In the past few weeks, just about every pensions adviser and provider I have spoken to has talked about how increasing numbers of employers which have already staged for auto-enrolment are now already reviewing what they did.
Hopefully the vast majority were happy with how they implemented auto-enrolment the first time around and are now moving ahead with other HR plans.
But there are a significant number which are not satisfied with their chosen provider or the structure they picked. They are battling with payroll and other admin.
This has taken most providers and advisers I have spoken to by surprise.
We were all expecting the capacity crunch as too many smaller employers with too few advisers try to stage at once. The numbers missing their deadlines are increasing each month.
It is the behaviour of larger employers that was not predicted. Just this week our sister title, Corporate Adviser, ran a story on a large company which forgot to auto-enrol 4,000 staff. Let’s hope that is a rare oversight.
Fortunately, for those which have staged already, trying to switch provider isn’t as onerous as the first time around. The knotty data problems should have been dealt with already and a process is probably just about still in place for communications.
The tricky bit will be deciding which provider to go to.
Debi O’Donovan??
Editor??
Employee Benefits
Twitter: @DebiODonovan