A report published by the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST) found 63% of the large employers that took on the duty from October 2012 encountered difficulties.
A fifth of employers (20%) said it took more than 16 months to prepare, and 55% said they had difficulty understanding legalities of the reform.
On the back of the findings, NEST has warned employers due to implement the new system in 2014 to dedicate enough time to meet their deadline.
Specsavers senior manager of employment services, people and organisation Jacquie Mancini told HR Magazine the report’s findings were similar to her experiences.
Specsavers has multiple staging dates – the date from which company must offer employees a workplace pension – over the next two years because it has more than 1,800 companies within its remit.
“Our fist one staged in November, but we’ve just gone through the postponement date in January, and we’ve now got a rolling programme of staging and postponement,” Mancini said.
“Communications and engaging with the provider didn’t take us any longer than expected, but we did start very early – two to three years ago.
“Where it’s taken a little bit longer than anticipated was understanding the administration system we’re using, our payroll system – the testing of the functionality and assessing the workforce to identify each different category,” she continued.
“But we had left ourselves enough time to deal with that. The postponement period gave us that time.”
The NEST research suggested employers were unaware of the details of the reform, with only 53% of those due to come on line between February and July 2014 aware they could postpone enrolments for up to three months.
It also found nine out of ten employers expected to receive help to fill any gaps in experience, expectations and knowledge.
Mancini said this had been the case at Specsavers. “We have had support from a pensions adviser to interpret all the pensions regulations,” she said.
“Certainly when we’re looking at individual employees who might not follow the norm, going back and using the pensions advisor has been very useful.”
Commenting on the report, pensions minister Steve Webb said automatic enrolment had so far “been a stunning success”.
“Over 2.5 million people have been enrolled and nine out of ten are now building up a pension, many for the first time,” he said.
“This report shows that people are making it a priority to save for retirement and as we move to smaller firms we need to make sure that this success story continues."
NEST chief executive Tim Jones said it was vital for providers, intermediaries and employers to work together “to ensure the next wave of employers can meet their duties successfully”.
The government expects up to 30,000 employers to stage in 2014.
