'Nobody told me' - how often have we heard this argument offered in defence of inaction?
Whether in the workplace or in personal life, we've all heard this response (perhaps even used it ourselves).
The argument seems to rely on the defence that a lack of knowledge justifies our lack of appropriate action.
Thankfully, law courts take the view that ignorance is no defence.
My natural response to hearing that is 'you could have worked it out for yourself' or 'you could have asked', and, in many cases, those would be perfectly acceptable ripostes.
Any adult capable of rational thought ought to know what to do, or work out what to do, without being spoon-feed the answers or solutions every time.
And yet we know all too well while these responses would be correct, they do not change the situation.
Earlier this week, Alistair McQueen of Aviva told me that we face a situation in 10 years' time when the biggest cohort of auto-enrolled workers come to retirement age, only to find they haven't saved enough to match their needs in retirement.
"They're going to say 'Why didn't you tell me to save more?', and we will have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of angry people to deal with."
The counter-argument "You should have worked it out yourself" can't be gainfully employed in that debate.
Even assuming people have a basic knowledge of saving and how to budget, successive FCA studies have shown that Britons are, by nature, risk-averse, financially illiterate, potentially vulnerable and susceptible to making irrational and illogical decisions with their money.
Communication
So then comes the proposal: "Let's tell people their auto-enrolment pensions won't be enough, and they need to save more."
That won't cut the mustard, either.
We all know how "telling" people works out. At best, you assume they read the newspapers or the letters or emails you send them.
At worst, these missives don't get sent at all, or are couched in such regulatory compliant language that the main message gets completely lost.
Moreover, even if you can evidence that you sent out letters (no doubt infrequently enough to be passed over), this is not proof that someone has received, read and understood - and taken action - over their pensions as a result.
You only have to read some of the Waspi content to know how well (or how poorly) communication around state pension age changes was carried out, and how it was received.
There has to be a better way of "telling" people, right?
Well, not quite. Employers - and there are millions of them in the UK - do have an obligation to provide a pension, but no obligation to communicate the pensions messages to staff.
