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Remote Work Benefits Evolution: Estate Planning for Distributed Workforces

· 19 min

Executive Summary

With 28% of UK working adults hybrid working (ONS, Q1 2025) and 74% of organisations supporting hybrid arrangements (CIPD 2025), the structural shift toward distributed workforces has outpaced the evolution of benefits delivery models. Estate planning-relevant provisions -- death benefit nominations, pension beneficiary designations, and will-writing services -- are particularly vulnerable to reduced physical interaction because they require active employee participation triggered by life events that remote workers may not disclose to HR teams. The inclusion of unused pension funds in Inheritance Tax estate valuations from 6 April 2027, affecting an estimated 38,500 estates paying increased IHT, transforms this operational challenge into a strategic imperative. This article provides HR specialists and distributed team managers with a technical framework for adapting estate planning benefits to workforces that may never attend a physical induction, benefits fair, or pension review, while navigating the tax treatment constraints and equity considerations that programme redesign demands.

1. The Distributed Workforce: Scale, Structure, and Strategic Implications for Benefits

The proportion of working adults in Great Britain engaged in hybrid working reached 28% between January and March 2025, a figure that has gradually risen since ONS tracking began in March 2022.1 The CIPD Flexible and Hybrid Working Practices 2025 survey, drawing on responses from 2,000 employers and 5,000 employees, confirms that 74% of organisations now support hybrid working arrangements, while a broader 91% offer some form of flexible working.2 These figures reflect a structural transformation rather than a residual pandemic effect. The House of Lords Home-Based Working Committee, reporting in November 2025, concluded that hybrid working represents the "best of both worlds" when managed effectively, and recommended that the Government promote employer investment in management training for remote and hybrid working rather than introduce further regulation.3

The legislative framework reinforces this structural permanence. The Employment Rights Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, strengthens flexible working protections. From 2027, employers will be permitted to refuse flexible working requests only where refusal is reasonable, and must provide written explanations of the specific grounds for any refusal.4 This builds on the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 reforms that established day-one rights and permitted two requests per twelve-month period. Acas guidance notes that while the Act stops short of establishing flexible working as the default, it materially increases the burden on employers to justify refusals.5 The CIPD survey found that 18% of employers had already experienced an increase in flexible working requests since the day-one right was introduced, suggesting that the Employment Rights Act 2025 provisions will further accelerate the shift toward distributed working patterns.2

For benefits professionals, the operational significance lies in the composition of the distributed workforce. The CIPD survey found that 65% of organisations mandating hybrid arrangements require minimum office attendance days, with three days per week the most common threshold.2 The remaining 35% of hybrid-supporting organisations impose no mandated in-person requirements. At the same time, 50% of employees report working from home during normal working hours.2 The workforce segment operating with limited or no physical office presence is substantial -- and it is this segment for which traditional benefits engagement mechanisms are demonstrably insufficient.

The benefits implications extend beyond administrative convenience. Fifty per cent of employees making use of home working represents a cohort whose interaction with HR processes -- inductions, benefits enrolment events, pension review sessions, and ad hoc conversations about life changes -- is mediated entirely through digital channels. For benefits requiring active employee participation, this creates a structural engagement deficit that cannot be remedied by simply digitising existing processes. The CIPD data further reveals that 41% of employers believe hybrid working has increased productivity, while only 16% report a decrease -- indicating that employers have limited operational incentive to reverse flexible working policies and restore the co-located working patterns on which traditional benefits delivery depends.2

2. The Benefits Engagement Deficit: Why Distributed Workforces Miss Estate Planning Provisions

The traditional mechanisms through which employers communicate and administer estate planning-relevant benefits were designed for a co-located workforce. Physical inductions included benefits walkthroughs and nomination form completion. Desk-drop communications delivered pension review invitations. Annual benefits fairs provided face-to-face access to scheme representatives. Pension roadshows -- the primary vehicle for communicating complex pension messaging -- relied on employees attending physical presentations. Each of these mechanisms assumes a workforce that regularly occupies a shared physical space.

The consequences of this engagement gap are measurable. The CIPD Good Work Index 2025, based on a survey of approximately 5,000 employees in February 2025, found that 31% of employees report money worries negatively affecting their work performance, yet only 20% of UK organisations ask employees about financial wellbeing at least once a year.6 The REBA Financial Wellbeing Research 2025 reports a sharp deterioration in employee financial confidence: only 29% of employees feel hopeful about their financial situation, down from 60% in 2024.7 Tellingly, 76% of employers surveyed by REBA cite employees not knowing where to start as the primary barrier to improving financial wellbeing support -- a barrier that remote working amplifies by removing the informal touchpoints through which employees historically discovered available benefits.7

Estate planning-relevant provisions occupy a particularly vulnerable position within this engagement landscape. Death benefit nominations, pension beneficiary designations, and will-writing services share a common characteristic: they require active employee participation that is typically triggered by life events -- marriage, divorce, the birth of children, bereavement, cohabitation, or separation. In a co-located workforce, HR teams have informal visibility of employees' life circumstances through day-to-day interactions. A colleague's wedding ring, a visible pregnancy, or a conversation overheard in the office kitchen all provided indirect signals that nominations might require updating. Distributed workforces eliminate this informal monitoring entirely.

The scale of the underlying problem is substantial. The Money and Pensions Service reports that 56% of UK adults aged 18 and over do not have a will, with 53% of those aged 50 to 64 -- a cohort holding significant pension wealth -- similarly unprovided for.8 Will Aid reports that two-thirds of UK adults do not have an up-to-date will.9 Among the reasons cited, 21% of respondents identify the cost of instructing a solicitor and 18.5% report never having found the time -- barriers that employer-provided services are uniquely positioned to address.8

The CIPD Reward Management Survey provides context for existing benefits provision: 61% of UK employers offer death-in-service or life assurance, 78% offer employee assistance programmes, and 41% provide free financial education, guidance, or advice.10 Yet only 18% of organisations have a formal financial wellbeing policy in place. Those on the lowest incomes remain least likely to know what benefits their employer offers -- a pattern that compounds the distributed working engagement deficit with an information accessibility deficit.10

3. April 2027 and Beyond: Regulatory Changes That Elevate the Urgency

3.1 Pension Death Benefits and Inheritance Tax

The most consequential regulatory change for employer benefits strategy is the inclusion of most unused pension funds and death benefits within the deceased's estate for Inheritance Tax purposes, effective 6 April 2027.11 The government's policy paper and subsequent consultation outcome (October 2025) established the framework: personal representatives, not pension scheme administrators, will bear liability for reporting and paying IHT on pension elements. The government estimates that 213,000 estates will hold inheritable pension wealth in 2027-28, of which 10,500 will newly face IHT liability and 38,500 will pay increased amounts.12

Several exclusions carry specific relevance for benefits programme design. Death-in-service benefits payable from registered pension schemes are excluded from IHT, as are dependants' scheme pensions from defined benefit and collective money purchase arrangements.11 Spousal, civil partner, and charity exemptions are maintained. Personal representatives may direct scheme administrators to withhold up to 50% of benefits for up to 15 months to cover IHT liability.11

For HR specialists managing distributed workforces, this change creates an acute communication challenge. Employers who encourage pension saving through auto-enrolment, matching contributions, and salary sacrifice arrangements bear a responsibility to ensure employees understand that their accumulated pension wealth now carries potential IHT consequences. The traditional vehicles for communicating such complex messaging -- pension roadshows, face-to-face scheme presentations, and in-person review meetings -- are precisely the mechanisms that distributed working renders ineffective. An employee who has never attended a physical office, who engages with pension information exclusively through digital channels, and whose life events go unobserved by HR teams, faces a compounded information deficit at the exact moment the IHT implications of pension accumulation intensify.

3.2 The Residence-Based IHT Regime and Cross-Border Working

From 6 April 2025, the domicile-based IHT regime was replaced with a residence-based system. Under the new framework, individuals who have been resident in the UK for at least 10 of the previous 20 tax years are classified as long-term UK residents, liable to IHT on their worldwide assets.13 An "IHT tail" applies: individuals who leave the UK remain within the scope of IHT for a period of three to ten years after departure, depending on the duration of their prior UK residency.13

This regime change intersects directly with distributed workforce management. Employees exercising flexible working rights to work from overseas locations -- whether through short-term digital nomad arrangements or longer-term relocations -- may inadvertently affect their UK tax residency status under the Statutory Residence Test (Schedule 45, Finance Act 2013) and, consequently, their IHT exposure on worldwide assets. The OTS Hybrid and Distance Working Report, published in December 2022 as the final report of the Office of Tax Simplification, identified precisely these complexities.14 The OTS found that cross-border working creates complex social security and payroll implications, and that the UK's position on taxable presence for employees choosing to work overseas for short periods remained unclear.14 The government has not acted on the OTS's recommendations.

Benefits programmes for distributed workforces should, at minimum, signpost these risks. HR teams are not positioned to provide tax residency advice, but they can ensure that employees considering extended overseas working arrangements are directed to seek specialist guidance on the tax and IHT implications before establishing new working patterns.

3.3 Mandatory Payrolling of Benefits in Kind

A further regulatory convergence for April 2027 is the introduction of mandatory payrolling of benefits in kind, requiring employers to report taxable benefits through the Full Payment Submission for Income Tax and Class 1A NICs in real time.15 Originally scheduled for April 2026, the implementation was deferred to April 2027 to allow employers additional preparation time. In the first year (2027-28), HMRC will not apply inaccuracy penalties except for deliberate non-compliance, though late filing and payment penalties remain in force.15

The relevance for estate planning benefits is direct. Employer-provided will-writing services, financial education that falls outside the welfare counselling exemption, and access to digital estate planning platforms all constitute taxable benefits in kind. From April 2027, these must be reported through payroll rather than through the annual P11D process -- a compliance requirement that rewards programme administrators must integrate into their payroll systems ahead of the implementation date.

4. Redesigning Benefits Delivery for Distributed Workforces: A Practical Framework

Adapting estate planning benefits for distributed workforces requires addressing five distinct delivery components, each constrained by specific tax treatment and regulatory boundaries.

4.1 Digital Nomination Management Through HRIS Platforms

The most operationally urgent adaptation is the integration of death benefit nomination management into Human Resource Information Systems. Rather than relying on paper-based expression of wish forms completed during physical inductions, organisations can deploy digital nomination workflows that prompt employees to review and update beneficiary designations at defined intervals and following recorded life events. Automated prompts triggered by changes in marital status, dependent additions, address changes, or payroll amendments provide the informal monitoring function that distributed working eliminates.

The effectiveness of this approach depends on system design. The logic of automated life-event prompts suggests that organisations deploying them should achieve higher nomination currency than those relying on periodic bulk communications, though systematic evidence comparing approaches remains limited. The integration should include clear guidance distinguishing between pension scheme expression of wish forms -- which remain advisory to scheme trustees exercising discretion -- and binding beneficiary designations under group life insurance contracts. Where employees hold multiple workplace benefits with separate nomination requirements (pension scheme, group life insurance, group income protection), a consolidated digital dashboard that surfaces all outstanding nominations reduces the risk of partial updates where an employee revises one designation but overlooks others.

4.2 Virtual Financial Education and Pension Communication

Pension roadshows and face-to-face scheme presentations must evolve into hybrid delivery models. Webinar-based pension education sessions, recorded for asynchronous access, address the scheduling constraints of distributed teams operating across time zones and flexible working patterns. The April 2027 pension IHT changes provide both the content catalyst and the compliance imperative for this evolution.

The FCA's targeted support regime, established by PS25/22 and effective from 6 April 2026, creates additional scope for this delivery model.16 The regime permits firms to make limited recommendations to groups sharing common characteristics without conducting full individualised suitability assessments. The FCA estimates that 18 million individuals could benefit over ten years.16 Estate planning education -- including will awareness, nomination review guidance, and power of attorney information -- falls within the guidance perimeter and does not constitute regulated advice, provided content remains generic rather than personalised.

However, the boundary between guidance and regulated advice requires careful management in digital delivery. Individualised estate planning recommendations -- such as advising a specific employee on trust structures, pension drawdown strategies for IHT purposes, or beneficiary designation optimisation -- constitute regulated financial advice requiring FCA authorisation.16 Benefits teams delivering digital content must ensure that educational materials maintain the generic character required to remain within the guidance perimeter.

4.3 Digital Will-Writing Platform Partnerships

Employer-funded access to digital will-writing platforms addresses the accessibility barriers that remote workers face in accessing traditional solicitor-provided services. The 21% of adults who cite cost and the 18.5% who cite lack of time as barriers to making a will represent a population that employer-funded digital platforms can serve directly.8

The tax treatment is unambiguous. Employer-funded will-writing services constitute a benefit in kind, assessable under the general ITEPA 2003 charging provisions. The welfare counselling exemption under ITEPA 2003 s 210 is unavailable: HMRC's Employment Income Manual at EIM21845 explicitly states that the exemption does not extend to "advice on finance (other than advice on debt problems)" or to "legal advice".17 Will-writing constitutes legal advice and therefore falls outside the exemption regardless of whether delivery is physical or digital.

The trivial benefits exemption under ITEPA 2003 s 323A offers limited scope. The exemption applies where the cost of a benefit does not exceed GBP 50, the benefit is not provided under a contractual obligation, is not provided through salary sacrifice, and does not recognise particular services performed by the employee.18 An annual cap of GBP 300 applies for directors of close companies. Financial education materials costing less than GBP 50 per employee may qualify if non-contractual, but employer-funded will-writing services typically exceed this threshold and cannot rely on the exemption.18

4.4 Integrated Digital Benefits Communications

The replacement of desk-drop communications and physical benefits fairs with integrated digital communications requires more than a channel switch. Effective digital benefits communication for distributed workforces demands segmented, timely, and interactive content delivered through platforms employees already use. Benefits platforms integrated with HRIS, intranet-based benefits hubs, and targeted email campaigns linked to life-event triggers represent the operational standard for organisations with mature distributed workforce infrastructure.

Data protection requirements under UK GDPR apply to the processing of sensitive personal information -- family composition, financial circumstances, health status -- through these digital platforms. Benefits teams implementing automated life-event prompts and digital nomination management must ensure that processing activities are covered by appropriate lawful bases, that privacy notices address the specific processing purposes, and that data minimisation principles are observed in platform design.

4.5 Asynchronous Access and On-Demand Resources

Distributed workforces operating across flexible schedules require on-demand access to benefits information rather than time-bound delivery. Recorded webinars, searchable knowledge bases, and interactive tools (such as nomination review checklists and estate planning readiness assessments) extend engagement beyond scheduled sessions. This asynchronous model acknowledges that estate planning engagement often follows personal reflection rather than employer-initiated prompts -- an employee who experiences a life event may engage with benefits information days or weeks after the event, outside scheduled working hours.

The asynchronous approach also addresses a specific limitation of the synchronous webinar model: employees may be reluctant to raise personal questions about death benefit nominations, family circumstances, or IHT exposure in a group setting. On-demand resources allow private exploration of sensitive topics, with clear signposting to specialist advice where individual circumstances require it. The 59% of employees who consider it important that their employer supports financial wellbeing, and the 65% who identify such support as a factor when evaluating prospective employers, suggest that comprehensive, accessible digital resources represent a meaningful differentiator in benefits proposition design.19

5. Equity Considerations: Avoiding a Two-Tier Benefits System

The demographic profile of hybrid working reveals significant disparities that benefits programme designers cannot ignore. ONS data from Q1 2025 shows that workers earning over GBP 50,000 are almost six times more likely to hybrid work than those earning under GBP 20,000 (45% versus 8%).1 Workers with degree-level qualifications are ten times more likely to hybrid work than those with no qualifications (41% versus 4%).1 Disabled workers are less likely to hybrid work (24%) than non-disabled workers (29%), and workers in the least-deprived IMD quintile (32%) are more likely to hybrid work than those in the most-deprived quintile (24%).1

These disparities carry direct implications for benefits equity. Innovations designed specifically for distributed workers -- digital platforms, virtual sessions, self-service nomination tools, recorded webinars -- risk creating a two-tier benefits system in which higher-paid, degree-educated hybrid workers receive enhanced engagement with estate planning provisions, while lower-paid, on-site workers are left with traditional (and potentially deteriorating) delivery mechanisms.

The equity concern is compounded by the financial wellbeing data. The CIPD Good Work Index 2025 reports that only 35% of those earning less than GBP 20,000 per annum can keep up with bills without problems.6 Lower-paid employees are more likely to rely on employer-provided death-in-service benefits as their sole form of life cover, are less likely to have private pension wealth beyond auto-enrolment minimums, and are less likely to have made a will.8 The intestacy rules under the Administration of Estates Act 1925 (as amended) do not provide for unmarried cohabiting partners -- a family structure disproportionately represented among younger and lower-income workers -- making will-writing provision arguably more critical for this cohort than for higher-paid hybrid workers with existing private arrangements.

Inclusive programme design requires that digital benefits innovations be extended to all employees regardless of working pattern. On-site workers should have access to the same digital nomination tools, recorded education sessions, and will-writing platform partnerships as their hybrid and remote colleagues. The digital infrastructure developed for distributed workforces, rather than replacing traditional delivery for on-site workers, should augment it -- ensuring that the estate planning engagement improvements achieved for remote workers do not come at the cost of widening existing inequalities in benefits access.

Conclusion

The structural shift toward distributed working patterns has created a corresponding structural deficit in the mechanisms through which employers deliver, communicate, and engage employees with estate planning-relevant benefits. Death benefit nominations go unreviewed because life events pass unnoticed. Pension beneficiary designations remain outdated because review sessions are no longer attended. Will-writing services go unaccessed because the informal prompts of office life no longer operate.

The regulatory convergence of April 2027 -- the inclusion of unused pension funds in IHT estates, mandatory payrolling of benefits in kind, and strengthened flexible working protections under the Employment Rights Act 2025 -- creates both the imperative and the natural moment for HR specialists to redesign benefits delivery. The framework outlined in this article provides the operational architecture: digital nomination management through HRIS platforms, virtual pension communication replacing physical roadshows, digital will-writing platform partnerships navigating the ITEPA 2003 tax treatment constraints, and integrated digital benefits communications that respect the FCA advice-guidance boundary.

The cost to employers of this digital adaptation is modest relative to the engagement, retention, and risk mitigation benefits. The greater risk lies in inaction: continuing to administer estate planning benefits through mechanisms designed for a co-located workforce while the workforce itself has permanently changed.

CPD Declaration

Estimated Reading Time: 18 minutes Technical Level: Advanced Practice Areas: Employee Benefits Administration, Financial Wellbeing Strategy, Pension Scheme Communication, Distributed Workforce Management

Learning Objectives

Upon completing this article, practitioners will be able to:

  1. Analyse the structural impact of hybrid and remote working on estate planning benefits engagement, using ONS and CIPD data to quantify the distributed workforce scale
  2. Evaluate the communication obligations arising from the April 2027 pension death benefit IHT changes for employers with distributed workforces
  3. Apply the ITEPA 2003 s 210 welfare counselling exemption boundary and trivial benefits exemption criteria to employer-provided estate planning services delivered digitally
  4. Design an inclusive digital benefits delivery framework that addresses both remote and on-site employee populations, integrating the FCA advice-guidance boundary and mandatory payrolling requirements

CIPD Competency Mapping

  • People Practice: Benefits administration and financial wellbeing programme design
  • Business Acumen: Regulatory compliance and strategic benefits integration
  • Culture and Behaviour: Inclusive benefits delivery across diverse working patterns

Reflective Questions

  1. How would you assess whether your organisation's current death benefit nomination processes are effective for employees who rarely or never attend a physical office?
  2. What steps would you take to ensure that digital estate planning benefits innovations do not create a two-tier system disadvantaging lower-paid, on-site employees?
  3. How might the April 2027 pension IHT changes alter the priority your organisation places on communicating pension death benefit implications to distributed workers?

Professional Disclaimer

The information presented reflects the regulatory and legislative position as of 2026-02-25. Regulations, tax rules, and professional guidance are subject to change. Readers should independently verify all information before acting and seek advice from appropriately qualified solicitors, financial advisors, or other professionals for their specific circumstances.

Neither WUHLD nor the author accepts liability for any actions taken or decisions made based on the content of this article. Professional readers are reminded of their own regulatory obligations and duty of care to their clients.

Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. ONS -- Who has access to hybrid work in Great Britain? (June 2025). https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/articles/whohasaccesstohybridworkingreatbritain/2025-06-11 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  2. CIPD -- Flexible and hybrid working practices in 2025 (July 2025). https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/reports/2025-pdfs/8909-flexible-working-report-web.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  3. UK Parliament -- Is working from home working? House of Lords Home-Based Working Committee (November 2025). https://committees.parliament.uk/committee/771/homebased-working-committee/news/210300/working-from-home-could-get-people-back-into-work/ ↩

  4. Employment Rights Act 2025 (c. 36) Commencement No. 1 Regulations (SI 2026/3). https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2026/3/contents/made ↩

  5. Acas -- Employment Rights Act 2025. https://www.acas.org.uk/employment-rights-act-2025 ↩

  6. CIPD Good Work Index 2025 (June 2025). https://www.cipd.org/globalassets/media/knowledge/knowledge-hub/reports/2025-pdfs/8868-good-work-index-2025-report-web1.pdf ↩ ↩2

  7. REBA Financial Wellbeing Research 2025. https://reba.global/resource-report/financial-wellbeing-research-2025.html ↩ ↩2

  8. Money and Pensions Service -- Over half of UK adults don't have a will (2025). https://maps.org.uk/en/media-centre/press-releases/2025/over-half-of-uk-adults-dont-have-a-will ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. Will Aid -- Two-thirds of UK adults without an up-to-date will. https://www.willaid.org.uk/news/two-thirds-uk-adults-without-up-to-date-will ↩

  10. CIPD Reward Management Survey. https://www.cipd.org/en/knowledge/reports/reward-surveys/ ↩ ↩2

  11. GOV.UK -- Inheritance Tax: unused pension funds and death benefits (policy paper). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/inheritance-tax-unused-pension-funds-and-death-benefits/inheritance-tax-unused-pension-funds-and-death-benefits ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  12. GOV.UK -- IHT on pensions: liability, reporting and payment -- Summary of responses (October 2025). https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/inheritance-tax-on-pensions-liability-reporting-and-payment/outcome/inheritance-tax-on-pensions-liability-reporting-and-payment-summary-of-responses ↩

  13. HMRC -- IHTM47020: Long-term UK residence test. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/inheritance-tax-manual/ihtm47020 ↩ ↩2

  14. OTS -- Hybrid and distance working report (December 2022). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ots-report-on-hybrid-and-distance-working/hybrid-and-distance-working-report-exploring-the-tax-implications-of-changing-working-practices ↩ ↩2

  15. GOV.UK -- Technical note: Mandating the reporting of benefits in kind and expenses through payroll software (updated). https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/reporting-and-paying-income-tax-and-class-1a-national-insurance-contributions-on-benefits-in-kind-in-real-time-an-update/technical-note-mandating-the-reporting-of-benefits-in-kind-and-expenses-through-payroll-software-an-update ↩ ↩2

  16. FCA PS25/22 -- Supporting consumers' pensions and investment decisions: rules for targeted support (December 2025). https://www.fca.org.uk/publications/policy-statements/ps25-22-consumer-pensions-investment-decisions-rules-targeted-support ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  17. ITEPA 2003, s 210; HMRC Employment Income Manual EIM21845. https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/employment-income-manual/eim21845 ↩

  18. ITEPA 2003, s 323A; GOV.UK -- Tax exemption for trivial benefits in kind: draft guidance. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tax-exemption-for-trivial-benefits-in-kind-draft-guidance/tax-exemption-for-trivial-benefits-in-kind-draft-guidance ↩ ↩2

  19. CIPD -- Why should employers take action on employee financial wellbeing? https://www.cipd.org/uk/views-and-insights/thought-leadership/insight/action-employee-financial-wellbeing/ ↩

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