I was recently invited to an event run by The National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) in London.

The event included a complimentary copy of a report that NEST have produced on the subject of (no surprise here) Auto-Enrolment (AE). And whilst much of the report was as expected, three separate topics caught my eye…

1) Larger employers (those who enrol earlier) have spent around 10 - 18 months preparing for this exercise. That, incidentally, is pretty much the ideal lead in time that I have been suggesting to audiences for some years.

2) A graph in the report shows the (literally) tens of thousands of employers who will be enrolling in the next 18 months.

3) And then there are two quotes taken from directly from the report as follows:

“Around two-thirds of employers with over 50 workers expect to get a lot of support from their adviser and pension providers.”

“In our latest tracking research we’ve found that 98 per cent of those employers aware of the reforms have already sought or plan to seek advice.”

If you put all three of the above points together, you might start to see a problem.

Although employers are now aware that AE is heading their way, many with a staging date in 2014 have yet to take any real action to meet these new duties. And with an 18 month lead in period as the ideal, the time to be engaging with your benefits adviser is now.

But it’s not just about the employers. A phrase that will start to be used regularly over the next year or so is ‘Capacity Crunch’, which refers to the numbers of pensions professionals able to provide assistance to employers on AE. Whilst the advice industry is keen to help employers on the complex Auto-Enrolment journey, the sheer number of employers staging by 2015 will really stretch the industry. Bluntly, we have never faced anything of this magnitude before, and may never again.

So if you are expecting a lot of support from your advisers (and the survey above suggest that many employers are indeed expecting this) then I would strongly urge you to start the process just as soon as you practically can. Early action will make compliance easier anyway, but will also ensure that your company can benefit from the levels of professional advice that’s needed to ensure a successful engagement with the new regulations.

Put simply, take action now for best results.

Best regards

Steve