The Small Business Guide to Auto Enrolment

This guide sheds light on managing the process of organising your staff’s pensions and helps you through the process without stress or unnecessary surprises

Auto-enrolment pensions are already upon many businesses, with other companies facing a staging date in 2016 and 2017. Everyone employing staff has to comply.

A compulsory pension scheme is regarded widely as a positive thing, with the higher impact of costs on smaller businesses being offset by the benefits afforded to staff of saving for the future.

But there is evidence to suggest that small and medium-sized companies are not prepared for the complexities of setting up employer pension schemes.

In August, the Pensions Regulator stated that only 29 per cent of those staging in 2016 were fully aware of their date and only 46 per cent of those staging in 2017 were aware of their responsibilities.

Clearly, this shows that small businesses still need a fair amount of guidance on what auto-enrolment actually entails.

In this guide, we speak to five small companies about preparing for their staging date, whether that date is in the past or the future, to see how they managed.

There is first-hand advice on educating your staff about what auto-enrolment entails, procedural guidance, jargon busters and step-by-step instructions on managing a process that many business owners are not placing at the head of their priority list.

We hope this guide sheds light on managing the process of organising your staff’s pensions and helps you through the process without stress or unnecessary surprises.