In my last column I talked about the gender gap between men and womenin their knowledge and confidence of key financial concepts and therisks this gap poses for employers in delayed retirement and healthcare costs. I also promised to provide some best practices foravoiding these risks and potentially saving employers hundreds ofthousands of dollars.

Since then, we’ve published our Q2 2011 research on Employee Financial Trends and continue tosee women picking up the pace in improving their financialsituations and focusing on longer-term goals like retirement. Thisis encouraging considering that there are more women working todayand therefore more women at high risk of not being able to retireon time.

Though they are saving more—91 percent of women indicatethey save in their employer retirement plan—they have moreobstacles in retirement and throughout their lives that hindertheir ability to meet their financial needs. On average, women livelonger in retirement than men, receive less pension and SocialSecurity benefits, and earn less throughout their lifetime.

Because of this, women need more help in gaining knowledge andunderstanding of their benefits and finances, and there are somebest practices benefits managers should be aware of and follow whenit comes to providing retirement education that reaches female andmale employees equally.

The traditional form of benefits communication hasn’t done this.Women often can’t relate to it because they tend to learn in morecollaborative and holistic environments rather than self-serviceenvironments. This means employers should be shifting theirbenefits communication and education to a holistic and ongoingprogram that looks at all benefits under an umbrella of how theyrelate to employees’ financial goals. Our research has found thatthis type of program achieves the objective of getting both womenand men to effectively change their behavior and save more in theircompany retirement plans.

Here’s how employers can shift their current benefitscommunication to meet women’s learning styles and needs through abenefits planning approach rather than the traditional type ofbenefits communication:

• Provide ongoing benefits communication ratherthan annually or as a one-time event.
• Make it holistic, incorporating all benefitsand helping women to see the value of these benefits in helpingthem to achieve important life goals. Traditional communication hasbeen technical and focused on details of specific topics ratherthan the overall picture of how benefits work together withemployees’ finances.
• Make it personalized, specific to individual employees’needs, rather than transactional. This can be achievedthrough one-on-one financial and retirement planning consultations,and through helpline services that allow employees a way to askpersonal questions that apply to their goals.
• Make it relationship oriented rather thanself-service oriented since women are more relationship driven.Provide a regular resource for education using the same educator soemployees feel they have someone to go to and aren’t left withquestions about their benefits.
• Subtly market the program to women in some ofyour marketing material whenever necessary or when the education isfitting for a group of women specifically, but be sure to do thisin a way that does not alienate men.

Our own studies have found that women are twice as likely toparticipate in financial education as men, and they have a greatertendency to make the concepts they learn stick. This means thatwith both genders shifting their focus to retirement and realizinghow far behind they are, employers have a strong opportunity toinfluence their female employees as well as their male employees tobetter plan for retirement. With more economic uncertainty andchanges to employee and government benefits, they need it more thanever.