Workplace Pensions for seasonal and temporary staff

The Pension Regulator has highlighted that some employers who take on temporary or seasonal workers aren’t following the workplace pension rules correctly.

So, what should you be doing? Well, you must assess seasonal and other temporary staff for entitlement to join your workplace pension in the same way that you would a permanent employee. This means that they may need to be enrolled if the relevant criteria is met.

This could cause problems if they don’t want to join the scheme as they will then have to opt out once they have been notified that you have auto-enrolled them. This takes time and can then trigger a refund being due to them in a future pay period. If they are temporary or seasonal workers, they may no longer be working for you. There is a way to avoid this issue and this is by using auto-enrolment postponement. If you know that the worker will be with you for less than 3 months, you can choose to delay assessing them for your workplace pension scheme. If you apply postponement, there are certain conditions to be met and you must provide the worker with a written explanation telling them that you are doing this.

If this is something that may be relevant to your business and you would like to discuss this further, please contact Andrew Hopper.