Hello Everyone,
I expect you're starting to see the combined impact of the aging workforce, struggling economy, abolished DRA, increasing state retirement ages and the other pending pension changes on employee choices as they reach the traditional "retirement age".
I support an organisation where responsibility for retirement planning lies primarily with the employee and we would typically only get involved in a reactive basis (e.g. if an age related illness impacted on their ability to work).
However, when you combine the factors listed above and the fact that we are a manufacturing organisation (requiring precision and speed related capability) there is clearly a practical and ethical business need to ensure employees are able to retire when they want/need to.
I'm therefore investigating how best to support our employees towards and through this transition.
My question to the community is - what (if anything) do you do to support an employee towards retirement?
- Do you provide financial guidance?
- Do you provide re-skilling or outplacement support?
- Do you provide health or lifestyle advice?
- Are these provided in-house or outsourced?
- At what age are they offered?
Many thanks,
Ruth
Replies
Hi Ruth
I suppose we are very different in how we approach this, since we are not Manufacturers. However we are a confederation for manufacturing, so I have heard of some companies implementing increased vigilance with occupational health to support the transition between work and retirement. I have also heard of some companies offering cash incentives to leave earlier if the company feel they are not fit for role. I'm sure some varied opinions on this will exist.
For us, we simply make the individual aware we are here for any support they need. We allocate a Buddy towards the end of their working period, to help with the handover covering a longer span of time. We aim to make them aware that we can offer financial support from various external services who would come on site to meet the individual, however, we don't want to patronise them in suggesting they wont know how to cope.
Like you say, things are changing and these will be things we have to think about more so perhaps more support should indeed be a standard.
Debbie
Thank you Debbie,
It sounds like you have a good culture of support.
A goal I have is to remove the sense of shock employees inevitability feel when they "just arrive" at a point when they realise they need to leave.
Ruth
HI Ruth
An interesting one the Company I worked for would typically provide these only if the employee was at risk. Although we did also offer pre-retirement support which was outsourced but only once the individual has approached us to confirm that they wished to retire, so the age would vary.
Perhaps somwhere like AgeUK could also provide a view?
I hope this helps
Regards
Sarah
Hi Sarah,
Thank you for your response.
Could I ask which provider you used, and whether you received any feedback from the employee who went?
I was also wondering how you would classify a person as being "at risk".
Thanks again,
Ruth
Hi Ruth
We used Right Management and the people I spoke to informally were all very positive about their experiences. At risk meant at risk of redundancy so we used right management for outplacement support.
Regards
Sarah
Thank you Sarah.