A culture of "compliance fear" could have far-reaching consequences.

"Compliance is a matter of education," said Heather Hooper, vice-president of retirement strategies at Loring Ward, a San Jose, Calif., based investment management firm that serves independent financial advisors. "If offering a retirement plan becomes too complex or administratively cumbersome with the threat of audits, fines and lawsuits, then yes, it is possible to deter employers from offering this important benefit."

Firms with fewer than 100 workers employ 35 percent of private sector payrolls, according to Census data. In the smallest firms, those with less than 10 employees, only 9 percent of workers are covered by a 401(k) type plan. In firms with up to 100 employees, plan sponsorship increases to 36 percent. In the biggest businesses, those with 500 employees or more, that rate of plan sponsorship jumps to 60 percent.

Given that 98 percent of all businesses have fewer than 100 employees, there's a huge gap in plan sponsorship for small and mid-sized firms. Understanding how to fill this void is critical to addressing the nation's retirement crisis. Finding ways to facilitate compliance for firms sponsoring plans could mean huge opportunities for proactive advisors.

"Employers who are working with good providers and proactive fiduciary advisors have a huge advantage in properly managing plan responsibilities," Hooper says.

Whatever a company's resources, all owners and managers need the best employees they can attract. While it's true some small and midsized businesses don't sponsor plans because they can't, or genuinely believe they can't, the same compliance push could be a boon for advisors.

The advisor community needs to engage those employers who simply don't understand how valuable plan sponsorship can be to attracting the ideal workforce.

While benefits programs have long been regarded as carrots for employers to attract the best employees, Anthony Webb, Ph.D., a senior research economist, also with the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, has found another incentive for employers to offer retirement benefits.

"Yes, highly qualified candidates see retirement benefits programs, and matching programs, as a compensation value-add. But research suggests those candidates who value a matching 401(k) program prove to be more productive in their jobs. Let's say there are two kinds of employees, the far-sighted and the short-sighted. The far-sighted are concerned with their retirement. So they are judicious about the future. They are giving thought about matters beyond tomorrow. A lot of the academic evidence suggests these are the employees who will show greater concern for their day-to-day jobs. And greater loyalty. And greater efficiency. So in one sense, and it is no way universal, employees hoping to address their retirement often prove to be more productive day to day," Webb explains.

The implications of an under-funded society for retirement might be worse than all the political and media attention suggests. The economy, consumptive in nature, faces massive demographic shifts as baby-boomers retire. Mean income for Americans peaks at age 55. By 70 it's two-thirds of that, by 80 one-half, according to the Congress's Joint Committee on Taxation. Even if all generations were perfectly funded for retirement, the economy would still endure significant disruption with the retirement of baby-boomers. Economists across the board are downgrading long-term growth projections in light of the demographics.

If those projections are accurate, fewer Americans will have fewer dollars to set-aside for retirement.  Making employer sponsorship as feasible as can be will take smart regulation, and even smarter advisors actively leading the education movement.

"There are a number of contributing factors to the lack of retirement readiness in our country and we would be well served by creating simple, compelling guidelines and programs that remove the interference and complexity for everyone," insists Hooper at Loring Ward.

The DOL's statistics on compliance are intense. Understanding how their efforts relate to the overall administration of 401(k) plans is necessary to communicating the compliance realities for employer sponsors and prospects.

Take the incidence of criminal indictment. The DOL's latest statistics show that 88 individuals, from plan officials to corporate officers to service providers, were criminally indicted in 2013. While the perp walk can be an important deterrent to fraud, it's also very much worth noting the difference between overt criminal activity, and simple compliance missteps in the DOL's data.

"Fraud takes place when there is a lack of process and controls," Ward explains.

"Having one person responsible for all aspects of plan administration, without a review from an outside fiduciary, may create risk."

While fraud makes for great copy, Hooper notes that rampant criminality in the 401(k) industry is hardly the case.

"Compliance issues typically stem from a lack of knowledge. It's easy to forget that for many employer representatives, managing the retirement plan is one responsibility of many. An absence of oversight can create an opening for compliance-related problems."

Francis Vitagliano, a visiting scholar at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, began his work administering ERISA plans in the private sector in 1975. He cautions his perspective is more anecdotal than empirical, saying, "I really didn't come across any knowing and willful fraud by employers in my 30 years of experience. I'm sure there are cases, especially when an employer runs into hardship, but I think these are few and far between."

Unintentional irregularities with compliance were much more common in Vitagliano's experience.

"In recent decades the large financial service providers to 401(k) plans have generally done a good job of keeping plans within regulatory compliance," he adds.