I was at the Employee Benefits show yesterday, and sat in on a couple of the sessions.
The first session that I attended was based (inevitably) around Auto-Enrolment, and featured the Head of Reward from ASDA, and also the Reward Director from Informa. Now both are large organisations, with thousands of UK employees. Their Auto-Enrolment duties start relatively soon, and both organisations have been gearing up to tackle this issue.
The one message that came out load and clear from each presentation is that both organisations underestimated the amount of systems work that was required to comply. Jane Earnshaw of ASDA went as far as to say that, had they appreciated how much work there was on the systems side, they would have started at least a year earlier.
I think this is relevant to this blog, given that there is a surprising level of complacency in UK employers about complying with this legislation.
You might argue that the problems faced by these large employers are magnified by their staff size, and that is indeed true. But the flip side of that particular coin is that they also have the monetary and administrative resources available to put together teams to tackle these issues when required to do so.
Many employers with hundreds, rather than thousands, of staff do not have the same luxury of resource. Yet compliance with Auto-Enrolment is a legally necessity, and each employer’s staging date is coming ever closer.
The clock is ticking, and UK employer’s need to wake up to this reality soon. Let’s hope that the experiences of the larger employers act as a guiding light for other employers to follow.
Best regards
Steve
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