UK Enterprise Awards 2018

24 SME NEWS / UK Enterprise Awards 2018 , ClearWorkplace Solutions provide support to employers across the UK to ensure they comply withworkplace pensions legislation. We profiled the firmand gained an insight into the success of the firm fromManaging Director Nigel Sycamore. Best Workplace Pension Solutions Providers 2018 Located in West Yorkshire, Clear Workplace Solutions is an independent specialist provider of auto enrolment solutions. They have a particularly strong brand in sectors such as construction and care. These sectors find the legislation especially challenging as they are labour intensive and often have a high turnover of staff. A complete solution is offered, from the selection of an appropriate pension provider and scheme set up, through support around data transfer from payroll to pension, regulatory returns and briefings and communications for employees. The team at Clear Workplace Solutions were delighted to receive the ‘Best Workplace Pensions Solutions Provider’ award, and Nigel was clearly excited to tell us what it meant to the team. “This is an award for everyone in the Clear Workplace family; colleagues, clients, friends, suppliers and advisers. It is just reward for all the effort that has gone into making sure employers throughout the country can rely upon us to handle the complex area of workplace pensions.” Clear Workplace’s mission is to make auto enrolment easy for employers. From the beginning, they realised that the best way to achieve this was to take as many of the duties from the employer as possible. Where Clear Workplace differ from many of their competitors is that they are happy to help any size of employer, in any industry, in any part of the UK. Furthermore, where many financial advisers will set up a pension scheme and walk away, that’s only the beginning of the Clear Workplace Solutions service. The ongoing support includes all data transfers and uploads, employee communications and regulatory returns, so a complete solution is offered. Technology is an important part of the Clear Workplace Solutions offering, as it not only means internal efficiencies, it can save valuable time for clients. As an example, the latest development requires only one data export from payroll to handle all pensions contribution data as well as data on new starters and leavers. In industries with a high staff turnover, this is a huge time saver for employers who have previously tried to handle pensions themselves and needed at least three different exports from payroll for the above. In addition, the technology used by Clear Workplace Solutions provides a much richer experience for employees than they get with most pension providers. The current trend in the workplace pensions industry is for employers and employees to want greater value for money. Nigel commented on the growing trend that is seeing employees and employers demand more from their pension, “Having basically complied with the legislation and seen the first increase in statutory contributions, both employees and employers are looking at their pension deductions and asking, ‘what am I getting for this?’. Switched on employers are realising that they can use us to provide added value for their colleagues for comparatively little cost. Things like online access to up to date pension valuations, retirement planning tools, investment options and documentation are valued by employees and show that the employer has thought about them a little bit more than the norm.” Clear Workplace Solutions will be expanding on this in 2018 by offering employers low cost or free employee benefits along with independent mortgage and debt management advice for employees. Reliable research has shown that productivity in the UK workplace suffers greatly from the number of employees who are trying to manage financial worries, and Nigel talked about the need for people to take responsibility themselves across the nation. “It’s part of the bigger picture really, and as a nation we need to get people to take responsibility for their retirement and that’s what workplace pensions legislation was about. Many employees we speak UKE180042