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Employees should be gradually educated in asset class allocation so as to participate more closely in investing their pension funds, a senior IFA has claimed.

The comments came from David Marlow, marketing director of London-based Alexander Forbes, in response to calls from asset manager Fidelity to improve diversity in workplace schemes' default funds.

According to Fidelity, some 90 per cent of people with defined contribution pension schemes remain in a default investment option and that these funds need to be spread across a broader range of classes in order to protect against market turbulence.

However, Mr Marlow argued a better response to the problem would be to involve people in the investment of their fund over time.

He said: "Basic education is the key. It is better to get people into the default funds and keep the education process in bite-sized chunks. Worse than taking the default option, of course, is people not joining the scheme at al. So it is a start."

He added default options would offer exposure to a range of asset classes to members but agreed with "the general thrust" of Fidelity's claim that people need better-invested funds.

Julian Webb, head of defined contribution business development for Fidelity International, warned savers would see their pots "battered by the credit crunch" if their funds are not sufficiently diverse.

But he also claimed a number of companies were beginning to choose increasingly diversified options on behalf of their staff.

Mr Webb said: "Diversification can help because a fund that spreads risk across a range of asset classes, which perform differently as the stock market rises and falls, is in with a better chance of providing a less volatile return over the longer term than one purely invested in just equities or a mix of equities and bonds.

"Human nature will continue propelling large numbers into default funds so the industry just has to make them better.

"The good news is that we are seeing an increasing number of companies change their default fund either to a tailored portfolio that includes a global diversified fund or to a working life strategy that starts with global equities, moves to a global diversified fund then eventually to bonds and cash. It is to be hoped that more schemes will pick up this mantle."

Research from Baring Asset Management last month revealed that 220 people from a poll of 1000 adults had reviewed their funds in the last year and less than half have ever done so.