Retired One Year!

A couple of weeks ago, I received a request to take an on-line survey from my former employer. The survey targeted recent early retirees and tried to determine not only why we retired early, but whether the company could have done anything to keep us longer. I found the survey to be well-designed and interesting. It made me really search my own soul.

I’ve been retired a whole year now, and sometimes retirement still doesn’t seem natural to me. Most of my adult life, I enjoyed working and got a lot of self esteem from my job. But by the time I decided to retire, that joy of working was gone, for the most part. Would I have stayed on the job longer if offered part-time hours with medical benefits? Part-time with a full pension? How about a paid sabbatical? Contract work? These survey questions probed to the heart of the matter: did I really want to stop working altogether, or did I just need more time off?

Continuing to work at the same job part-time might have given me more time to exercise, cook, and go to the beach, but I doubt that I would have enjoyed the job itself any more. So I might have considered it, but probably wouldn’t have accepted a part-time offer. The idea of a sabbatical or contract work was even more interesting. Taking a break from work altogether could certainly help in a situation of job burn-out or long-term stress. But once again, I probably would have turned down such an offer after seriously thinking about it. In the end, my motivation for retiring was not stress or burn-out as much as lack of passion for what I was doing.

I applaud the company for finally realizing that it needs to take steps to retain its most experienced people. I have no doubt that many people considering retirement would be receptive to a phased, work-to-retirement option of part-time work, contract work, or a paid sabbatical. But the key to retaining employees, retirement age or not, is a little more complicated than offering benefits and incentives.