Muras Matters: Christmas Seasonal Workers and Auto Enrolment

Background

During the traditional run up to Christmas, many employers will take on seasonal workers, and as with other staff, these temporary workers must be assessed to determine if they qualify for automatic enrolment into a workplace pension.

Detail

When employing seasonal or temporary staff it is necessary for an employer to assess each employee individually every time they are paid to determine whether they need to be included in auto enrolment. This includes all temporary staff whether they work for you for only a few days, a few weeks or several months. Assessing these temporary employees can take more time and effort due to the fact their earnings and hours are likely to vary.

Employers who know their staff will be working for them for less than three months, can use postponement to delay working out who to include in a pension scheme. This postpones the legal requirement to assess staff for three months. Guidance on the postponement process is provided by The Pensions Regulator, who also highlight that postponement is often used when staff commence work on a probationary period.

In addition, the employee themselves retains the usual right to opt out of being enrolled in the employers pension scheme whether they are a temporary or permanent member of staff.

If you would like further information with auto enrolment for temporary workers or the postponement process, please contact our assistant tax manager, Jamie Poulton.

To see our other news items please visit our Muras Baker Jones – Blog.