The divisional director at national pensions advisory firm LEBC Group highlighted employers who “underestimate” the work required to put schemes and systems in place before they were legally obliged to offer a pension scheme for employees.
Most employers have said that the lack of time set aside for the task has become a common problem.
Mr Jones also said that many employers are failing to ensure they are sending out timely and personalised commu-nications to employees, as well as identify “early internal responsibility”.
He was speaking about the challenges facing employers as he lent his support to Project Papdis (Pensions and Payroll Data Interface Standard), an initiative that has been jointly created by three payroll software providers to help employers with the transfer of data.
Mr Jones said: “Auto-enrolment is complex enough for employers and anything that can be achieved to simplify the data transfer process has to be beneficial.”
His comments follow the launch of Friends of Auto Enrolment, a focus group aimed at tackling poor preparations for automatic enrolment among employers and the widely predicted capacity crunch in the pensions industry.
The initiative is spearheaded by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals, and it will hold regular meetings across the country to help -payroll providers share best practice.
