The National Employment Savings Trust (Nest) is to launch an auto-enrolment website giving guidance for employers and advisers on 6 May 2013.
The online help centre will include:
- Information on employer duties, including employer guides.
- Guidance to help with employer preparation and online set-up of a Nest pension.
- Information about the key tasks of assessment, enrolment, contributions and opt-outs.
- Workplace communications materials.
- Help and guidance from the employer document library.
- Delegated access guidance.
Nest has developed the website after working with employers that are in the first stages of automatically enrolling employees.
The key challenges of auto-enrolment employers have identified to NEST are:
- Integrating auto-enrolment with payroll.
- Identifying which workers are eligible.
- Dealing with enrolment issues where there is a high turnover of staff and explaining what is happening to their employees.
Tim Jones, chief executive officer at Nest (pictured), said: “We’ve learnt a lot about the needs of employers both large and small. We’ve learnt that getting ready to adjust to the new duties takes a lot of time. Some of our employers have reported project times of two years.
“Employers of all sizes have told us that they worry about extra administration. But it’s the employers which have actually been through the process that have given us the clearest view of where the challenges of automatic-enrolment really lie.
“Automatic-enrolment is bringing big changes. We want to help make it straightforward wherever we can, and also to work closely with third parties.
“We are ready for the variety and number of businesses we think are headed our way, and will continue to develop our tools and services to reflect employers’ needs and the needs of those that they turn to for help.”