Today Sees the Start of Living Wage Week Across the UK

By Sam Thomas | 31st October 2016 | 14 min read

To mark Living Wage Week across the UK, it's been announced that the rate of living wage will rise by 20p an hour.

The new rate is rising to £8.45 per hour, from its current £8.25, and for those living in London, the rate will rise by 35p to £9.75 an hour, the city's Mayor, Sadiq Khan, announced earlier today.

Katherine Chapman, Director of the Living Wage Foundation said "today's new living wage rates bring a welcome pay rise to thousands of workers across the UK.

"One in five people earn less than the wage they need to get by. That's why it's more important than ever for leading employers to join the growing movement of businesses and organisations that are going further than the government minimum and making sure their employees earn enough to cover the cost of living."

We’ve previously written about the Living Wage, and spoken about how it’s bringing forward auto enrolment compliance concerns, as people earn more but their employees aren’t prepared for the impact this has on workplace pensions.

Remember, all employees aged over 22 who primarily work in the UK must be assessed for eligibility with automatic enrolment each time your run your payroll, unless of course they’ve previously opted-out.

Your business may find that your employees who earned under the required £833.33 per month before April, may now become eligible for your company pension scheme – if this happens, your business has a legal requirement to communicate this to them and enrol them.

The Solution to Auto Enrolment Headaches

For many businesses, the time needed to assess every worker each pay period is one of the most strenuous requirements of auto enrolment. Fortunately, we have a solution – The IRIS AE Suite™.

The IRIS AE Suite™ works in the background whilst you run your payroll, automatically calculating each employee’s eligibility for pension enrolment each time you run your payroll. As the software performs the calculations automatically, changes in your payroll, for example the introduction of the National Living Wage, are taken into account and the IRIS AE Suite™ would automatically enrol any of your employees who may now be eligible. The software provides what we call a ‘zero additional effort’ approach to auto enrolment.

Why not book a free, no-obligation product demonstration to see how the IRIS AE Suite™ can help your business manage automatic pension enrolment?

Book My IRIS AE Suite Demo