With presenters from across Nest, the webinar covered upcoming pension regulation changes and a pension dashboard update. We covered how to signpost key information for your employees approaching retirement and a live demonstration on making changes on the Nest system.
The presentations and live demo are available below to watch again or share with colleagues:
Speakers :
David Knight – Head of Strategic Account Management
Paul Terry – Pensions Technical Manager
Jacquelyn Thompson – Retirement Proposition Manager
Gary Ball – Senior Technical Account Manager
The slides from the webinar are available here: April webinar slides
After the webinar we received some additional questions, answers can be found below:
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can a non-UK phone number be used for 2 factor authentication? | The system is set up to accept UK phone numbers only. |
| Do I need to auto enrol all employees or can they opt out? Also we do not have a work mobile to add so can we still do one time password (OTP)? | Any employee or worker who meets the qulaification criteria must be auto enrolled. Once they are auto enrolled they will be provided with a welcome pack which will explain their pension and how to opt-out if they want to. A worker cannot opt-out untill they have been enrolled. |
| If employees want to increase contributions is it best to do via payroll or for them to set up own direct debit? | Employees can only make additional contributions through payroll if the employer allows this. A payment straight from the employee's bank account can always be arranged by the worker using their online Nest account. Our experience is that members are more likely to pay additional contributions if the employer allows them to do this through payroll. |
| For employees who are of state pension age, do we still need to pay employers contributions? Also if they join after pensionable age - are they still included in Nest? | Existing Members on reaching State Pension age If an existing member reaches their state pension age you will need to continue paying employer contributions, unless they decide to opt out of their membership of the scheme, until age 75 when employer duties to do so cease. However, the individual requirements set out in contracts of employment will also need to be considered. Enrolment between State Pension age and 74 If an employee has reached State Pension age, they won’t be automatically enrolled into Nest. But, provided the employee earns £6,240 or more a year (tax year 2024/25), they have the right to opt in to the scheme. If they opt in, they’ll qualify for employer contributions. The £6,240 threshold is calculated by pay period, so in the period they request membership if say they were paid monthly, then provided they earned more than £520 in that period the employer is required to opt the worker in. Further details are available here. If they earn less than £6,240 - but calculated based upon pay frequency (tax year 2024/25), you must give you access to a pension to save into if they ask you to. You must also arrange for you to join. But employer contributions are not required to be made. If 75 or over Automatic enrolment doesn’t apply to workers aged 75 or over. The tax benefits of saving into a pension scheme stop at age 75. |
| Why are you referring to Pensions as a benefit? | Employers are required to contribute to a pension for qualifying workers since the introduction of Auto Enrolment. Pensions prior to this were provided at the discretion of the employer and some employers still offer pensions to all workers, not just those who qualify and often with benefits above the minimum levels and so, pensions are often referred to as a benefit of your employment. Without the employment the pension would not be provided. |
| Can we add a second number to get the OTP? | If you add a second delegate to the account you can then have different phone numbers for each delegate. |
| I've got a schedule outstanding in my contributions for the 4th and 5th April but no information in there, it's telling me it's due, what do I do with this? | Please complete the information for the members or use the options button to select the correct option for each member if contributions are not due and then, when details are provided for all members on the schedule, save the changes and submit the schedule. Any members who require action will appear at the top of the contribution schedule and if you click on the "more details" button in the yellow box it will tell you what actions are outstanding. All members must be validated and contributions received before the schedule will move to paid. You can use the payment history button to see if contributions are already in the payment process, if they are, the schedule will move to paid when the contributions are received and allocated. |
| Why are Payment Schedules not in alphabetical order ? | Payment schedules appear in order of the oldest first and newest last. They are arranged by payment due date but you can arrange them by Earnings period if you press the orange V next to earnings period in the headings. |
| What's the best way to find a suitably qualified pensions advisor to come in and provide some general advice to employees about the workplace's various pensions options? Or is this approach not recommended? | Unbiased.com offers a list of financial advisers in your area. You could also contact The Money and Pension Service, offered by government for help and advice - they have useful information on their website. |
| Can Director and owner increase percentages of employer's contribution for some employees or for himself? | Employers can increase contributions above the minimums but they cannot fall below the minimum levels. |
| Is it possible for an employer to make a one off payment to an employees pension; i.e. instead of paying a bonus, the employer would pay an equivalent amount directly into the employee's pension? And if so, how is this done? | An employer can make a one off payment to a worker's pension with Nest. The simplest way to do this is to add it to the normal contributions. If you would prefer to pay it as a separate item you can use an exception schedule. More information can be found here. |
| Is there any benchmarking information about how the Nest investment funds performance compare with other providers. | Yes. To see how Nest investments have performed this year visit our fund factsheets page. The latest Corporate Adviser Pensions Average (CAPA) shows that Nest is delivering returns above the market average and doing so at significantly lower levels of investment risk, particularly when compared with the other top 10 defined contribution pension providers. |
| We are a bureau, how can you remove clients you no longer process the payroll for? We try to ask the new provider to remove us but it doesn't always work out this way? | Information on removing an employer from Nest Connect account can be found here. Before taking any action, please ensure another user (delegate) has access to the account. |
| We have an employee that have two jobs and both employers are with Nest. How do they merge their pots? | If a worker has two employments and both employers are using Nest for pension contributions the Nest system will pick up that the contributions are for the same worker and it will add them to the same account. If the member looks online at the account they will be able to see the contributions of both employers. This will happen if both of the employers use the same information to enrol the member, Name, Gender, NI number and date of birth. If any of the information does not match then two accounts will be set up and the member would need to call us to merge the accounts. |
| What do you need to do when you retire to claim the Nest pension? | Please visit our Helpcentre page which talks through the options available to members at retirement. |
| When an employer leaves I have experienced repeated functionality difficulties with the website. Unless you save and view in a prescriptive/unobvious combination - you can not confirm that the Employee has left. It looks like a contribution is overdue but no amount is owing | When an employee leaves you can let us know in the contribution schedule for the period in which the member leaves. You can do this by finding the member in the contribution schedule and using the options button to select "No future contributions payable" or by adding the information to a contribution file before uploading this to Nest. |
| If you reduce your working week to 3 days instead of 5 days does this reflect on the amount of pension you receive? | The amount of pension contributions is based on the workers earnings so any changes which alter the workers earnings will alter their pension contributions. If their earnings fall below the lower earnings limit contributions will be zero. |
| When I log in to Nest, I don't have the Employer home tab that was on screen during the demonstration in the webinar. I do have Home, Contributions, Workers & Mailbox - why am I seeing a different view? | This may be because you only have access to one Nest account. |
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