Enhancing the staff experience when they retire from the United Nations was one of the key areas of focus of a two-day event hosted on 16 and 17 March by the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund. Over 30 Pension Focal Points and HR Partners from the UN system attended the first in-person, post-pandemic gathering on pension matters.

The UNJSPF Pension Administration serves as secretariat of the UN Staff Pension Committee, which is responsible for the administration of pension matters for the entire UN. “This event is crucial to strengthen the partnership between the Fund and entities of the UN system”, said Rosemarie McClean, Chief Executive of Pension Administration at the Fund.

On the first day, the Fund updated the UN family member organizations on pension activities, newest technologies, and ongoing projects to help pension focal points promote pensions excellence and client satisfaction. Participants had an opportunity to share, learn and benefit from each other’s knowledge, experience, and best practices on the separation process.

On the second day, discussions and interactive dialogues provided the Fund and its partners in UN entities with an opportunity to share, learn and benefit from each other’s knowledge, experience, and best practices on the separation process and to consider how to streamline it in view of shortening the time between date of separation until the first payment. This was an occasion to recognize the efforts of the UN entities since 2018 to reduce the time of submission of separation notifications, and the joint strive for further improvement.

Sunni Ystroem, UNOPS Manager of Personnel Administration at Shared Services Centre in Bangkok commented: “I found the event to be both timely and useful. Both collaboration and communication with the Fund have improved dramatically in the last two years and will undoubtedly continue in this manner following the success of this in-person event, which served to both strengthen existing partnerships and establish new ones.”

The successful event included Fund-wide contributions from Senior Management, Operations Service, Finance Service, Legal Office, Client Services Service, Information Management Systems Service, Business Transformation and Accountability Unit, and Data Analysis Unit.