Things To Know About Providing Workplace Pension Schemes

Workers can be automatically enrolled in the pension scheme. As an employer, it is your responsibility to enrol workers who fulfil the requirements, in terms of age and earnings they make every year. The workers must not cross the age set by the state, in order to avail its benefits. Besides this, you should also contribute to pension scheme as this is another obligation that an employer needs to perform.

In case of workers who cannot be enrolled automatically, they can also opt for this facility in which you are required to make minimum contribution. These are the workers who do not fall in the set age group. However, the obligation to make the contribution is not applicable if a worker earns a particular amount on weekly, monthly or yearly basis.

For all the workers who get enrolled in pension scheme, the employer is required to make a few contributions. Minimum contribution to pension scheme is to be made on time. In case a worker wishes to leave pension scheme, then he should be allowed to do. Also known as opting out, if this takes place within a time period of one month, in this scenario the money paid by them should be refunded. Even if a worker opts out of the scheme voluntarily, then he is allowed to rejoin once during a year. Similarly, for all the workers who are eligible for enrolment automatically and who have opted out, the provision to enrol them back once during every three years is present as well.

On the other hand, there are some things that an employer providing workplace pension schemes is not allowed to do. Making workers to leave or opt out of pension scheme, by encouraging or forcing them to do so, is not allowed. An employer also cannot discriminate or unfairly dismiss any working who wish to stay enrolled in the pension scheme. In some cases employers have been seen implying that if someone decides to opt out of the scheme then he will get better job opportunities, which is not acceptable at all. Another thing than an employer cannot do is closing a pension scheme. In order to do so he first has to enrol every member of the staff into any other scheme automatically.

An employer is given the responsibility to convey a few vital points to his workers when they are enrolled in the pension scheme automatically. This information needs to be conveyed in the written form through a letter. One of the things to be mentioned is the day on which a particular worker joined the workplace pension scheme, along with its type and who conducts it. The amount to be paid by the worker, as well as the amount to be contributed by the employer needs mention too. In case a worker decides to opt out of or leave the pension scheme, then the steps to be followed should be clearly listed in the letter.

Mentioned above are a few vital points related to the pension scheme, which need to be clearly understood by workers and diligently followed by employers providing workplace pension schemes.