You should do this approximately 9 months before your staging date.
This step should take under an hour.
Assess your workers
Carry out a quick review of your staff to help you work out what you have to plan next. When assessing who you’ll need to automatically enrol, there are three different categories of staff to consider as explained below.
Your staff are people you pay via a payroll. You must assess them for automatic enrolment based on their ages and how much they earn – regardless of how many hours they work for you.
Monthly / Weekly gross of £486 / £112: Any person of any age “Has a right to join a pension scheme “*1
Monthly / Weekly gross of £486 to £833/ £112 to £192: Any person of any age “has a right to opt in “*2
Monthly / Weekly gross of over £833 / over £192: An employee between 22 years of age until the SPA* will be “automatically enrolled” *3 .
An employee who is from 16 to 21 or from SPA* to 74 “has the right to opt in”.
Figures correct as of 2015/2016. *SPA = state pension age
*1 – Has a right to join a pension scheme
If they ask you to, you must provide a pension scheme for them, but you don’t have to pay contributions.
*2 – Has a right to opt in
If they ask to be put into a pension scheme, you must put them in your automatic enrolment pension scheme and pay regular contributions.
*3 – Automatically enrol
You must put these members of staff in your automatic enrolment pension scheme and pay regular contributions. You don’t need to ask their permission. If they give notice, or you give them notice, to leave employment before you have completed this process, you have a choice whether to automatically enrol them or not.
It is against the law to try to influence your staff into opting out of your pension scheme.
You must carry out a full assessment of all your staff when you reach your staging date.
What do you need to do?
- Find the age and salary of every member of staff. We recommend doing this as soon as possible to save time later.
- Work out who it is likely you’ll need to automatically enrol.
- Work out who will be able to choose to opt in to an automatic enrolment pension scheme.
- Work out who will have a right to join a pension scheme.
This information is provided by the Pensions Regulators website.
You can view the original here: www.thepensionsregulator.gov.uk
