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When starting your own Recruitment Agency, you have more than enough to think about such as financing, offices, policies, procedures – the list is endless. However, you also need to give careful consideration to your staffing obligations, and more specifically your staff pension scheme.

If you became an employer for the first time on or after 1^st October 2017 then you must enrol all members of staff in a workplace pension as soon as they start working for you.

New Duties for Employers

Any business that becomes an employer for the first time on or after this date will immediately have legal duties for their new member of staff. These duties apply from the first day the first member of staff starts working for you; this is also known as your “Duties start date”.

What do you need to do?

Before employing a worker for the first time you need to take certain steps in preparation for taking on staff. Often this will involve registering with HMRC, taking out Employers Liability Insurance and getting ready for automatic enrolment to name a few.

Steps:

1. Work out your duties start date – this will be the first day that the first member of staff starts work. This is the date that all duties under auto enrolment commence. Even if the Agency only employs one member of staff, all steps are still necessary.
2. Assess your staff- Do they meet the age and earnings criteria to be automatically enrolled?
3. Put your staff on a pension scheme- Any staff who meet this criteria will need to be put into a pension scheme. This scheme should be paid into by the employer and the member of staff. Pension Schemes can be paid for or free however often paid providers offer a wider range of services.
4. Tell ‘The Pensions Regulator’- The Agency will need to advise The Pensions Regulator that they are meeting their duties by completing a ‘Declaration of Compliance’ within five months of the duties start date.

Ongoing Obligations

Once the Agencies’ chosen pension scheme has been set up and relevant members of staff are enrolled, the Agency will need to continue to meet its duties and obligations.

These will involve monitoring the age and earnings of existing and new staff to see if they need to be put onto the pension scheme.  Every three years any staff who left the pension scheme should be allowed to re-enrol.

Once Recruitment Agencies have chosen their pensions provider, those using TBOS for their back office can also benefit from the following services. TBOS will make deductions from employees when calculating their monthly salary, upload payroll information to their pension providers usually via their portal, and make payment to their pension provides on their behalf. If you are a Recruitment Agency interested in TBOS services, please call us on 0845 881 1112.