Topic key points
- As employees embark on their late career and retirement journeys, the role of managers and leaders becomes paramount in fostering a supportive and successful transition.
- As a coach, you are in a good position to help leaders recognise the importance of their role in retirement transitions.
- From empathetic communication/conversations and knowledge transfer to crafting retirement-friendly cultures, these resources can provide leaders with the tools they need to steer their teams through this crucial phase and ensure organisational resilience.
Introduction to Topic
Leaders play a crucial role when it comes to supporting employees as they transition through late-career and retirement. Some aspects that are relevant to leaders that you can explore in sessions include:
Understanding the important role of leadership during transition:
- Explore the pivotal role of managers and leaders in supporting employees through the retirement transition.
- Recognise the importance of proactive leadership in fostering a positive workplace culture surrounding retirements.
Help managers develop capability around retirement conversations
- Emphasise the significance of proactive and empathetic communication in addressing retiring employees’ needs.
- Equip leaders with strategies to navigate conversations about retirement.
Help leaders set up knowledge transfer and succession planning systems:
- Highlight the critical role leaders play in facilitating knowledge transfer and succession planning.
- Provide practical tools for leaders to capture and transfer institutional knowledge, minimizing the impact of employee retirements on the workplace. This may include formalising the knowledge or creating mentoring programs.
Help leaders create a retirement-friendly workplace:
- Showcase the benefits of cultivating a workplace culture that values and supports employees through the retirement process.
- Offer insights into policies and practices that contribute to a positive and inclusive retirement experience for both retiring employees and their colleagues.
- Offering retirement resources and workshops is a one way to help achieve this goal
Explore the concept of late-career and what it means
- The ‘normal’ stages of retirement are becoming less common as people navigate their late career differently.
- It can be helpful to educate leaders on the various paths through late-career and how they can support their employees in this period.
Process Considerations
- Many leaders are afraid of having retirement conversations for fear of being discriminatory. This is a common response, and it can be helpful to validate that experience while also providing some guidance around the benefits of proactive conversations and how to have them respectfully.
Resources on this page
- Designing good work, protecting your older workers
- Fitness for Work conversation guide
- Late career conversation guide
- NMHC Late Career and Retirement Transition Guide
- Late Career Navigation Whitepaper
- The Age Difference White paper
- Managing older workers business case
- Retirement conversation guide
- Retirement management guide
- Retirement policy guide
Copy for Clients
Retirement can be a challenging topic for leaders to navigate, but as we discussed, you play an important role in helping employees plan for and navigate a successful retirement. Please find attached some resources that you may find helpful in light of our conversation.