Nearly 10 million people are now saving for their retirement. Thanks to the success of auto-enrolment, contributing to a workplace pension has now become the norm.
Staff now expect a pension as part and parcel of their employment; meanwhile, the advertising campaign circulated by The Pensions Regulator (TPR) and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) encourages staff to get to know their pension and appreciate the benefits.
The Ongoing duties survey: summer 2018 report, which canvassed 800 employers and was published by TPR and OMB Research in October 2018, shows that the vast majority of staff are continuing to save more into their pension following the increases in minimum contributions in April 2018.
The research further found that less than 2% of staff in medium, small and micro businesses asked to leave their workplace pension as a result of the increase.
Even though it is not a legal duty, more than 80% of the employers surveyed said that they wrote to their staff to tell them about the contribution increases. Employers also said they were confident they could provide accurate responses to requests for information from their staff about auto-enrolment.
The survey showed that the larger the employer, the more likely they are to be asked for advice on workplace pensions by their employees, as this occurred in 25% of micro-sized businesses, 45% of small organisations and 73% of medium-sized employers.
To comply with the law, employers have a number of tasks to complete including monitoring the age and earnings of staff, keeping records, managing requests to leave or join a pension scheme and maintaining the correct contributions.
The vast majority of employers who participated in the research find their ongoing pensions duties quick and straightforward to complete, spending less than two hours a month on them.
Darren Ryder is director of automatic enrolment at The Pensions Regulator (TPR)