Despite the growing realisation for many that actively planning for retirement is no longer an activity that can be ignored, research shows that employees simply don’t feel confident about making decisions that will affect their company pension.

According to a recent report published by HSBC, the majority of employees in the UK feel that they are underprepared for their retirement and many are not making plans to fund it all.

The National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) found that 47% of those aged between 18 and 34 would save more for retirement if they knew what pension they would receive.

This also echoes the concerns of the reward professionals who regularly participate in the Thomsons Online Benefits Employee Rewards Watch survey, now in its eighth year.

The pension benefit is probably one of the most valuable and expensive aspects of the total reward package offered to employees which is why Thomsons Online Benefits has introduced made some major new changes to the Reward Centre of their award winning Darwin™ benefits administration platform.

Managing Director of Thomsons Online Benefits, Chris Bruce, comments: “We not only understand the issues that the employees of our clients face with planning for their future, we’ve been busy coming up with new and practical ways of helping them to respond to those very real challenges”.

He adds: “The latest release of the tool that will make them feel more confident about making decisions about their pension contributions and their retirement options.

Reward Centre features an innovative new pension modelling tool that enables everyone to gain a greater understanding of what their pension will be worth when they reDarwin™ Reward Centre gives employees a practical tire.

They can instantly see the impact of different scenarios such as their own personal contributions and salary sacrifice options as well as their employers’ contributions on their future life options. Help and guidance is provided via the thoughtfully laid out screen design of the Reward Centre, with helpful video clips and guides in plain language that everyone will find easy to understand”