The substance and quality of advice people get on financial actions vary, depending on whether they're getting that advice on a retail level or at the workplace.

So says a new report from Hearts & Wallets, which points out that there's some broad variation between the two sources, with workplace financial advice mostly focused on 401(k)s while retail advice tends to “consider more goals and account types,” in addition to urging clients to save at higher levels than workplace-provided advice.

In addition, the workplace is more likely to offer customers log-in access to “best practice” digital third-party resources, such as tax and Social Security optimizers and MRD calculators.

The report “State of Advice & Guidance 2018: Actionable and Integrated Advice” uses data from Hearts & Wallets' Inside Advice Benchmarking to find that while a number of advice and guidance experiences talk about more than just retirement planning, and even goal integration across households, they might also cover topics aimed at younger consumers and seek out data that helps to better target advice to nontraditional households.

There are also actionable recommendations, which might provide a retirement age as an answer rather than seeking it as input from a customer or break down college expenses with comparisons of college costs for public vs. private colleges, or living at home compared with a dorm or campus residence.

The quality of the advice provided varies depending on whether it comes from a full-service source or stepped down from mid level all the way to self-service. Workplace-provided advice is slightly better than retail, the report finds, and full service is slightly better than mid level. Recommendations for college savings, for instance, can be all over the map, varying by tens of thousands of dollars.

And so can overall annual savings recommendations, with workplace savings recommendations lagging retail, since they are so much more focused on 401(k)s rather than other savings goals.

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