Many of the firms questioned stated they were placing greater emphasis on structural organisational changes than business growth.
Meanwhile, flexible benefits schemes are becoming more popular, with 90% of respondents stating that they are looking into offering flexible benefits to staff.
The main driver behind flexible benefits is to improve employee engagement, with up to 90% of respondents describing this as one of the key benefits of introducing such a scheme
Implementation of the Financial Services Authority-initiated Retail Distribution Review (RDR) and the Pensions Act 2008 is set to change the pensions sector, with many firms unaware of the impact it will have on their operations.
For example, 58% did not realise that they would have to pay a fee rather than commission for setting up a group personal pension from January 2013, as a result of the RDR.
The report looks in detail at the employee rewards culture within UK-based organisations, covering everything from pensions and flexible benefits to health and wellbeing and employee communications.
More than 400 companies of varying sizes were surveyed for the research, each answering more than 100 questions about existing and planned strategies relating to employee rewards, pension schemes, flexible benefits, salary sacrifice, health and wellbeing and communications.
Respondents were also asked about their particular employee benefit challenges.
Chris Bruce, managing director at Thomsons Online Benefits (TOB), said: "The coming year promises to be an exciting time of both challenge and change. This report offers insight into the readiness of organisations for that challenge and change."
Marcus Underhill, TOB global reward director, notes that implementing an employee reward strategy is vital if firms are to develop. "Employee engagement will be essential to deliver the 2011 change agenda and a reward strategy is a critical route to that. However, our research shows that only 38% of companies have a written reward strategy," he said.
TOB chief executive officer Michael Whitfield stresses that steps therefore need to be taken to ensure everyone understands the implications of the changing legislation, to safeguard both consumers and the industry.
"Employers need to understand the implications of these reforms for their pension scheme. Although the situation has improved, too many people are uncertain and, given the market trend, may be assuming that there will be no impact," Whitfield concluded.
