By law, every employer with at least one member of staff needs to enrol those who are eligible into a workplace pension scheme and contribute towards it.

This is called automatic enrolment because it is automatic for staff – they don’t have to do anything to be enrolled into a pension scheme, but it is not automatic for employers.

Automatic enrolment is a continuous responsibility – your duties do not end after your duties start date. 

Each time you pay your staff you must monitor changes in their age and earnings to see if they need to be put into your scheme.

Every three years you must carry out re-enrolment to put back in any staff who have left your scheme. 

You will also need to continue paying into your pension scheme, manage requests to join or leave the scheme and keep records.

More information can be found on the Pensions Regulator website.

Auto-enrolment – what you need to know

All employers have to provide a workplace pension scheme for eligible staff and this is called ‘automatic enrolment.’ To work out what you need to do, answer the questions in The Pensions Regulator’s ‘Duties Checker‘. The Duties Checker is designed for small employers without pensions experience and makes automatic enrolment as easy as possible.

Employees often look to their employers as a trusted source of advice on workplace pensions. DWP has designed a toolkit to help employers feel more confident when talking to employees about their workplace pension. Click here for more information and to download the toolkit. If you would prefer a printed version of the toolkit, please email [email protected]