From vision to action: Generating engagement and financial empowerment for plan members

For years now, the group retirement savings sector has been focusing on improving plans, adding new tools and training material and simplifying the digital experience to attract interest and increase contributions.

Which begs the question: Why aren’t more employees taking advantage of this benefit?

To help shed light on this situation, Desjardins Insurance and the Financial Empowerment Centre of Expertise asked Ad Hoc Research to survey 1,000 Canadians with access to a group retirement savings plan through work.1 The study had two objectives: increasing our understanding of engagement mechanisms, and identifying different ways of turning intention into action.

The facts

Employees who do not contribute to their plan (largely because the plan is seen as "not advantageous")	25%
Plan members who consider themselves as being very engaged in their plan	11%
Plan members who have a very good understanding of their plan	16%
Plan members who consider their plan to be a valuable financial tool	50%

Conclusion: Group retirement savings plans are underutilized by many eligible employees. This may be because they don’t fully understand the value or benefits of their plan, or because they aren’t making the most of their contributions. That’s why it’s so important to identify how we can mobilize them and naturally lead them towards financial empowerment.

What is financial empowerment? It allows people to manage their day-to-day finances and reach their goals in a sustainable fashion.

Perception and comprehension challenges

The study revealed that Canadians who have access to a group retirement savings plan don’t all engage with their plan the same way—and engagement has its limits. The numbers are telling. Group savings plans aren’t widely understood. A significant number of respondents said that they don’t have the financial knowledge required to be fully invested.

Canadians don’t have a solid understanding of the retirement plan ecosystem ...	… the same is true of key financial management concepts.
1 in 3 people don’t know what type of plan they have. 70% of respondents said they had a good understanding of their main plan, but only 16% ranked their understanding as “very good.”	Nearly two thirds of Canadians received zero financial education at school.2 Only 23% of respondents said they were “very familiar” with the concept of investment fees.

People have a hard time investing when :

They don’t have a solid understanding of their plan’s potential and how it works
They don’t have the financial literacy needed to be more confident

How can we reverse this trend? ➤

Desjardins Survey of Canadians with access to a group retirement savings plan. Ad Hoc Research, 2025. Unless otherwise specified, all statistics in this brochure are taken from that survey. Keep in mind that the study doesn’t include respondents with a defined benefit pension plan, but was aimed at individuals who manage their own contributions. Questions spanned a number of topics, including financial empowerment, respondents’ vision of the future, their savings goals, confidence in making financial decisions and motivation.
Edward Jones survey, cited in Investment Executive, October 21, 2024.

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