Implementing automatic enrolment is arguably the biggest professional challenge many working in the pensions industry today will ever have faced. It is doubtless an opportunity in equal measure.
The opportunities are obvious for professionals whose job it is to advise employers on setting up pensions, a once in a lifetime door is being opened into by every company in the land. Demand for the services of DC pensions specialists will probably never be greater than it will be over the next three or four years.
But a profitable future is not guaranteed and complacency would be exceedingly dangerous.
That is because many questions remain unanswered. Investments in technology need to be made, but by whom and in what systems? How should communications strategies be developed that are streamlined and can target employee engagement for the long term? Which roles will be taken by providers and which by providers? What commitments do advisers make to their existing book of clients? How can consultancy charging be made to work? And how do advisers manage their workflow without becoming swamped?
In this supplement, Implementing Auto-enrolment Stepping Up to the Challenge, we have condensed the most up-to-date industry thinking on the challenges facing employers, providers and advisers in making the government’s pension forms a reality.
It is clear from the views put forward by delegates at the round table event covered in this supplement that there is no single answer to many of the issues raised, and strong differences of opinion remain as to what business and advice models will win out in the coming years. But we hope that the debate covered in these pages will advance the industry’s understanding of how to make auto-enrolment a success.
John Greenwood, Editor