Temporary workers - your pension obligations

Pension auto-enrolment

Workplace pensions have been around for over a decade. Despite this, every year some employers forget that temporary employees they take on, say during the summer period, have the same rights to workplace pensions as their full-time workers. Because of this HMRC is currently running a campaign to remind employers.

Assess and advise

If you’re an employer you must assess temporary staff for their right to be enrolled in your workplace pension scheme each time you pay them, even if they only work for you for a few days.

If you don’t assess your employees for entitlement to join your workplace pension it can result in a warning from HMRC or The Pensions Regulator. This can escalate to a fine of £400 initially and then daily penalties of between £50 and £10,000.

You can avoid having to assess your employees if they will work for you for no more than three months. Do this by using the auto-enrolment postponement procedure.