Polling by IFA firm Chase de Vere in conjunction with Lightbulb, an independent research company, showed that employers were not willing to spend money to provide financial advice for their employees despite understanding the benefits of doing so.

The research consisted of making around 10,000 phone calls to employers which are representative of the UK company population and then conducting in-depth interviews with senior HR decision makers in 300 randomly selected businesses, ranging from 30 to 38,000 employees, to capture their attitude and current perspective on benefit provision.

The poll, conducted in 2018, followed a similar study conducted in 2017.
 
Chase de Vere asked:
 
• Is financial advice something you feel your employees would value and benefit from?
 
83% of employers said that financial advice was something their employees would value and benefit from. This was a slightly lower figure that last year (85%).

• Do you plan to do more to help your employees make more informed choices regarding their retirement?
 
56% of employers said ‘yes’, a fall from 58% who said ‘yes’ last year.
 
• Would your company have the appetite to pay for financial advice for your employees?
 
33% of employers said ‘yes’, a drop from 42% who said ‘yes’ last year.
 
• Do you anticipate including a cost for financial advice for your employees in your 2018/19 budgets?
 
27% of employers said ‘yes’, which was another fall from last year when 36% said ‘yes’.
 
Sean McSweeney, corporate advice manager, said: “The overwhelming majority of employers are aware that their employees would benefit from financial advice.

“This is a very good starting point and it is positive that more than half of employers are planning to do more to help their employees to make informed decisions.
 
“However, while their intentions may be good, relatively few employers are willing to spend money to help facilitate the provision of financial advice, even though they understand that their employees would benefit from it.

“This is disappointing because employers are well placed to help their employees.

“It could also be a false economy for employers.
 
“Those employers who don’t help may, over time, be faced with an ageing workforce that cannot afford to retire and as a result suffer from lower productivity, succession planning issues and losing younger talent to competitors that provide more opportunity for advancement.”