Quantum Advisory’s Head of Administration, Jemma Jurgenson, celebrates her 20-year work anniversary and reflects on her two decades at Quantum
Jemma Jurgenson joined the Quantum Advisory team in 2000 and is the Firm’s longest serving employee! Having recently achieved her 20-year anniversary we asked her to reflect on her time at Quantum and how the pensions administration service has developed over this period.
Jemma commented “When I joined Quantum Advisory in 2000, as a Pension Consultant, I never imagined I would be asked to reflect on my time in pensions 20 years later…it certainly doesn’t feel like 20 years! In fact, so much has changed over that time and the Pensions Regulator has certainly become more involved. However, one thing hasn’t changed at Quantum and that’s our desire to put members at the heart of everything we do.
Within the administration service that I have led since 2014, this means designing every system and process around members and focusing on achieving better member outcomes as a result. The feedback from our regular member surveys not only reflect our excellent service standards, but also reinforce our commitment to continuous improvement, helping us to consider changes to our processes and further upgrades to technology to enhance the way in which we serve our members and schemes. Our quality standards and processes are designed around continuously improving member outcomes and our four years with no exceptions to our AAF 01/06 audit is testament to the commitment of everyone in the teams to ensure we strive for and achieve best practice.
Over the last 20 years we have seen our administration service grow and develop. We now offer administration services over two sites (Cardiff and Amersham) and every team member has either achieved, or is currently studying for, their professional qualifications. I think this is a key point for us, and something that we have always supported. We firmly believe that professional qualifications, from the suite of qualifications offered by the Pensions Management Institute through to PRINCE2 practitioner status, help our teams provide a high-quality service to pension scheme members. We want to see our teams build a long-term career in pension administration.
Pension scheme members often contact us when they are making some of the biggest financial decisions of their lives and our administration teams will be there to guide and support them through that process. When I first joined Quantum, this was predominantly by letter or phone, but of course today there is multi-channel communication by e-mail, phone, letter and of course member portals. Whichever way a member is most comfortable contacting us they will find a personal service from our highly trained team to support them. That’s something I have been really passionate about and is also shared by the Quantum Partners in their vision – we will always provide a personal service, with named contacts for each scheme. Even during the lockdown in the UK, members have been able to contact their administrator directly without delay and continue to receive that personal touch.
The transition to work from home for our administration teams has been exceptional and I’m really proud of the way they have all adapted to the new environment in which we have found ourselves. During a period of great uncertainty in the country, the team were up and running from day one providing continuity and support to members whenever and however it was required. This wouldn’t have been possible without the strong focus of our teams on customer service and the quality standards which drive our service offering, not to mention our incredible IT and infrastructure support at Quantum. Our introduction during 2019 of more paperless working, online identity verification and outsourced printing has meant that not only have we have been able to seamlessly transition to home working with minimal changes to our processes whilst maintaining our commitment to providing an excellent service to members but also we have been able to keep our staff safe by not needing them to enter the office environment since mid-March.
My 20-year work anniversary has been a time to reflect on our achievements, but also to look forward. Pensions administration is a fast-changing environment and with the potential of pension dashboards around the corner and the introduction of ever more technological advances like AI and biometrics to enhance the offering of administrators, there will be plenty more challenges to face over the next decade or so, but I know our commitment to members and a quality-driven administration service will always be right at the heart of things – where they belong.”
David Deidun, Partner at Quantum Advisory, said “I remember the day that Jemma joined us at Quantum and the support Jemma has provided to both clients and the administration teams over the last 20 years has been exceptional. I am looking forward to seeing her continue to drive forward our high-quality administration services over the next 20 years!”.