They say time flies when you are having fun and the the three years since Auto Enrolment came a reality has been lots of ‘fun’ for employers, pension and payroll providers, payroll software developers and employees as they get to grips with auto-enrolment.
The companies included in the early staging dates are now approaching their three-year re-enrolment window.
So what is re-enrolment?
Auto-enrolment is a three-year cyclical process. So those people who have opted out of your auto enrolment pension scheme in the two years after your staging date will be re-assessed and enrolled into a qualifying work place pension scheme. It is a way of trying to ensure the maximum take-up of work place pensions.
Your employees will still have the option of opting back out if they wish to do so, but in a further three years the process will be repeated and so on and so on.
What will be the impact on you as an employer?
- You will need to choose a cyclical automatic re-enrolment date from a six month window which starts three calendar months before the third anniversary of your staging date (not you postponement date if used) and ends three months after
- This date is for you as an employer and you cannot pick different dates for different categories of employee
- There is no postponement date available on re-enrolment
- You have an obligation to write and inform all eligible employees if they are to be enrolled into the scheme and complete a declaration of compliance with the pension’s regulator
- All re-enrolled employees will have the option to opt-out as previously
The impact on your business will depend on how many employees you have who opted out at the initial auto-enrolment.
If you would like to discuss this further or would like support through your re-enrolment process, please contact us.
