Auto Enrolment: The Next Big Issue for Both Employers and its Employees

With Auto Enrolment coming into effect at the beginning of 2026, the time for employers to introduce changes to their company’s pension policies is becoming increasingly tight.

As the Government will be reviewing employees’ contributions to their PRSA over three months at the start of December, the effective cut-off point to bring your employees onto the company pension scheme will be when your final payroll in November is submitted. If an employee fails to make any contributions to the PRSA by this point, they will be automatically enrolled into the My Future Fund Scheme and will not be able to remove themselves for at least six months, after which, there will be a two-month period in which they can decide between a private pension scheme and the Government’s My Future Fund scheme, before being locked into the scheme.

By failing to bring your employees under the one pension scheme, your company is going to face several issues, which will lead to increased operational costs and the possible loss of employees. In this article, we are going to look at some of the more common issues that your business will face if it fails to bring its employees under one scheme, and some of the solutions you can implement to help prevent employees from joining the My Future Fund Scheme.

Dual-Pension Schemes:

If your company fails to bring some of its employees under its private pension scheme,  this will result in operating with two pension schemes running concurrently within the business. This in itself can bring a variety of issues for the company.

Administrative Costs:

One of the main issues of operating with a dual-pension scheme within your company is the inherent problem of each scheme having its own set of contribution rates, reliefs and policies. With each scheme also requiring different forms of paperwork, which will inevitably lead to an increase in workload for your payroll operator, this, in turn, is an increase in your administrative costs.

Employee Comparison:

Another key issue of having a dual-pension scheme within your business will be the problem of employees who are on different pension schemes comparing amongst themselves. Depending on how you tackled the issue of integrating all employees into the company pension scheme, or if the company’s pension policies remained unchanged, there may be some employees who feel undervalued or underappreciated due to not having access to the private pension scheme for a variety of different reasons, such as being unavailable during probationary periods or not being eligible to those not within management or a certain level within the company.

This can have severe repercussions for your business, as the disgruntled employees who were enrolled on the My Future Fund scheme may leave the company for another business, which will employ them automatically into their private pension scheme that offers better returns and contribution rates than the public scheme they had no other choice in. And depending on the sector your company is based in, this could have lasting effects, with labour shortages in a number of different sectors, it could become increasingly difficult to not only find a replacement, but also to train them to the standard of the previous employee.

Preventive Solutions:

Automatically Open the Company Pension Scheme:

Legally, you are not able to force any employee to join the company pension scheme; however, by opening the company’s pension scheme and informing your employees of the differences and benefits of it can convince those who currently do not have a pension to join.

Separate Categories Within Existing Schemes:

Another option is to open a separate category within your existing pension scheme for those who wish to contribute the same amount as the My Future Fund Scheme. While you will have to have two different sets of benefits for employees, this would help eliminate the overall burden of a dual-pension scheme, while also reducing the administrative costs, as the scheme will still operate under one administrative system

While Auto-Enrolment has been delayed in the past, it’s now inevitable for business owners that in the new year, there will be a new pension scheme, and they must either adapt to it or adopt it entirely. At Moore Wealth Management, our team of Certified Financial Planners™ are here to help your business prepare for the introduction of

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