The Pensions Regulator (TPR) is reminding employers that if they employ short-term staff over the winter period who are not on regular hours or incomes and are being paid through a payroll system, they must ensure they are complying with their legal automatic enrolment (AE) pension duties.
Seasonal or temporary staff must be assessed individually every time they are paid, taking into account what their ages are and how much they earn. Any staff that are aged 22 to state pension age and earn over £192 a week or £833 a month, must be put into a pension scheme which their employer must contribute towards.
Having the right payroll software can really help. Most payroll software that is set up for automatic enrolment will assess staff at each pay cycle, calculate contributions where necessary, and some also have a postponement function built into them.
The regulator is encouraging employers to read their guidance on employing seasonal or temporary staff which details the steps employers need to take to assess and enrol staff into a workplace pension scheme.
Write to staff individually to tell them how automatic enrolment affects them.
If any of the staff will be working for less than three months, the employer can choose to delay working out who to put into a pension scheme. This is known as postponement. Within six weeks from the date after postponement starts, the employer must write to staff individually to tell them what you are doing and how automatic enrolment applies to them.
During any staff member’s period of postponement, they won’t need to put them into a pension scheme unless the employee ask to be put into one.
PAYadvice.UK 18/11/2024