is your relationship with the Pension Board like?
As part of the UNJSPF governance structure, we are overseen by the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Board, which is a tripartite body made up of 33 members from the UN Secretariat, other member organizations, and their Governing Bodies. Retirees and other beneficiaries from the Federation of Associations of Former International Civil Servants (FAFICS) also attend Board meetings but do not vote. The Pension Board has the ultimate responsibility for the administration of the UNJSPF and reports to the UN General Assembly. In my capacity as Chief Executive of Pension Administration, the Pension Board provides guidance and direction and assesses my performance.
The relationship with the Board has been crucial for me to successfully navigate complex processes, such as budget formulation and amendments to the Fund’s Regulations and Rules. I am pleased to report that, during my tenure, we have significantly strengthened the relationship of trust and transparency with the Board. At the most recent Board meeting in July, the Board endorsed our budget proposal for 2025, which has now been forwarded for consideration by the General Assembly. They also expressed strong support and appreciation for the efforts and the results of both the Pension Administration and the Office of Investment Management teams of UNJSPF.
With the new participants likely to wane, especially with the cutbacks in peacekeeping, what does this mean for the Fund?
Although the Fund has seen substantial growth in participant numbers in recent years, we are conscious that there may be times ahead when future employment patterns change in the UN system, thereby affecting participant numbers in the Fund.
Like any pension fund, the UNJSPF considers how future participant numbers and demographics could impact its long-term sustainability. This is something that the Pension Board monitors with input from the actuaries, who model various scenarios of the future, including falling participant numbers. Recent studies have found that the Fund is able to withstand a decrease in participant numbers, and we will continue to monitor this to ensure the Fund is still here for another 75 years and beyond.