In this edition
What's new at CAAT
GROWTHplus is here!
GROWTHplus Investment Account is an optional savings account for CAAT Pension Plan members to grow their tax-sheltered savings and benefit from CAAT’s investment returns. GROWTHplus complements the secure lifetime pension members have from CAAT. It offers a new addition to your total rewards package, supporting talent attraction and retention strategies.
- Enhanced employee benefit at no employer cost
GROWTHplus is a member-focused offering and there is no need for additional employer contributions.
- Doing more for your employees
GROWTHplus is an add-on that provides Plan members with the option to grow additional tax-sheltered savings and benefit from CAAT’s investment returns. It does not replace or change the defined benefit pension that members are earning or receiving today.
- No heavy lifting required
CAAT works directly with members who wish to participate in GROWTHplus.
The Quick Guide to GROWTHplus Investment Account provides employers with more details on this new offering, including answers to some of your frequently asked questions. Missed last month’s employer webinar? The recording is now available to watch.
Visit the GROWTHplus for Employers webpage to learn more today!
Questions?
Please send us an email at employer@caatpension.ca and a member of our team will connect with you.
Upcoming Plan changes
2025 is quickly approaching, and with it, valuable pension changes applying to both DBprime and DBplus. The new rates apply on the entire first pay processed in January 2025.
What’s changing?
DBprime
Member and employer contribution rates will decrease from 11.2% to 10.2% on earnings up to the Year’s Maximum Pensionable Earnings (YMPE) and from 14.8% to 13.8% on earnings above the YMPE.
Payroll systems will need to be adjusted to take the lower rate into consideration. The new rates apply on the entire first pay processed in January 2025. This means the new contribution rates will apply to the whole pay period if that pay period ends in 2025, even if the pay period includes days in 2024. For example, if your pay date is January 3, 2025, but the majority of the pay period is in 2024, the changes will apply for that whole pay period.
For employers that participate in the CAAT Retirement Compensation Agreement (RCA), contributions on RCA earnings will increase. Participating employers will receive additional communications with further details.
DBplus
The DBplus pension factor used to calculate pensions earned on or after January 1, 2025, will increase from 8.5% to 9.5%. Members will see their DBplus pensions grow over 10% faster, without changing their contribution amounts.
Similar to the change for DBprime, the new pension factor will apply to the whole pay period ending in 2025, even if the pay period includes days in 2024. Updates to payroll systems or HRIS may need to be made if the systems are used to calculate Pension Adjustments.
Questions?
For more information on the changes rolling out January 1, 2025, download the 2025 Plan Changes fact sheet on our Employer Resources webpage, or reach out to your Pension Analyst.
Power of Your Pension webinar
Is your organization getting the most out of your pension? Register for the Power of Your Pension webinar, offered in both English and French, and learn how the modern DB pension you offer supports your total rewards strategy!
CAAT’s pension education experts will share tips for using your pension to help your HR team attract top candidates, encourage employees to stay, and enhance your benefits package.
These sessions aren’t just for your HR and Total Rewards teams – if you know of a hiring manager or other co-worker who could also benefit from learning how to take advantage of the power of a DB pension, we encourage you to share the registration link with them.
November 20 - French webinar
Register
November 27 - English webinar
Register
Recruitment Toolkit customized sessions
Ready to enhance your recruitment, retention, and total rewards strategy? Did you know that you can request a call with one of our pension experts to support you in leveraging your CAAT pension to attract new job candidates?
During this 30-minute customized session, we will show you how to effectively use the Recruitment Toolkit on your Careers websites, along with other ways you can use the Plan to your advantage.
Book your session today by sending an email to debora@caatpension.ca!
Book a customized member webinar today!
At CAAT, we believe that the more members know about their defined benefit pension, the more they will value it. We offer customized sessions for employees to provide an opportunity to ask questions and learn about their CAAT pension. These presentations are delivered by top pension experts, covering a range of topics including:
- Retirement planning
- A future you can count on: Your CAAT pension
- DBprime service purchases
- DBplus pension purchases
Book a customized learning session for your enrolled and potential members today by emailing your request to:
Presentations
If you are an employer working with a CAAT administration partner, we highly encourage you to book a customized session for your members. Send in your request today by emailing us at presentations@caatpension.ca.
Enrolment best practices
Promptly enrolling eligible new hires in CAAT Pension Plan is the best way to start them on the path to a secure lifetime pension. We recommend asking your new employees the following questions to help avoid any issues arising with their enrolment:
- Are you currently employed anywhere else?
You may have a part-time employee who has another part-time job. If the other employer is a CAAT participating employer, this is called "concurrent employment" and may require special handling if the employee is enrolled in the Plan at the other employer. Please contact your Pension Analyst if you think this applies and they will help you with this situation.
- Have you ever worked for an employer that participated in the CAAT Pension Plan?
If so, your employee could be in one of three situations:
- The other employment was less than two years ago: The individual will still be within CAAT's Extension of Membership (EOM) period. Notify your Pension Analyst and they will search for the member in our system and transfer their membership under your organization.
- The other employment was more than two years ago:
- If they chose a deferred pension, notify your Pension Analyst, because this employee may be required to rejoin the Plan immediately.
- If they chose a commuted value, you should enrol any full-time employee as if they have never been a member of the Plan. Employees that work part-time or on contract basis have the choice to enroll (unless enrolment becomes mandatory in their jurisdiction of employment after a certain threshold, or they are required to join based on the terms of a Participation Agreement).
- The member is receiving a pension from CAAT Pension Plan: In this situation, notify your Pension Analyst.
- In the DBplus plan design, rehired retired members can choose to continue to receive their pension, or they can suspend pension payments, and resume contributing to the Plan.
- In the DBprime plan design, rehired retired members under age 65 must suspend their pension and resume contributing to the Plan. Rehired retired members aged 65-71 can choose to either continue to receive their pension, or to suspend their pension payments and resume contributing to the Plan.
- Will you reach age 72 in the next year?
Income tax legislation does not permit a person to participate in a registered pension plan beyond the end of the year they reach age 71. Do not enrol anyone in the Plan after November 1 of the year they reach age 71.
If you have any questions about enrolment, contact your employer Pension Analyst.
Updates and reminders
Annual contribution reconciliation process underway
This fall, you can expect to receive your annual contribution reconciliation from CAAT. We have been reviewing our process to make some improvements, which has shifted delivery to later in the year.
We anticipate that employers who only participate in the DBplus plan design and employers who are working with our administration partners will receive their packages in late October. College employers and those employers with both plan designs administered by CAAT will receive their packages up to the end of November.
The reconciliation process allows CAAT to confirm that contributions that should be credited to members’ accounts match up with the contributions actually received, or if there is a variance.
If a refund is due from CAAT, employers can take it as a credit against their next monthly remittance. For amounts due to CAAT, please submit your payment along with your monthly remittance as soon as possible after you have received the report.
Tips for year-end preparation
Read this if: you are an employer working directly with CAAT
As the days start getting shorter, it is a good time to start preparing for year-end pension administration activities.
Here are a few steps you can take to help us start processing annual pension statements:
- Check that all enrolments have been processed up to the year-end. If you are an employer who uses PAL, you can try out the new Employer reports function to download a report of all enrolled employees in CAAT’s data and check it against your own listing of eligible employees to identify any missed enrolments.
- Submit any leave forms required for leaves of absence that have end dates in 2024. Ensuring accurate and updated leave of absence records will give members all possible opportunities to purchase eligible leave periods.
- Inform CAAT of all terminations and retirements as soon as possible. Send all retirement requests at least three months before the member would like their pension payments to start.
Your Pension Analyst is available to answer any questions you may have during this process.
Non-contributing members reports due October 31
Read this if… you are an Ontario college employer
The non-contributing (NC) reporting process asks college employers to report to CAAT any other than regular full time (OTRFT) members who have not contributed to the Plan in the last 12 months. For example, you may have a contract employee whose contract has ended, but a termination of employment has not been reported to the Plan because it is not yet clear if they will be starting another contract.
Based on the data CAAT receives, we will follow up with you as needed and ensure members have important information on the options available to them during and after the Extension of Membership (EOM) period.
If you have up to 25 members to report, please send the data through PAL. If you have more than 25 members to report, please send a spreadsheet.
Thank you to all employers who submitted their last batch of data by the May 31 deadline. The next deadline in the cycle is October 31, 2024.
Portal corner
New feature: Employer reports
Read this if… you are an employer who works directly with CAAT and uses PAL
On September 25, CAAT added a new reporting feature to the employer portal. Employers can now run five different standard reports to support plan administration tasks and download the reports immediately.
The types of reports include:
- Active members: Displays all members who have an active status in the selected period and who have not terminated or retired.
- In-year data reported: Includes any payroll data provided to CAAT during a specified period. Employers can select only a calendar year as the date range. For Ontario college employers, the data presented will include members whom the employer would expect to be included in their DCT for the defined year.
- Other than regular full time (OTRFT): Displays all members who are OTRFT, including active members and members who had an event occur (e.g., termination, retirement, etc.) within a selected date range.
- Member enrolments: Displays all members who are enrolled with CAAT Pension Plan within a selected date range.
- Employment status: Displays all members’ employment status changes in the database within a selected date range. The report will show the employment status as of the period start date and any employment status changes that occurred up to the current date.
A fact sheet including tips for interpreting the reports is available from your employer Pension Analyst.
Member portal access for GROWTHplus
Read this if… you are an employer who works with an Administration Partner
Starting in October, if you are a participating employer administered with an Administration Partner, your members will have the option to access the member portal, My Pension, for the purpose of participating in the GROWTHplus Investment Account.
They will have access to a dedicated view specific to GROWTHplus content, including the dashboard, Document Centre, Message Centre and Help.
All members will receive a letter from CAAT, between late October and the end of November, containing their unique Member ID so they can register on the portal.
Note: Access to My Pension is for participating in GROWTHplus. For any defined benefit pension-related transactions, the current process and contact information remains unchanged.
2024 planned outages for PAL
PAL will be unavailable for maintenance from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the following days:
We want to hear from you
PAL is an innovative platform that continues to expand and put information into a single, unified experience for you. Over the course of this year, we’re planning on adding more exciting features to improve PAL functionality.
Your feedback is important to us. Have a question, comment or suggestion for us about PAL? Reach out to your Pension Analyst to share your thoughts at any time.
Upcoming events
Mark your calendar for these events. We send invitations straight to your inbox two weeks prior to the event and registration is available on our website.
November 18: Employer education sessions (for employers working directly with CAAT)
- Pensionable earnings, service, contributions and pension adjustments for employers with DBprime and DBplus—10 a.m.
- Pensionable earnings, contributions and pension adjustments for employers with DBplus only—2 p.m.
These training sessions are recommended for staff who administer payroll, leaves, terminations, retirements and/or deaths. Each webinar will also review the monthly remittance process.
Watch your email for an invitation!
December 10: Quarterly Employer Update, 1 p.m.
This webinar will update you about plan news, upcoming events, reminders and more.
For recordings of previous sessions, please visit our Employer Education Guide.
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