Why Financial Wellbeing Education Should Be a Priority for Every Employer

Most employers now offer a reasonable benefits package. Far fewer could honestly say their staff understand it.

That, in a nutshell, is the finding running through Hymans Robertson’s latest employee benefits research, published in February. Pensions, financial wellbeing and employee support all remain high on the agenda, and spending on them is holding up despite rising costs. But there is a gap, and it is wider than many HR teams might expect. The research found that 47% of employees want better financial wellbeing support from their employer. Only 31% of employers plan to provide it.

Why should that gap worry anyone? Because 61% of employees in the same research said better support would make them more likely to stay put. Financial education is usually pitched as a wellbeing initiative. On these numbers it looks a lot more like a retention strategy.

The awkward truth is that a benefit an employee does not understand may as well not exist. Plenty of organisations spend heavily on pensions, insurance and discount schemes, then wonder why staff seem indifferent. Someone who has never had salary sacrifice explained properly, or does not know what their employer will match, cannot make an informed decision about any of it.

Employers are not ignoring the problem, but the support on offer tends to stop at the shallow end. Educational materials are provided by 72% of employers in the survey and webinars by 69%. Anything more personal drops away sharply. Fewer than a third offer financial coaching or other longer term guidance, which is exactly the sort of help employees say they want.

Pensions make the case on their own

If you want a single example of why understanding matters, look at pension contributions. Two in three employers in the research default their staff at a total contribution of 10% of salary or less. On Hymans Robertson’s analysis, that leaves someone on an average salary with less than a one in three chance of reaching a moderate income in retirement. Most people never touch the default. They simply were not told what it means.

Here is the part worth repeating in your next benefits meeting. The same analysis suggests that if contributions rose to the maximum level employers already offer, the odds of a moderate retirement income improve to better than one in two. The scheme does not need redesigning. The employer match is often already there, unclaimed. What is missing is the understanding that would prompt people to use it.

There is a deadline of sorts here too. National Insurance relief on employee pension contributions is due to be capped at £2,000 a year from April 2029, so employees who might benefit from salary sacrifice have a window in which the current rules work hardest for them. Explaining that now is far more useful than explaining it in 2030.

It is not all about pensions

Retirement saving is the headline, but day to day money worries are usually what employees actually bring to work with them. Emergency savings are thin in many households, so an unexpected bill can knock a family budget sideways for months. Budgeting, debt, mortgages, building a savings habit. None of it is glamorous, all of it reduces stress when people understand it.

Employees also want more chances to speak to someone who knows what they are talking about. Regulated financial advice has its place, and for some decisions it is the right answer. But a large share of the questions people carry around, how tax relief works, whether to overpay the mortgage or save, what happens to a pension when they change jobs, can be answered with plain educational content that never strays into advice.

This is where online learning earns its keep. Short modules fit around real working patterns in a way that a lunchtime workshop never quite manages. People can go back to a topic when it becomes relevant to them, which is when learning actually sticks. New starters get the same grounding as everyone else from day one, wherever they are based. And progress tracking gives HR something concrete to show for the investment, along with an early warning of where communication is falling flat.

Where to start

Our suggestion would be to begin with the topics where a little understanding moves the dial furthest: workplace pensions, salary sacrifice and emergency savings. Once those foundations are in, broaden out into budgeting, debt and retirement planning, and keep an eye on engagement as you go.

This is the thinking behind Aspina’s financial wellbeing learning platform. It delivers clear, jargon free financial education through short online modules covering workplace pensions, salary sacrifice, retirement planning, emergency savings and the wider basics of financial wellbeing, without adding to the HR workload. There is more detail in our FAQs, and further articles in our news section.

Benefits and education belong together. One pays for the outcome, the other makes it happen. On the evidence of this research, employers who close the understanding gap will not just have more confident employees. They will keep more of them. If you would like to talk about what that could look like in your organisation, get in touch.