Employee Benefits poll: Half (50%) of respondents believe that employers should shoulder the main responsibility for providing pre-retirement financial guidance to employees.
A straw poll of www.employeebenefits.co.uk readers, which received 70 responses, also found that 34% of respondents feel employees should take the primary responsibility for sourcing their own financial guidance prior to retirement, while 16% state that it is the government that should take most responsibility.
According to research by independent financial and corporate advisers Chase de Vere, published in June 2018, only 13% of senior HR decision makers feel they have the main responsibility to provide financial education to their staff, compared to 13% who believe the financial guidance buck should stop with pension providers, and 24% who think that the government should be the main source of providing financial education for employees. Around 42% of these respondents feel that employees themselves have the main responsibility for providing their own financial education, but 8% define financial advisers as taking the primary role.
Interestingly, 34% of Chase de Vere’s 300 respondents stated that they do not offer pre-retirement financial guidance because of the cost, while 32% believe there is no employee appetite for this type of financial guidance. Approximately 15% of respondents do not offer pre-retirement financial guidance for their staff as they do not know what is available, and 3% do not understand the value of offering it.