Even middle-aged staff find pensions’massive turn-off’

A third (35%) of employees on the cusp of retirement don’t have an occupational pension.

While half of those in this group of workers aged between 45-54 years do not have any idea how much money they will need when they retire, according to JLT Benefit Solutions’ Research into attitudes around pensions.

More than half (55%) of those in the same age group admit that they are uninterested in the subject of pensions and find the topic a “massive turn-off”. Some 30% say it is because they are sceptical about the actual benefits of having a pension scheme. This could be due to a misunderstanding of the product as one-in-ten don’t see why they should bother with a pension when they can put savings in a bank account.

The research also reveals that 58% of those in this age bracket say that providers and employers should make a greater attempt to use plain English when explaining the occupational pension schemes on offer at their organisations, while almost a quarter (24%) reported that they were “utterly bewildered” by the array of pension options available to them. Office-bound smokers would prefer their employers to put money into health and wellbeing initiatives such as a gym or health assessments rather than facilities where they can smoke outside like shelters.

A quarter (26%) of office-based smokers favour employer investment in facilities such as shelters, however, 44% of smokers would prefer money to be used on health programmes, according to Nuffield Proactive Health’s Research into the aftermath of the smoking ban.

Demand for employer investment in health and wellbeing facilities is strongest among employees aged between 18-24 years, with 57% favouring this option. But only 30% of employees aged more than 55 years backed the healthy option.