As you will have no doubt heard or read, starting from last October and going on through to 2018, every employer will need to have a qualifying pension scheme in place for their employees.

You will also have to automatically enrol certain workers into this scheme and make contributions on their behalf. This is probably the single biggest change to workplace pensions for 20 years.

During 2014 alone, more than 33,000 employers with 3.5 million employees will need to comply with the new rules. Bearing in mind there are only 20,000 financial advisers in the UK, and only a small percentage of those specialise in workplace pensions, as auto-enrolment gathers pace capacity within the pensions industry will obviously come under severe pressure.

Employers need to start to think sooner rather than later about the numerous implications of these changes on their business; from compliance, to payroll, HR and, of course, the financial impact of making the required employer contributions.

Even if you already have an existing company scheme in place, you need to understand whether or not it fulfils the new requirements and if it does not then changes have to be in made in time.

You will receive a letter from the Pensions Regulator initially a year from your "staging date" (the date the rules become compulsory for your business), then a final reminder three months before. On your staging date you must have a qualifying scheme in place. The Pensions Regulator is responsible for ensuring you comply with your employer duties and it has the power to impose very large fines per day on those companies who fail to carry out their duties.

Do not presume that to do this will only take a few weeks to sort. Some pension providers have already made a stance that they will not deal with any employer who has less than six months to go before their staging date.

It is now time to think, plan and act. A scheme set up in good time and communicated well to workers can form a valuable part of their reward package, whereas leaving things too late could result in a second-rate pension scheme and, at worst, could leave your business with heavy penalties which will add enormously to the costs involved.