Despite companies’ willingness to help their employees make the right decisions when it comes to retirement, the tools and processes they utilise are not currently meeting these needs, according to Aon.

Aon stated that while employers think that financial education is important to them, the methods they are using to communicate and engage on pensions and other aspects of financial education are outdated and not efficient. Forty-eight per cent of employers are unaware of how they manage retirements from their defined contribution pension scheme, potentially leaving many employees reaching retirement without the opportunity to explore and establish what might be best for them.

Furthermore, 62.5 per cent of respondents consider employee financial wellbeing to be the responsibility of the employer. However, email (78 per cent) is still the mechanism organisations use most to educate and engage employees on pension and financial related matters, closely followed by printed communications (63 per cent).

Commenting, Aon area director, Martin Parish, said: “Employers understand the need for employee financial education, yet they are not backing this up with the right methods. We were surprised to see that email and print continue to form the backbone of communications on financial matters when our research over the past couple of years has shown that employees are more than ever seeking face-to-face interaction.”

In addition, the survey found that group personal pension plans (GPPs) remain the most popular form of DC pension scheme. Cost continues to be the factor most likely to lead schemes to consider changing pension provider.

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