Sometimes employers are prompted to use retirement plans because they are using some other service from the plan provider; according to Pew, respondents who outsourced their payroll operations to a third party were 95 percent more likely than those handling their payrolls internally to offer a retirement plan. Large payroll providers like Paychex and ADP, which allow employers to outsource their payrolls, also offer retirement plans.
Firms that have experienced two years of earnings increases were more likely to offer a retirement plan as well, according to Pew.
Most employers sponsoring defined contribution plans like 401(k)s offer some type of matching contribution. However, relatively few respondents, only 32 percent, reported offering automatic enrollment and only 14 percent offered automatic escalation.
Over one-third of the respondents in Pew’s survey reported offering two or more different types of retirement plans like 401(k)s, 403(b)s and traditional pensions.
For its study, Pew surveyed more than 1,600 business owners and managers nationwide between April 26 and June 29, 2016.