Plan participants are not left entirely to their own devices, of course. Every plan has some kind of education, whether it's new hire brochures or annual investment seminars. The question is, is it enough?

Troy Tisue, a partner at TAG Resources, said that employee education and enrollment meetings are not the same thing. The enrollment meetings provide a lot of information at once in an attempt to help with plan selection, and may involve walking a participant through a risk profile questionnaire.

"These enrollment meetings are a lot to take in for employees," Tisue said, "but as these take place in the workplace, there is only so much time you can take away from the business to accommodate this."

Education meetings, on the other hand, are designed to address specific issues participants might face in retirement. Often, for example, Tisue will address "Three Ways to Reach Your Retirement Goals." Education like that is more effective because it's more specific, he said, and allows participants to identify the factors that lead to their ultimate success — or failure — in retirement. 

Peter Fisher with Human Investing does a lot of this group education, as well. But he said the biggest factor in determining how much and what kind of education a plan's participants will receive is how receptive the employer is to bringing the educators in.

"Some clients want group-level education, where it's more about general financial health and wellness issue. They don't want specifics," he said. "But we have one client up in Alaska where we just spent six weeks doing one-on-one advice and planning, however much we could get done in that six weeks. So it's all driven by the company."

The issue, however, is that not all employers are receptive to advice.

"Employees desperately need this, but the employers are a bit releuctant to let somebody in there to give advice and counsel when they have a dog in the fight," Fisher said.

Since his company is independent, without a vested interest in one fund over another, many companies respond to that.

Nowhere to turn

Justin Krane, president of Krane Financial Solutions, said the biggest problem with some of the larger financial firms is that their advisors will get paid from the assets in the plan, whether they help any of the participants or not.

"Twenty participants would have to call and complain and say, 'We're not getting any education,' before HR would even notice there's a problem," he said.

And when they do need guidance, they try to fix the problem themselves, turning to the education booklet they received at enrollment or an online information source that may not be enough, he said.

"They're having to do a lot of it on their own," Krane said. "They're being educated on risk and return, but they're not being educated on context. Where does the 401(k) fit in my overall plan? They get a booklet and that's it. If you think of a puzzle, there's a lot of pieces, and so many are missing."

Tisue said that while plans generally make phone contact information readily available, participants don't often call. He suggested the economy may be to blame for this lack of response, but also said that larger companies with huge employee pools tend to house more of their education online.

Another possible reason that participants seldom call the help line is because of the lack of personal touch.

"There's always a phone number to call," Krane said, "but the employee doesn't know the financial advisor on the other end, so they're not going to call. It's difficult to talk about financial matters with a stranger. The financial advisor needs to be much more proactive, put themselves out there."

More advice, better retirement

Fisher doesn't need the LIMRA research to tell him that clients are better off with financial guidance; for him, the proof is in the pudding.

"We have one client that has 700 employees and we've been up there every two weeks doing new hire and education," he said. "Participation in the plan has grown to over 85 percent. They had $22 million in assets six years ago; up to over $50 million today. [The employees] are not scared of the market, they're contributing to the market."

But unfortunately, bringing education to the workplace is not as easy as it seems. At least, not for everyone.

"Of course having an advisor will give an employee a better shot at a fully funded retirement," Tisue said. But "the financial services industry has to continue to improve the training for those who can [and] will act as fiduciaries. … In today's environment, if I did not have my parent company's backing on my acting as a fiduciary in giving advice to participants, I simply would not do it — way too dangerous. Plan sponsors do have the education teams available to them from the providers — but this is education only, not specific 'do this, don't do that' advisement."

And specific advisement is something they desperately need.