Recent research carried out by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) has unveiled that over 40% of the people they spoke to would like the opportunity to save for their retirement and a rainy day via some sort of employers scheme.
Recent research carried out by the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) has unveiled that over 40% of the people they spoke to would like the opportunity to save for their retirement and a rainy day via some sort of employers scheme.
This is great news. However, some alarming facts came out in the survey about people in the UK’s general attitudes towards pensions.
The survey also revealed that 49% of people in the UK have no pension provision whatsoever. What’s more, less than 25% of the population have checked that they are making the required contributions to meet their pension goals and less than 1 in 5 think they are too young to even think about pensions.
This is quite scary, both on a national and on an individual scale.
Another revelation from the survey was that a large proportion of the population has no real understanding of the changes that will affect them as a result of Pensions Automatic Enrolment. Although the government has invested heavily in national prime time television advertising campaigns, they appear to have missed the mark and left a significant chunk of the population with their heads in the sand regarding pensions.
Uncovering that a worrying number of people affected by workplace pensions have no idea of how much of a contribution they’ll be required to make post automatic enrolment, as well as around 3% of qualifying employees saying that they’ll opt out isn’t good news at all for the future of UK pensions. The fact is that people’s expectations of income in retirement and the harsh reality are poles apart and although workplace pensions are intended to address this discrepancy, it seems somehow to be missing the mark.
As a recruitment professional, you are no doubt aware of Pensions Automatic Enrolment and may indeed already have implemented a qualifying scheme to meet your obligations. If you haven’t, you might be aware of exactly what’s required from your staging date onwards. It’s fair to say that if you’re not, now is the time to find out. We say this because the Forum of Private Business recently announced that although more and more employers are taking a greater interest in their staging date and what will be required of them, the vast majority underestimate the time investment that will be required to meet their obligations.
Again this is quite alarming.
In your position, you need to be making sure you have your Pensions Automatic Enrolment obligations sorted, but you also need to be on the lookout to identify the opportunities that this change may present to your business. Depending on which sector you service, there could well be significant opportunities to plug both the skills and manpower gaps that are likely to arise as a direct result of smaller and medium sized businesses face the challenges ahead.
Now that’s food for thought, isn’t it?
If you’d like help to deal with either your own Pensions Automatic Enrolment responsibilities or to sniff out the opportunities that this regulatory change might mean for your business, please get in touch.
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