FOI reference - FOI-345
Date - 22 January 2025
Request
What happened to Workie? I miss seeing his lovely face on your TV adverts.
Response
Automatic Enrolment (AE) was introduced in 2012 following the Pensions Act 2008, and required employers to assess their workforce, provide them with information regarding AE, and confirm compliance to The Pensions Regulator (TPR). One of TPR’s roles at that time was to maximise employer compliance with AE duties.
This was achieved through an advertising campaign using a furry character called Workie, which ran between 2015 and 2018. After this time all of the existing employers had been through their compliance duties, and so the campaign to use Workie was no longer needed and was ceased.