Plan participants, despite sponsors’ efforts at education, still lack confidence in their ability to evaluate retirement needs and save and invest enough to meet them — but automatic features such as auto-enrollment and automatic contribution escalation, or auto-escalation, can help bridge the gap.

That’s according to a J.P. Morgan Asset Management research study on plan participants. The resulting white paper, “Guiding Participants from Intent to Action: 2016 Defined Contribution Plan Participant Survey Findings,” said that many plan participants have a number of reasons to doubt that they’ll be able to retire with enough money to meet their needs.

Among those reasons are more immediate financial demands that impair their ability to save for a more distant future, a lack of understanding on how to set a retirement goal and a lack of confidence in their investing ability.

Added to that are a disconnect between intention and action — 81 percent of respondents, for instance, said they are interested in doing financial planning for retirement, but 45 percent do not have a plan — and a lack of action regarding their retirement plans at work.

Lest they be overtaken by events, many workers seem happy to surrender management of their retirement plans to auto features — despite the avowal of some that they’d rather do things themselves.

The study found, among other things, that approximately three quarters of participants are in favor of or at least neutral toward automatic enrollment (75 percent) and automatic contribution escalation (74 percent).

Roughly two-thirds (67 percent) are in favor of, or at least neutral toward, a combination of these two features. A large majority (90 percent) find target-date funds appealing, and 82 percent are in favor of, or at least neutral toward, re-enrollment.

This is despite the fact that 41 percent of respondents say they’re “do-it-yourself” investors who would prefer to make their own investment decisions — compared with 59 percent who would sooner that someone do it for them.

Automatic features such as auto-enrollment, auto-escalation and re-enrollment can go a long way toward resolving these problems, along with qualified default investment alternatives, and of course plan providers have ample statistics that indicate these practices boost participation and savings rates — as do some other strategies, of course.

But are auto features popular with employers? Not so much; there’s a perception that they’re going to become expensive if they’re truly successful and participants up their savings rates. Still, as employers become more concerned with the need to be sure plans provide successful outcomes, they may recalculate those costs against the potential for having an aging workforce that cannot afford to retire.

Instant Insights /

Retirement plan participants recognize need for automatic features

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