Seasonal Workers and Auto Enrolment

The summer time often means that many employers take on extra staff to meet increased work demands eg fruit farms, holiday parks.  Employers will have to consider the impact of seasonal workers and auto enrolment.

The first task is to assess the workers and see which category they fall into – eligible worker, non eligible worker or entitled worker.

Following on from that the employer must consider whether postponement is more beneficial rather than auto enrolling those staff particularly if the employer knows that the temporary staff will not be needed after three months.

An employer can only postpone automatic enrolment from:

  • the staging date
  • a staff member’s first day of employment
  • the date a staff member first becomes eligible for automatic enrolment.

To postpone auto enrolling a member of staff the employer must write to them within six weeks from the date postponement starts. An employer can postpone for a maximum of three months, but it can be for much less than that.  An employer can postpone as many or as few staff as is required and the postponement period does not have to be the same length for everyone.

Staff who have been postponed can choose to opt in during the postponement period.

On the last day of the postponement period, an employer needs to know whether any member of staff whose automatic enrolment who has been postponed is still eligible to be automatically enrolled. If they are, an employer must put them into a pension scheme straight away. An employer can not apply a further period of postponement even if postponement has been for less than three months.