When it comes to shoring up their own retirement savings, more than a third of Americans who participate in an employer-sponsored plan have never increased their contributions to the plan.
That's according to a new survey from TIAA-CREF, which found another 26 percent haven't done so in more than a year.
TIAA-CREF also found that more than half (53 percent) of employees whose employers offer retirement plans were not automatically enrolled in their company plan. That meant delays of six months or more for 37 percent of respondents who weren't auto-enrolled until they actually did so. Another 24 percent waited a year or more to dip their toes in.
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Even when they do contribute, many employees don't necessarily take any actions with regard to how their money is invested.
A quarter, according to the survey, have never changed their investment direction, and another 28 percent haven't done so in more than a year.
Millennials (ages 18-34), however, are more likely to have changed investment direction compared with older participants; 59 percent of millennials have swapped investments, while only 42 percent of those 35 or older have done so.
Among participants 55 and older, 34 percent said they have never changed how their money is allocated.
And a substantial number of participants really don't save much. Forty-four percent of participants put away less than 10 percent of their annual income, which leaves plenty of room for improvement.
A possible indicator of the reason for that could be the top cause cited by the 57 percent of participants who didn't increase contributions after their last raise: that they needed to pay immediate expenses.
A quarter of those who didn't increase contributions said it was because they were already putting in the maximum, although that was nearly twice more likely for men (33 percent) than for women (17 percent).
Millennials were considerably more proactive on retirement savings: they were more likely than any other age group to boost contributions after a raise (52 percent), and among those who didn't, 23 percent said it was because they were already contributing the maximum.
"Plan sponsors should have ongoing interactions with employees over the course of their careers around three critical actions: enroll in the plan, increase contributions every year and check asset allocations every year to rebalance if necessary," said Teresa Hassara, executive vice president of TIAA-CREF's Institutional Business. "Auto-enrollment and auto-escalation options offer great benefit to overcoming employee inertia around retirement planning, but they are not universal, and they are not a substitute for employee engagement."
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