Choosing the right pension option could pay healthy financial dividends to take the time to find out what works best for you. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

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The clock is ticking loudly for auto-enrolment, the State-run mandatory workplace pension scheme called My Future Fund that is coming into force in January.

If you work in a company that offers access to a pension, you have just a month to sort out whether to join that scheme or to find yourself enrolled in the new arrangement.

Why just a month? Because anyone not making contributions into a workplace pension by the middle of November will be seen as one of the 750,000 workers in need of private pension coverage.

December will be too late to allow the enrolment in the new scheme to take place in January.

So what do you need to know?

From January, anyone who is aged between 23 and 60 and earning more than €20,000 will be automatically enrolled into a new State-run retirement savings programme called My Future Fund unless they are already signed up to another workplace or private pension scheme.

That €20,000 covers total earnings from however many jobs you may have. The other thing to note is that, initially anyway, the self-employed will not be affected.

Is that a good idea for me?

Saving for retirement is always a good idea and the earlier you start the better. A large number of people in private sector employment right now will have no income in retirement except the State pension. That currently pays just over €15,000 a year which could mean sharply diminished income when you retire.

Tens of thousands of workers, especially in areas like hospitality, retail and agriculture are among those with no cover beyond the state pension.

And with the number of older Irish people growing all the time, pressure on the State pension will increase. Making plans to ensure you have enough money in retirement makes sense.

How does it work?

If you are not enrolled in any other pension by roughly the middle of November, you will be signed up and they will start deducting money from your pay packet in January.

Initially, the amount they take will be the equivalent of 1.5 per cent of your gross (before tax) salary.