If an employee has a number of separate jobs, they may contribute for one, some or all of the jobs and opt out of those they do not wish to pay pension for. They will need assessed separately for each job when defining what category of worker they are in relation to that employment.
The Pension Regulator’s detailed guidance no. 2, paragraphs 67 – 69 state that if an employer has multiple contracts with the same individual, they will need to consider if the totality of those contracts constitutes a single employment relationship with the worker. The employer may wish to consider taking appropriate advice, if they are unsure.
Where the employer considers that a single employment relationship exists, they will need to treat all contracts as one employment. If this is not the case, they will need to treat each contract separately.
Employers will need to make a judgement on whether the contracts are separate or should be aggregated for automatic enrolment. They may wish to consider taking legal advice if unsure. From our experience if a member has more than one job and has a contract for each employment so that they could stop one and continue in another, that would not constitute a single employment relationship. Additionally, if a member could be made redundant in one job, but continue in the other job(s) it is unlikely that this could be considered a single employment relationship. In these cases the member will have multiple Scheme membership records.
If employers are satisfied that each job is entirely dependent on the other, and the roles could not be carried out by two separate employees, then perhaps this might indicate a single employment relationship and the member would only have one record in the Scheme.