Employers See Employees Needing Retirement Investing Help

Companies are increasingly confident that their employees will be able to achieve a comfortable lifestyle in retirement, research from Transamerica shows.

However, only 13% are “very” confident and 59% are “somewhat” confident. Transamerica’s 15th Annual Retirement Survey also found nearly three-quarters of companies agree that their employees could work until age 65 and still not have saved enough to meet their retirement needs.

More than half of companies (54%) say their employees are very involved in monitoring and managing their retirement savings, with 14% that “strongly” agree and 41% that “somewhat” agree. But, eight out of 10 companies agree that most of their employees do not know as much as they should about retirement investing, with 43% that “strongly” agree.

Over the years, Transamerica has consistently found three-quarters of employers believe most of their employees would prefer to rely on outside experts to monitor and manage their retirement savings. The majority says most of their employees prefer not to think about or concern themselves with retirement investing until they get closer to their retirement date. Only 38% of companies agree that most of their employees would like to receive more information and advice from the company about how to reach their retirement goals, with 7% that “strongly” agree and 32% that “somewhat” agree.

Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies released “A Compendium of Findings About American Employers,” an in-depth 127-page overview of employers’ perspectives on retirement benefits, plan sponsorship rates, adoption of specific plan features, and their perceptions of their employees’ retirement preparedness from its 15th Annual Retirement Survey, conducted and released last year. The report also offers comparisons between small and large companies as well as a five-year trend analysis on selected survey questions.