Workplace Pensions

Helping your employees save for their financial future

Pensions are an integral part of today’s benefits packages and can help your employees to prepare for their financial future. And the introduction of auto-enrolment means that pensions are an important responsibility for employers too.

Under the Pensions Act 2008, every employer in the UK must automatically enrol eligible employees into a workplace pension scheme and contribute towards it. Auto-enrolment is an opportunity to boost employees’ retirement savings, with the benefit of an employer contribution and the Government providing help either as tax relief on the employee’s contribution or via lower tax from any salary sacrificed. The savings held within the employee’s pension are not normally accessible until age 55.

If you employ at least one person, you have certain legal duties and must:

  • Provide employees with the correct pension information
  • Review the eligibility of your workforce
  • Automatically enrol employees into a qualifying workplace pension scheme
  • Make a minimum contribution

As an employer, you have a number of options available to you to comply with this legislation in a way that best suits your business. For example, there are:

  • numerous definitions of which elements of salary are pensionable;
  • options on what contribution percentages you pay; and
  • when you need to enrol employees.

 

Speak to our expert consultants to find out more:

CLA Pensions enquiry

Common employer concerns include:

  • The amount of time needed to research everything
  • Communicating your workplace pension scheme to your employees
  • Amount of admin time needed to implement and run auto-enrolment procedures
  • The extra costs to the business
  • Adapting to changes in the rules

How we can help you

By working closely with you and the pension provider, we can help design your workplace pension scheme. We can:

  • Provide advice to select the most appropriate pension provider
  • Help with the scheme set up
  • Review and advise on pension contribution structures
  • Provide guidance on tax efficiency of different contribution methods including consideration of salary exchange
  • Liaise with your payroll provider to help ensure payroll and pension interact in an efficient way which minimises administration
  • Engage with your employees post implementation to help them understand how the scheme works, and their options
  • Provide ongoing scheme governance to help ensure the scheme structure, provider administration and performance continues to remain appropriate and in line with expectations

How we can help your employees

We can help your employees prepare for their financial future by:

  • Providing general pensions guidance and run consultant-led clinics where your employees can discuss all* aspects of retirement planning (excluding specific tax or investment advice)
  • Presenting the benefits of the scheme to your employees annually, to enable them to personalise their pension plan to match their own retirement objectives
  • Delivering financial education programmes to educate employees on key financial areas. This can help to support employee wellbeing
  • Creating a tailored benefits communication strategy so that your employees understand and make the most of the benefits you offer them

*Excludes specific tax or investment advice

With so many choices, many CLA business members choose to get professional advice. This can help you to ensure that your scheme is compliant and meets the specific needs of your organisation and workforce. We can also work with you to help ensure good scheme governance; that you are aware of the tax breaks available; and that employees are made aware of the benefits being provided by you and help them better understand their retirement planning journey.

Find out more

To find out more or to discuss your options in more detail, the expert team at CLA Healthcare are on hand to help.

Call 01274 717361 or email healthcare@cla.org.uk to find out more.

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