Is my employer being a bit tight?

[ThreeLittleDots]

I work as a part-time solo receptionist at a tiny dental practice, alongside a handful of other part time staff.

Duties include the usual plus cleaning for £9 per hour, which is slightly above minimum wage for my age.

Other jobs of this level usually include perks such as workplace pension etc, and I have a tiny amount in NEST from previous employers.

At approx £7500 pa actual pay I earn more than the 'lower earnings level' for pension contributions, but less than automatic enrolment (£10K). My employer doesn't have a company pension scheme.

Am I entitled to / should I rock the boat by asking that they enrol me on one, even though they don't have one? My contract says they monitor staff's earnings and if it goes above the level for auto-enrolment then they will enrol us - but I know they deliberately avoid employing full-time staff.

Owners lovely, paid for Xmas meal & give staff birthday gifts.

DH will have a pretty decent private pension, plus our two state pensions. Still have 30 years of working before we retire.

WIBU to ask that they set up and pay into a small pension like NEST or similar? Or would this be something I'm not entitled to, or indeed rude as I accepted the job knowing that there would be no pension contributions?

Yes they’re being tight and yes you should ask for a basic benefit. If you don’t ask you don’t get! Are there other similar roles in your area you could apply for?

Thanks, I've been semi looking for a non-customer-facing role but I'm otherwise pretty happy there... It's more of a niggle of potential unfairness really, but I'm not certain of their legal obligations.

My reading of the HMRC website and this slightly more helpful page is that you are entitled to ask to join a pension scheme and to receive employer contributions: www.litrg.org.uk/tax-guides/employment/pensions-and-employees/what-automatic-enrolment-employees#toc-what-if-i-am-not-currently-eligible-for-auto-enrolment-

Ah thank you - that's a helpful page to show them if they're not sure of their obligations

Nothing to lose by asking but if they avoid employing full-time staff to avoid paying pensions then it's unlikely to get you anywhere.

If you earn more than £10k they should automatically enroll you to workplace pension and pay a contribution. If you earn between £6240 and £10k you can voluntarily opt in to work place pension and they have to pay the contribution. Less thrn £6240 they don't have to contribute

So they should have workplace pension in place but whether you can benefit from it depends on salary

And now I've just read your post properly i can see you earn 7.5k so yes i would ask them to enroll you as you are missing out on 3% (i think) contributions from them

You have a right to opt in.

£7500 gross, is £625 monthly.
LEL is £520 monthly, so your employer may only pay 3% on £105 monthly, and you pay 5%. This would be using Qualifying Earnings method of pension calculation. So would cos them £3.15 a month and involve a little bit of payroll time, though some systems can automate it with Nest.

Hmm, that's what I'm also wondering CatJumperTwat.

I've just used the calculator on MoneyHelper and it shows that at minimum contributions of 3% of my income over the £6.2K threshold, they'd be contributing just £3.12 per month, which doesn't seem worth it perhaps, especially as their xmas and birthday treats are worth more than £37 per year.

Ha cross-posted but thanks everyone