Tapping Into Retirement: Four Ideas About The Before and After

Reading through posts from another forum prompted a review of handling retirements and personnel within our senior workforce.  Employees tend to work in a vacuum of sorts.  We are aware people are retiring and we are notified of the date.  Suddenly, that day arrives and many forgot over time and voila, retirement arrives.

When retirement happens we lose a valuable asset on many levels.  Aside from the personal and emotional issues, and they too are very important to other workers, we lose an enormous amount of information and experience.  Information and experience that is not warehoused, documented, passed on, or outwardly valued.  As the workforce ages (your's truly included), even the aging groups forget to pass along experiences or knowledge (if you don't believe that, anyone over 55 that has not started writing about their lives to the younger members of their families are passing up a great opportunity.)

Back to our retiring group and their wealth of knowledge, how do we can that ripened information?  What has that person accomplished, learned, and experienced over their working lives (the personal issues are on another level.)

Two possibilities we need to understand about capturing that information depends on the working environment.

The employee that works alone (single person in the activities)

The employee that works in groups

If the employee works alone we need to understand their activities may have a language different from other workers.  The very culture of working independently (web master, secretary, school principal) creates contacts, languages, and knowledge that may not be shared with others.  Tapping into these personnel before retirement poses a problem for managers and others in the organization.

This requires leadership that becomes the investigative reporter.  Asking the pending retiree to write down their daily activities, daily contacts, weekly reports, etc., can save money in the long term.  When the pending retiree writes this information the manager, trainer, HR rep, whoever, needs to start asking questions.

Report A is due the second Tuesday of the month.  Alright, who gets it, what does it contain, what are the pluses and minuses of the report, where is it delivered, how many copies; you get the picture.  Asking these questions and investigating the routines can go a long way, especially in today's atmosphere.  Many companies cannot afford to hire people in advance and having this information will save both the ramping up period and the lost time from recovery.

If others work with the pending retiree, then there is at least a lesser problem of the culture turnover.  I have worked with people for years and not known much about their routines unless it crossed mine.  Six people in a shop all working on electronics but different equipment and different routines, contacts, reports, etc.

If this is your scenario then you have two possibilities (at least that is my count and you are probably smarter).  The first thing in this scenario is to meet with all the employees in the group.  Let them in on the reason for the meeting, that being to share information and gain that unknown for the advantage of the organization and group.  This both spotlights the retiree and highlights the idea of capturing the knowledge and experiences of the pending retiree.  These should be periodic meetings and not just a single flash.

Shadowing coupled with the first possibility of investigative reporting.  Letting other employees capture this places responsibilities on the group while gaining new skill sets.  If you are unfamiliar with the concept of shadowing, I recommend you read up on shadowing and how it can help you and your organization.

Mentoring is another method coupled with investigative reporting.  Mentoring is not too far fetched from shadowing. In fact we could probably find debate over one or the other, but suffice it to say when we have multiple words and definitions it is worth the outcome to discuss both.

The final option is one many do not consider for pending retirees.  I'm not sure of the costs and options and certainly someone could tell you about the procedures, but simply bringing the "now" retiree back on periodic events, meetings, gatherings is another possibility.  Again, I do not profess to know all about the process but I do know our past two presidents have called on previous presidents to help with world problems.  There are ways.

I hope this helps you set up a plan before planning is too late.  Take a few days with managers, trainers, HR, and legal reps to clear the pathway for your retirement plans.

Favorite Web Sites

http://www.khake.com/index.html

http://www.free-ed.net/free-ed/

http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm