To continue reading please register or login to your OHW+ account.
A plan to allow organisations to insist on staff joining their occupational pension schemes has been widely criticised by employers' organisations.
The recommendation is part of a package of reforms contained in the Government-commissioned report by Alan Pickering published last week.
The report also included proposals to remove the requirement for occupational pensions to be index-linked in line with inflation, and to take away the requirement for schemes to provide survivors' benefits.
Although Pickering's proposals to simplify the pension system and reduce the cost burden on employers' schemes were broadly welcomed, giving employers the powers to force staff to join pensions has raised concerns.
The CBI said the recommendations could help contain rising pension costs and stabilise final salary schemes, but warned that few companies would want to make pensions compulsory.
Director of HR policy at the CBI Susan Anderson believes forcing a scheme on employees would be unpopular among those on short-term contracts or with existing schemes.
A voluntary approach to occupational scheme membership is also favoured by the CIPD.
CIPD's assistant director general Duncan Brown said: "You can see some companies where this wouldn't do any good at all. I'd question how effective it would be to force a pension scheme onto staff."
People could be forced into making unwise investments if compulsory pension schemes were introduced, said Will Hutton, chief executive of the Work Foundation.
However, Mark Childs, director of global compensation and benefits at Fidelity Investments, said many companies would advocate the right to automatically enrol staff on pension schemes.
"Some firms would prefer staff to have a choice, but others will feel its in their employees' long-term interests to be in the scheme and would like the flexibility to insist," he said.
The Government is to consider Pickering's recommendations as part of a wider pensions Green Paper due in the autumn.
By Ross Wigham
Case study: Manufacturer goes against pensions tide
Manufacturing company H+H Celcon is bucking the pensions trend by extending its final salary scheme to all workers to help boost recruitment and retention.
Celcon's personnel manager Neil Griffiths sa
