In a survey of more than 500 SME employers 24% said they have "hardly heard anything" from the Government about auto-enrolment. A further quarter (25%) say they have had "minimal communication".
SMEs will face fines for "coercion" if they encourage their employees to opt-out of auto-enrolment. This practice is illegal and punishable by Government fines of between £1,000 and £5,000 for every breach, depending on the size of the employer.
More than one-third (36%) of employers cited a lack of understanding as the biggest barrier to complying with auto-enrolment regulations.
Creative Auto Enrolment managing director David White told HR magazine the Government must re-think its communications strategy if SMEs are to stay out of trouble.
"Initially we had a TV advertising campaign aimed at the large corporates," he said. "Even with that and the large HR resources available to them, 590 large companies are still in discussions with the regulators over potential breaches.
"SMEs have had little to no information tailored to help them through the process, which makes their lives very hard."
White added that with the recovery, many small companies are focusing on development, so they have little time for the administrative demands of auto-enrolment.
"They're thinking about growing the business and then along comes the Government and tells them they've got to drop everything and get this done by a certain date," he said.
