Employers contribute to workplace pensions every month. But providing a pension doesn’t automatically mean employees understand what they’re saving towards. For many people, their pension experience starts and ends with checking their balance. In fact, 9% of employees have never checked their pension, while more than 80% report at least one barrier to engaging with it.
For those who do log in, the number on the screen tells them what they’ve saved. It doesn’t tell them whether they’re on track for the retirement they want, what income they could have in retirement, or what actions they could take to improve their position. They may also be missing opportunities to make more of their pension, including tax benefits that could increase what goes into their pot without increasing what they pay themselves.
The problem is that for most people, that’s where the experience ends.
A pension is one of the most valuable benefits an employer provides, yet it’s often one of the least understood. Employees don’t ignore their pension because they don’t care about retirement. They ignore it because they don’t know what they’re looking at, whether they’re doing enough, or what difference any action would actually make. And as an employer, giving each person meaningful, individual support takes time and pension expertise that most teams simply don’t have.
That’s where Penfold’s pension guidance and support comes in. By offering real human support with digital guidance, we’re helping people better understand their pension, make informed decisions about their retirement savings, and build greater confidence in their financial future.
It’s all built into the Penfold workplace pension experience, giving employees more support without creating more work for their employer.
Penfold’s pension guidance and support is designed to help employees understand where they stand and what they can consider doing next.
It brings together two things.
Real human support; including 1:1 pension guidance sessions, Welcome Sessions (a short, guided introduction for new members) and our Customer Support team.
Personalised digital guidance; including personalised digital tools including retirement forecasts and educational content, to help employees understand where they stand and what they can do next.
Instead of presenting people with a dashboard full of figures and expecting them to work everything out for themselves, we’ve designed an experience that answers three simple questions:
In practice, that means helping people answer questions like: What difference would increasing my contributions make? Could I afford to retire a little earlier? Could bringing old pensions together help me get a clearer picture? Where can I go if I need help understanding my options? Are there tax relief opportunities I should know about?
It’s all designed to replace uncertainty with clarity, helping employees understand where they stand today and what small actions could make a meaningful difference over time.
Many employers recognise that digital tools alone aren’t always enough. Some invest in financial wellbeing platforms or bring in external specialists to help employees better understand their pensions. We think that kind of support should be part of the pension itself, not a separate service bolted on afterwards.
At the centre of this is our 1:1 pension guidance service. Every employee has access to a complimentary 1:1 guidance session with our team, to ask questions, work through their options and build confidence in the decisions they’re making.
With us, human support starts from day one. New employees are offered a Welcome Session, helping them understand their pension and the Penfold app from the moment they join. And whenever someone has a question about their pension, our Customer Support team is on hand to help, in plain English, no matter the complexity of their question.
Every Penfold member also has access to digital tools that help them understand their pension and take action with confidence, whether or not they've had a 1:1 session.
Employees can:
Pension guidance and regulated financial advice are different.
Guidance can help someone understand their pension, explore the options available to them and understand what different choices could mean.
It does not recommend a specific course of action based on someone’s individual circumstances.
Our role is to help employees understand their options, not tell them what they should do. At Penfold, we cannot give financial advice.
If someone needs regulated financial advice, we’ll suggest speaking to a regulated financial adviser.
Most pension providers can tell you how much you’ve saved, and plenty now offer a forecast tool too. But a pension is rarely the whole picture. Most forecasts only look at the one pot in front of you, when people's actual retirement income depends on their savings, investments and other pensions too. Without bringing all of that together, it's hard to answer the question that really matters:
Is this enough for my retirement, and what could I do next?
Knowing the size of your pension pot without understanding what it might mean for retirement, alongside everything else you're saving and investing, is a bit like knowing what speed you’re driving at without knowing where you’re going or when you’ll arrive.
We believe pension guidance should focus on outcomes, not just information.
There’s no single pension journey that works for everyone.
Someone early in their career may want to understand how the contributions they make today could build over time.
Someone further into their career may want to know whether their savings are on track for the retirement they have in mind.
And someone approaching retirement may be thinking about when they can afford to stop working, what income they could have, or whether they should bring pensions from previous jobs together.
The questions change over time.
When people understand where they stand, what they’re aiming for and how small changes today could affect tomorrow, taking action on their pension becomes far less overwhelming.
That benefits employers too. Most employers genuinely want to help their people build better financial futures, but providing personalised pension support for employees at different life stages isn’t easy, especially for smaller HR and People teams without specialist pensions expertise.
That’s why we’ve combined personalised digital guidance with real human support. Employees get the guidance that’s most relevant to them, while employers can offer a more supportive pension experience without taking on the burden of delivering it themselves.
Before launching pension guidance and support more widely, we tested the experience with some Penfold users.
The results reinforced something we believed from the outset: when people receive clear, personalised guidance to understand their pension, they’re more likely to take positive action with their pension.
Employees who set a retirement goal were around twice as likely to increase their contributions as those who didn’t.
Attendees rated the sessions 4.75 out of 5.
Many of them went on to take real pension actions within a month
Every attendee reported feeling more confident about their pension afterwards.
The average confidence among attendees more than doubled.
** pilot was run with 31 Penfold members
Whether that’s setting a retirement goal, reviewing contributions, transferring an old pension or simply feeling more confident about where they stand, helping people understand their pension is the first step towards helping them improve it.
A workplace pension shouldn’t just help employees save for retirement. It should help them get more value from the pension you’re providing and feel confident about the future too.
For many employers, especially those without large HR or reward teams, providing that level of personalised support simply isn’t practical. Pension guidance and support is designed to do that heavy lifting for you.
That means:
If you’re already saving into a Penfold workplace pension, pension guidance and support is available within the app at no additional cost.
Open your dashboard to see where you stand today, explore how different choices could affect your retirement using the Forecast tool, and see personalised next steps based on your own circumstances.
Whether you’re thinking about transferring an old pension, reviewing your contributions or simply understanding what your projected retirement income could look like, our app is designed to help you make sense of it all.
And if you’d rather talk things through, our Customer Support team are always on hand to answer questions about your pension, in simple and understandable terms. If you’ve recently joined, keep an eye out for a Welcome Session, and you can also book a complimentary 1:1 pension guidance session with our team, at a date that suits you.
These conversations are designed to help you better understand your pension and your retirement options. They aren’t sales conversations, and they aren’t regulated financial advice. They’re simply another way to help you feel more confident about your retirement savings.
We believe a workplace pension should do more than collect contributions.
It should help people understand where they stand, feel confident about their future and know what to do next.
That’s exactly what Penfold’s pension guidance and support is designed to deliver.
Because when people understand their pension, they’re far more likely to engage with it. And when they engage with it, they’re in a much better position to build the retirement they’re aiming for.
If you’re already a Penfold employer, your team can start using these features today. There’s nothing to set up and nothing extra to switch on.
If you’re exploring workplace pension providers, book a demo to see pension guidance and support in action, or get in touch to learn more about how Penfold is helping employers build a better pension experience
