The retirement industry has made incredible strides in technology over the past decade. From AI-powered recommendations to automated plan design and hyper-personalized dashboards, the evolution of tools available to participants has been nothing short of impressive.
And yet—many participants still aren’t taking action.
Whether it’s:
• Failing to opt into retirement income solutions,
• Ignoring emergency savings programs,
• Underutilizing holistic employer benefits, or
• Not engaging with available financial coaching, planning, or wealth management services,
inertia persists. Despite the rise of smarter tools, the behavior gap remains.
It’s time we talk about why.
Tools Aren’t Enough—Psychology is the Missing Layer
Most engagement platforms focus on streamlining data and delivering timely nudges. Those are important steps. But financial decisions aren’t made in spreadsheets—they’re made in real life, under pressure, with emotion.
Psychologists and behavioral economists have long known what many in our industry are only beginning to address: financial decision-making is deeply emotional, often irrational, and heavily influenced by cognitive load, trust, and perceived readiness.
Participants don’t just need to know what to do. They need to feel like they can do it.
This gap between knowledge and action isn’t about a lack of tools—it’s about a lack of emotional connection. Tools can remind people. But only emotionally intelligent engagement can move them.
The Engagement Challenge: From Awareness to Action
We often talk about engagement as though it’s a binary state: someone clicks a link, and they’re “engaged.” But real engagement happens when a participant goes from knowing to doing.
That moment—when someone decides to take a step forward financially—is rarely triggered by a pie chart or push notification. It comes from feeling seen, supported, and safe enough to take action.
This is especially true in vulnerable moments: when debt is overwhelming, when benefits feel confusing, or when retirement seems too far off to matter. Without addressing the emotional landscape of these moments, even the best-designed tools fall short.
What Does Emotionally Intelligent Tech Look Like?
The next wave of innovation must go beyond automation. It needs to incorporate behavioral science in ways that build trust, reduce friction, and help participants build momentum through small wins.
That means:
• Reducing cognitive overload with clear, human-centered messaging.
• Removing friction—no apps, no logins, no multi-step forms.
• Reframing actions to align with motivation and identity, not just logic.
• Tracking confidence and readiness, not just clicks.
It’s not about dumbing things down. It’s about meeting people where they are—emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally—and guiding them step by step.
From Innovation to Impact
We’re finally seeing the industry ask deeper questions about what drives real outcomes. Engagement isn’t just about access. It’s about transformation.
The promise of participant technology isn’t that it can deliver more information or tools—it’s that it can help more people actually use them.
If we want to close the behavior gap, we have to move from tech-enabled nudges to trust-based change. That requires building systems that support not just what participants need to know, but who they believe they can become.
It’s time to stop measuring clicks—and start measuring confidence.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Author Lauren Loehning, CFP, CIMA, is a behavior strategist and co-founder of Moniwell, a psychology-first financial engagement platform helping industry providers, advisors, and employers deliver personalized engagement meant to drive meaningful action.
Lauren Loehning CFP, CIMA is a behavior strategist and co-founder of Moniwell, a psychology-first financial engagement platform that helps employees connect emotionally to money and take action on benefits, savings, and planning. She has spent the last decade helping employers and industry leaders rethink how trust, timing, and emotion drive financial outcomes. Lauren is also a partner at Retirement Impact, a retirement plan consulting practice.