National Apprenticeship Week: How employers can help build pensions skills for life
Published on:
12 February 2025
Many apprentices will be new to the world of work, but it’s never too soon for them to start engaging with their pension. For National Apprenticeship Week, we’re encouraging employers to help young employees to learn about pensions, alongside other life-long employment skills. Our Regional Partnership Manager for the South West, Paul Fox, explains how he’s worked with employers in his area to do just this.
Pensions and young employees
For young employees on an apprenticeship scheme, it is really important to find out about the pension scheme and opportunities that you as an employer can offer. You are well placed to help them begin their journey towards a positive retirement in the future.
But here’s a question for you: Are your younger employees and apprentices saving enough now for their future life after work? Your answer might be “yes”, “no” or “I’m unsure”, and so might theirs, and that’s not surprising. Our research has found that a significant percentage of young people aged 18-25 are unsure about pensions and how they work. I often hear a sentiment that as retirement seems so far away pensions are not high on the agenda, or they simply have other financial priorities.
Future financial wellbeing
If you are in a position to do so, then supporting younger employees to engage early with their pension is an incredibly powerful way to help protect their future financial wellbeing. It also marks you out as a caring and ethical employer, and is likely to have positive impacts on your recruitment and retention goals.
Young employees might not be aware that saving into your company pension scheme will mean you are helping them to receive a positive financial return. However, when they make a contribution to your company pension scheme, not only do you make a contribution to support them, but they also get an automatic top-up from the government.
Pensions knowledge is a skill for life
As an employer, making a commitment to provide invaluable guidance around pensions early in your apprentice’s careers will stand them in good stead as they get older. Pensions knowledge stays with people for life, and employers who choose to engage in this area tend to take a more hands-on approach to the future financial wellbeing of their people. You are incredibly well placed to help, and many employers are now actively seeking ways to support their younger employees with financial wellbeing via their pensions and other areas of money guidance. So, what might that look like for your business?
How we have worked with partners in South West England
MaPS actively supports employers to bring financial wellbeing strategies into the workplace. In Dorset, we have worked with a major UK manufacturer, with a terrific reputation for employing and developing apprentices, to implement some simple measures to help their colleagues. This included things such as helping young employees to fully understand their payslips, providing independent pensions guidance in the form of webinars and face-to-face sessions, and signposting to MoneyHelper tools and resources, such as our budget plannerOpens in a new window and savings calculatorOpens in a new window.
In the last few years, we have supported employers to establish financial guidance resources across the South West, for employees in industries as diverse as shipbuilding, energy, food, tourism and even archaeology. All these employers have made commitments to supporting their younger employees and apprentices with free and impartial money and pensions guidance.
MoneyHelper tools and resources
MoneyHelper, our consumer-facing service, is backed by UK Government and can provide you with opportunities to help younger employees connect with easy-to-use tools, including our:
How MaPS can help your organisation
We have a range of free resources available to all employers, whether you already have an established financial wellbeing strategy or are approaching this topic for the first time. These resources can help you easily build financial wellbeing support for young employees and apprentices, help employees engage with and build up their pensions and assist them in making the most of their money.
These include:
Need support? Contact your Partnership Manager
You can also contact your local Partnership Manager for free support and practical ways to help build financial wellbeing across your organisation. Regional Partnership Managers can advise you on developing and implementing a robust and effective financial wellbeing strategy; because we’re based near you, we bring an understanding of some of the financial wellbeing challenges local to your area.
Young employees and apprentices will really value your support, so contact us today and make your commitment to provide them with a stronger financial future.
