The Government should give businesses at least a six-month period of grace after the official start of the auto enrolment pension scheme to get their systems up to speed, according to staffing agency Excel Recruitment.
“To acknowledge the challenges employers are going to face in the implementation of such a mammoth undertaking and to put the necessary guardrails in place to allow them to cope with the administrative and financial burden that will be foisted upon them,” said Shane McLave, managing director of Excel.
Employers in the UK were given notice of their staging date up to 12 months in advance, allowing them sufficient time to prepare. They were required to assess their workforce, communicate with employees, and set up systems to collect employer and employee contributions and communicate with the AE system – if they didn’t already have a qualifying pension scheme in place.