After the quiet summer months, we are now entering that time of year when organisations, large and small, start churning out a range of interesting reports. Many of these have special resonance for this blog.

And the first of the season’s catch has just landed in my inbox.

The Scottish Widows Workplace Pensions Report 2012 has just been issued, and although I have certainly not yet looked at this yet, the email from the insurer did provide a helpful list of major findings in bullet-point format which I reproduce below:

1. only a third of employees with an income of under £20,000 per annum were aware of the upcoming changes to pension legislation
2. only 16% of employees said they were told about the changes by their employer
3. 74% of respondents understand that they need to take more personal responsibility for their own financial security
4. only 11% of UK workers planned to opt-out of automatic enrolment
5. 33% of people believed that even though their level of contribution will increase, it still wouldn’t be enough to provide them with an acceptable standard of living in retirement
6. 74% of employees thought their workplace should give them full financial advice and information on retirement planning
7. 53% of employees said their employer’s pension scheme was an incentive to stay with the company.

Point 1 to 3 are really not that surprising given that our surveys have repeatedly shown that UK employers have largely done little (or nothing) towards these duties, so you would expect awareness around the end user (the employee) to be quite low at this stage. A communications campaign about Auto-Enrolment did start earlier this year (for instance, adverts in The Metro newspaper), and further publicity is expected soon as well. So awareness will certainly rise with the general public in the run up to Christmas.

Point 4 is more telling however, as although only indicative, it does point to Auto-Enrolment opt-out’s not being as high as some commentators have suggested over the last few years. Even allowing for the economic crisis (see my post earlier today), it’s unlikely that huge swathes of employees will opt-out of pension savings, if only because it requires actions to actually do so (whereas auto-enrolment does not). We shall see.

Point 5 is really quite interesting though. A third of those surveyed appreciated that the contribution levels dictated by legislation will not provide them with an adequate income level. And frankly it’s true. The prescribed levels are low for planning purposes, and employees and employers will need to work at increasing contributions, and improving retirement outcomes, as a result.

But points 6 and 7 are something of a surprise.

Point 7 suggests that more than half of those surveyed thought their employer’s pension offering acted as incentive to remain with the employer. This is welcome news, given that employers who intend to go further than legal minimums in the future will need to be certain that the extra costs will provide some tangible return in terms of improved employee engagement.

And point 6 suggests that almost 3 out of 4 employees are increasingly looking to their employer to fund and deliver guidance around financial and retirement planning. This is hugely important, and ties in with other recent posts on this blog about employee engagement. If the employee trusts the employer, and benefits from both a benefits package and expert steerage, then the employee/ employer relationship is likely to be stronger. And as we have already established on this blog, an engaged employee is likely to be more productive.

What this also suggests is that the winners post Auto-Enrolment will be those employers who actively promote employee benefits in the workplace. Workplace savings, together with the inclusion of other benefits in the communication process, may become both increasingly popular and important when compared to merely pension provision in line with the new legislation.

So if you about to make your decisions on auto-enrolment (and many employers will be doing just that in the coming months), this is a point well worth noting.

Best regards

Steve