Employment Law and HR Update June 2015

Pensions – fines if your business fails to auto-enrol on time.

The law on workplace pensions has changed. Every employer with at least one member of staff is must ensure they are auto enrolled into a pension scheme

This is called automatic enrolment because it is automatic for your staff – they don't have to do anything to be enrolled into your pension scheme, but it is not automatic for you. You need to take steps to make sure your eligible staff are enrolled into a pension scheme. Even if you already pay contributions into a pension scheme for your staff, you still need to check if it is suitable for automatic enrolment.

If you ignore auto enrolment, miss your staging date, don’t pay your contributions and/or continue to ignore your duties, the Pensions Regulator will take stronger action against you – this could include fixed fines of £400, or between £5,000 and £50,000 and/or daily fines of between £50 and £10,000.

You should also put details of your pension scheme into your employment contracts and handbooks.

Coulthard Human Resources can help ensure your business is compliant.

Zero-hours contracts exclusivity clauses no longer legal

Rules banning exclusivity clauses in zero hour contracts are now in force with the Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. Exclusivity clauses were used to prevent employees on zero-hours contracts from working for another employer.