Small- and medium-sized businesses have less than a year to go to get their workplace pension schemes up and running, yet awareness of their obligations remains relatively low, research from MetLife has shown.
Firms with between 50 and 250 employees need to start offering workplace pension schemes by April 2014.
However, a MetLife survey of human resources managers at such companies found that 14% are unaware of their auto-enrolment obligations, 18% are only vaguely aware and 32% are aware but have yet to start making plans.
Just over a third (36%) said they had begun making plans for auto-enrolment.
The research also found that around half (51%) of the companies surveyed said they would 'definitely' or 'probably' review their other employee benefits ahead of auto-enrolment.
More than two-thirds (69%) of SMEs agreed that a well-constructed employee benefits package increases staff loyalty.
The SME survey was conducted by MetLife's Employee Benefits division.