By 2018, All employers in the UK are expected to have a new pension scheme known as Auto Enrollment Scheme. There are key duties every employer ought to comply with. The following are the key duties:
Suitable workplace pension scheme
Every employer should ensure that a pension scheme is put in place. Moreover, it should facilitate Auto Enrolment process. It
is quite easy for employers to fall into a trap by assuming that existing pension schemes are suitable, but to discover that the scheme is not suitable as they thought.
Provide information
Employers are required to suffice workers with information about auto-enrolment and pensions. A detailed understanding of the statutory communications and workforce process is needed to enable employers provide right communication to the employees at the right time.
Automatically enrol
You should enrol all the eligible jobholders and workers into the pension scheme. The new laws provide three categories of the worker: non-eligible, entitled job holder, and eligible jobholder. Every employee will fall into one of the above three categories. It is the responsibility of the employer to enrol every eligible jobholder automatically into the pension scheme.
Contributions
The employer must make regular contributions to pensions of all the eligible jobholders. These are jobholders that have been enrolled into the pension scheme. You should note that entitled workers and non-eligible jobholders that have chosen to opt in, the employer must submit their contributions. The other role of 
employees is to collect and calculate pension contributions from the worker’s salaries. Every employer should arrange to deduct contributions from all the eligible jobholders that are automatically enrolled into the pension scheme.
As an employer, you handle ongoing duties. Such duties include managing all the new starters to ensure the auto-enrolment process is followed correctly. You should arrange opt-outs for employees that do not want to be enroled automatically or want to leave the scheme. They also arrange opt-ins for employees that are automatically enrolled or those that wish to join the scheme. Employers are required to submit a Declaration of Compliance within five months of their staging date. The declaration is to prove that the employer has completed all auto-enrolment duties. This is to ensure that the employer is complying with the rules. Most employers find the process of planning for new processes both time consuming and problematic. However, with the above steps, you will find it easier to comply with the new pension scheme.
