Moving into Retirement in the 21st Century
www.positionignition.com st Moving into Retirement in the 21 Century . Position Ignition 2010. All Rights Reserved
Introduction Retirement is a huge step for anyone. Individuals who take the step feel a sense of inevitability; that something is being lost and it is the end of an era in their lives. You’ve put so much effort into your career, but you feel like there is still so much left to do- as if you haven’t fulfilled your potential. Whilst this may be true for many of us, it is also the beginning of something new – a period in our lives which we can look forward to with anticipation and excitement. We feel like we want to put our life experience to good use, to convert it into something of value, to contribute, and to fulfil ourselves. Position Ignition is an expert in helping individuals to take the next step in their careers and in their lives. Our approach to career work has focused on the value of the individual at every stage of their life and none more so than the transition into retirement. Our transition from work into retirement is being affected now by a number of issues; changes in legislation, demography and pensions, as well as health and social issues too. These matters are not always easy for us to grasp and not easy for employers to manage. They are taking us to a really challenging and exciting place in terms of how both individuals and organisations respond. Elder workers are in a stronger position to influence employers in terms of work flexibility. Employers have to respond to new legislation and to changed circumstances. These new arrangements create opportunities for everyone.
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In this eBook we explore why things can be different, what is happening that is changing the landscape and how we as individuals can approach this key period of our lives in a different way. This Position Ignition eBook will: •
Take you through these issues so you have a greater understanding of how they affect you
•
Show how the changes can benefit you and your employer alike
•
Help you to make the most of your wisdom, experience and maturity on this journey ahead
•
Explain why planning what you want is key for you
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Guide you to getting what you want
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Pinpoint common mistakes to avoid.
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Contents Imagination: The Non-Economic Worker
5
Heading for your Retirement-How it was in the Past
6
Why the Journey Ahead is Crucial for You
6
Funding the Later Years
7
Your Situation is Changing
8
Are You Staying or Leaving?
8
Career Planning and You
9
Your Value to your Employer
10
Systems under Pressure
11
Why is This Important to Me?
12
Wisdom is Underrated
12
The Employer and the Employee
13-14
Why Planning What You Want is Key
15
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Planning a New Journey
15
Things to Consider
16-17
Examining Your Options
18
What You Need to Do
19
How Can this be Good for Me?
20
The Respect Agenda
20
Thinking it through
21
Areas of Focus
22-27
Knowing what’s Important
28-29
Common Mistakes
30
Conclusion
31
What Next?
32
Contact Us
33
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Imagination: The Non-Economic Worker Many of us are familiar with, and knowledgeable about, what are called “simple societies”. These societies tend to be relatively small, rural, and agricultural based. Someone in the” third phase” of their life has a value in their community that is hardly reflected in what we call mature societies”. The contribution that elders in simple societies make in terms of community is that they care for the children and home, enabling younger, more energetic adults to go out and work on the land. Within the community, these elders have respect. People respect the advice they give based on the longevity of their years. We have a lot to learn from that in terms of negotiating the journey ahead. Today, in our society, employees are little more than economic workers, i.e. people who go out and sell their labour. Following school or university, we become a wage slave until we hit retirement age. And then you retire and do something else. ut what? A lot of us end up being relatively inactive in retirement. There is, therefore, a huge pool of human resource that is massively underused. Not only do individuals in this position feel like they’re not doing much, but also at a societal level, we’re not tapping into that pool of energy, wisdom and talent as much as we could be. Some elders feel like they’re healthy and capable of carrying on being active, and it’s true that the more you do, the more you can enjoy retired life. We’ve got 25-30 years of life after work on average, so it’s worth planning how we’re going to use them well. If you have a plan for retirement, you increase your chances of enjoying it. You’ll also alleviate the sense of responsibility your family feels for you and will be putting less pressure on community agencies such as Social Services and the NHS. Look at the potential there may be! Even if you’re intending to keep on working beyond retirement age, it helps to have a plan to discuss with your employer. Although organisations need to recognize that they have an opportunity to be imaginative in how they use their older employees, you can help them be innovative by sharing with them a clear plan detailing what you want . If you have such a plan, your employer should be interested and more than willing to accommodate you.
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Heading for Retirement in the Past Why the Journey Ahead is Crucial for you Do you remember how we used to refer to the imbalance in the demographic profile as the “demographic time bomb”? Even though we’re into that period now, it does not feel like a time bomb. Has the problem gone away or is something else happening? Perhaps you prefer the reference to this issue, in this period, as a slumbering giant. The issue exists but the slumbering nature of it is helping to keep the significance and impact of it hidden from our view. The oldest of the baby boomers have started to leave the workplace. The oldest of them is now in their mid-60s and the biggest bulge in the UK’s demographic profile is moving into retirement potentially in the next 10 - 15 years. This situation pertains in many Western industrial societies. The UK Government is removing the Default Retirement Age (DRA) in 2011. Why are they taking this step and what does it mean for you? The first reason is economic. Within the context of the burden of national debt, it makes sense to have you, as an older worker, continuing to contribute in the economy and making a contribution by paying taxes. The costs from the public purse for pensions, benefits and healthcare will also be affected positively if more “post retirement/post 65” workers continue working. The impact in the economy will be significant for different reasons however. Firstly, more workers, who would normally have retired will have the option to stay on in employment. Secondly and inevitably, with a substantial proportion of the workforce retiring, it’s going to create skill shortages in some industries, sectors and organisations that are going to be very difficult to fill. Industries more dependent on engineering and science disciplines, for example, will find it harder to recruit employees as the volumes of workers coming into the labour market with the right qualifications are lower. Those organisations with stronger ties into local schools or, nationally, with colleges and universities will benefit from their stronger brands and relationships.
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It is for these reasons that your attitude, as a baby boomer, to retirement is interesting. Many of us are counting down to retirement because we grew up believing it was our right to retire at 60 or 65. Our mindset has always been fixed on whichever particular date we were due to retire. But another key issue has come into play in last couple of years that makes things less straightforward.
Funding the Later Years Pension fund values between 2008-2010, may be up to 30% lower than prior to the global financial crash, according to some estimates. Recessionary pressures on corporations over the past 2 years might be easing, but the process is a fairly slow, circumspect one. Government intentions to manage public sector spending is going to create huge downwards pressures on the labour market, which will eventually lead to many in public organisations going into retirement early. Many others will lose their jobs. The Baby Boomer generation has grown up with final salary pension schemes that guarantees a level of earnings throughout your retirement. This benefit is generous and looks even more so in current conditions. However, many of the larger pension funds are underfunded, putting pressure on the operating companies to pay into the pension schemes, which have significant deficits. If you have a final salary pension, you are in the stronger financial position for your retirement years. Those with money purchase schemes or with no pension arrangements are,clearly, less so. Pension values for the latter have reduced and many will need to stay working and earning for longer. Given this situation, a number of employees are set to take advantage of the phasing out of the DRA by staying on in their jobs. The Government is also making it easier for older workers to work without the imposition of too much tax on earnings and benefits. For instance, no one over the age of 75 will have to pay any tax on the first £10,000 of their annual income. 7 www.positionignition.com Moving into Retirement in the 21st Century Copyright Position Ignition Ltd 2012. All Rights Reserved
Your Situation is Changing Are You Staying or Leaving? The impact of some of us staying on longer in industries/organisations where there are skills shortages is a good thing. Mature employees staying in work benefits the employee, employer and economy as a whole but there are a couple of things to consider. Line managers may not want older workers to stay as it may prevent younger candidates and others, returning parents for example, from getting jobs. It shuts down options in the labour market in this respect. On the flip side, those who the boss wants to keep hold of may be all set to leave if we feel we already have enough money for the retirement years. Employers may be caught between less good performing employees staying and good ones leaving. Employer and employee relations have always been based on some form of contract. There are two elements to any work related contract; the legal and the psychological. The legal is the hard and transparent contract that we receive when we are employed. It contains your offer of the job together with your terms and conditions – the hours you will work and the amount that you will be paid. Just as important to us though is the psychological contract. This starts with that warm feeling that we had when we decided to work for this organisation. Over time, whilst the legal contract changes little, the psychological contract can change massively. It is in this area of psychological contract, that the opportunity for The Journey Ahead is most potent.
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Career Planning and You In Position Ignition’s experience, career planning helps you to understand how to get clear about your options, balancing it all in terms of your health and your own personal plans. You can then be supported as you negotiate what you want, both at home and with the boss within this new context. The opportunity for personal planning, of your transition into retirement, should be based within a holistic programme that will strengthen your commitment to your organisation and also help to build out the brand value of your employer. Managers’ capability in dealing with the transition of colleagues into their retirement is fundamental. In spite, or maybe because of, legislation in the last 30 years, the number of employment tribunals has been rising. In fact, according to the Tribunal Service, there was a massive 56% increase in tribunals, in the year up to March 2010. Insensitive employers, who do not adhere to good processes, will continue to land many organisations in court with their employees. Not only should line managers be listening and talking to you, they should take the opportunity to understand your values and intentions. Your employer needs to realise that it’s going to become more crucial for them to treat (maybe start treating) you with respect. Not on an ad hoc basis, but as part of new policy and processes that will need to be created by your organisation’s leaders. If your organisation has not provided you with any help with your transition into retirement, do not ignore it. You are entitled to spend that time to reflect and evaluate what you want from your future years to come. It’s important to give yourself the opportunity to figure out what you want and to be clear about what will work best for you. Having a career plan can take away a lot of confusion, nervousness, stress and worry that may creep up on you as you get older and get closer to needing to make a change. There is no right time to make a career plan. It is up to you when you want to start thinking about it but the earlier you start shaping it, the earlier you can start putting it into action. Getting the balance right between our work and the rest of our life responsibilities and interests continues to be a challenge throughout our lives. When we reach our later years, it becomes even more important to us as it is our chance to start doing the things that we haven’t yet managed to slot into our lives or make time for. It is easy to let work take over but at some point there will need to be this transition and the inevitable changes that occur. Making sure that you 9 www.positionignition.com Moving into Retirement in the 21st Century Copyright Position Ignition Ltd 2012. All Rights Reserved
are fully aware of what can and will happen, and how best to manage it so that you get the best outcome for you, will be crucial if you want to be in control of where you are heading and how your life will ultimately be. During and beyond your working years.
Your Value to your Employer For some team leaders, keeping somebody on a part time basis may prove to be unacceptable because of the type of operational work that they do. In this case, utilising these individuals elsewhere in the organisation or even offering their skills and expertise to a market outside of the enterprise might be an option. For organisations so minded, this is an opportunity for more thorough workplace planning and a chance to re-address any potential skills imbalances there may be. It can allow you, as an older worker, the chance to undertake different and meaningful work and to utilise specific skills that are in demand both within and outside the organisation. When you are clear about your plans, there is an opportunity for you to spend more time doing the things that you enjoy and are best at, rather than the things you aren’t so interested in. If you are smart about understanding your strengths, the skills and expertise that you have gained and where these can best fit in to and benefit your or other organisations, you will be able to harness what you have learnt and what you have to offer effectively. You will be helping your organisation to utilise your core talents, abilities and assets, whilst at the same time allowing yourself to do what you will naturally be more inclined to do. The areas that are perhaps not your forte can then be re-distributed and allocated elsewhere. It is definitely worth understanding the value that you have and can add to your employer. If you are clear and confident about your value, you can help them to understand and appreciate this value too. It will then be possible for you to manoeuvre yourself into a much more suitable role which focuses on quality rather than quantity work, and lets you do the things you are good at and where you can have the most positive impact on the organisation.
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Systems under Pressure As much as employers must start seeing things from your point of view, you may also find it useful in your planning to understand things from their side. Employers’ systems regarding payment conventions, equal pay, management systems, training, and planning are all potentially under pressure. For example, if you’re working full time and being paid a certain amount a year, but then you decide you want to go part time,the focus of your work will be on what you’re strongest at. The value of your part time work could be proportionately higher and you might be able to argue that your employer could pay you well because you’re concentrating on your area of strength. But that might be difficult for your employer to accept. Also, how are you going to be included in your organisation’s bonus system? What’s going to happen with your pension payments? Organisations continuously face the quality of relationship between a boss and their subordinates (what is referred to as engagement). Since computer systems have become more advanced and play a larger part in every organisation, the communication between boss and worker has diminished; not because the boss is worse, but because there are different pressures on them. The sense that, as a modern manager with all this technology at your fingertips, you’ve got to be on top of everything all of the time, is counterproductive to the habit of spending quality time communicating with your team. If you don’t talk and you don’t listen, you don’t find out about your staff and what they want/need. One result of this can be organisations or managers who are resistant to change, confrontational discussions and to flexible working. They may also not be very aware of what your needs, concerns and situation are. It is not that they do not care necessarily, but it will be due to some of these pressures which will be concerning and distracting them from paying real attention to your needs and what is important to you. Getting your organisation and managers onside can require some delicate manoeuvring and planning. It can be helpful to have an external Guide support you through this transition. (see Position Ignition’s site for more details on how we can support you with this)
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Why is This Important to Me? Wisdom is underrated In the modern industrial world today, wisdom is an undervalued concept. We tend to be much more interested in fast-moving, fluctuating, exciting information, trends and products driven along by speed of change in technology and media interest. Concepts like wisdom tend not to be in fashion in Western industrial societies. Up to now, we’ve been using the word “older” a lot in this eBook, but the term “elder” is an equally valid way of describing you and what you represent. Someone who’s described as “old” in our society tends to be someone whose perceived value is defined by age. In simple societies, communities are quite small; everybody knows each other. They continue to live their lives in a simple way. What you see in their social structure is a completely different, more positive value given to wisdom. In these societies, age is revered.
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The Employer and the Employee We accumulate wisdom in two ways primarily - through our experiences and through getting older. Maybe these are the same. But maybe not... They do run hand in hand: As we experience life, our judgement increases and is based on our ability to understand and make sense of the experiences. Organisations have a tendency not to look at the value of wisdom in terms of how it can grow and sustain them. Instead they tend to focus on the youth coming through and at a higher level, achievers who lead the business. At one level this is good thinking; it’s just that there’s not enough emphasis on making the most of wisdom organisationally and individually. There’s potential here, to use that human resource of wise people in an imaginative and creative way. There used to be a sense that if you worked in an organisation for a long time, at some point it became clear to you that you were no longer valued; you just became part of the furniture. And yet, if you were energised by the organisation you worked in and the managers were genuinely as energised by the wisdom you’ve accumulated, how different working within the organisation might be. If your wisdom were to be respected, valued and used, what could your organisation achieve? In the world of work, if you’re listened to and understood, what potential options and opportunities might there be? How often do we ask that question? If you work with a medium-sized organisation in a small town, there may be a strong link with schools in the local area. If you move to working less than full-time within your organisation, you may choose to put some voluntary time in to go into the school to do this community work. You’d have the time to do this, you’d enjoy doing so and you’d be re-engaging yourself.
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Too often, organisations can either dismiss or make you feel unappreciated and undervalued. As you get older you might start to feel like you are no longer in touch with the times. Technology moves on so quickly and younger generations keep coming into the organisation and changes continue to occur all around you. It can make you feel uneasy and sometimes as though you are “passed the times”. However, it is important to remember and to keep reminding yourself of the value that you have built up and continue to have in your role and to your organisation. The experience, expertise and insight you have gained are unique to you. Your knowledge and know-how deserve respect. In some cases, the place where you are working will have people who understand and acknowledge this. In others, they will perhaps need to be reminded of this fact with an acute articulation of the value you bring to them. Unfortunately, for a few businesses they may never recognise or comprehend the real value of their older workforce, however ultimately their business will suffer given their lack of innovation and creativity in harnessing this brilliant pool of resource.
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Why Planning What You Want is Key Planning a New Journey For the most part we are not good at career planning at any stage of our life. Although it’s a fundamental skill, unless we’re born to be good at taking control of our career, we’d rather just set sail and hope. Retirement is a key transition point in our lives. It’s one that you ultimately have little choice about. For men it may be the single most important transition point since starting their first job. Women, often, have been through more transitions if they have left the workplace for children and then come back. For most of us coming to this point in our life is a real chance to plan a new journey. A chance also to plan the period ahead with your life partner. If you are on your own, it’s a chance to take stock and work through how you want these years ahead to be for you. On any journey that we take, we spend time planning and preparing ourselves. On a trip abroad, we organise our passport, foreign currency, special equipment and so on. The journey towards retirement is much more significant: This journey is far more emotional and much more dependent on relationships, specifically the relationship with your spouse. For those approaching retirement without a life partner, the issues to plan for may be even starker.
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Things to Consider There are various potential situations to be aware of and to watch out for. The most likely of these scenarios is that you hit your late 50s without having thought about the journey ahead. The only thing you might have considered is pension and finance arrangements, which are, for most people, the primary trigger for thinking about retirement. As the DRA is removed, there’ll be less of a trigger because your employer will just assume that you’ll carry on working unless you tell them differently. This is something you’ve got to watch out for or your employer will continue to believe you’re happy continuing what you’re doing, when actually you’ve never thought about whether you’re happy or not. In your work, you may spend a lot of time travelling, or moving physically between one of your organisation’s sites and another. It may be that you have quite a long commute. Whilst all of these scenarios were very easy to handle when you were 30 or 40, they may not be easy to do in your 60s. Be aware that you are going through a natural aging process and that you also have the chance to step back, think, and plan for a transition into a new time in your life. Yes, people might be thinking about finances, but they may not be thinking hard enough about their health and general wellbeing. This isn’t just about how fit they are or how good their diet it. In terms of wellbeing, it may be to do with your family and how much you’re needed or want to be involved in activities such as caring for siblings or being grandparent to your child’s children. How pleasurable would it be for you to spend routine time with your grandkids as they’re growing up! This would be helpful to your family and also useful for your health, as you would be keeping active and keeping mentally stimulated.
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Curiously, as the retirement age is lifted and you don’t need to think about retiring, you need to think about retirement more! Here’s a summary of some of the things you could be thinking about: •
What are you doing to plan retirement? Anything?
•
Make sure your employer knows what you’re going to do when you hit 65
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What can’t you manage as well as when you were younger?
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Take a step back and take the time to consider what is going to be a major life transition out of full time work.
•
Don’t forget to think about your health and wellbeing, as well as finances.
•
How can you add value to your family, as you transition out of work?
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Examining your Options Once you’ve considered these issues, examine the options available to you. If you want to keep on working as an elder, but you have reduced physical ability, think creatively about what value you could add to a role. The technology exists for you to be able to contribute as an economic worker to your job through desktops, netbooks, Skype and mobile phones. You can spend just one hour a day doing something that will be of value to your organisation. Additionally increasing proportion of being working with computers only-knowledge workers so best candidates for carrying on. Additionally, an increasing proportion of employees have been working exclusively with computers. These "knowledge workers" are the best candidates for carrying on beyond the traditional retirement age as they have the know-how to operate in the technology-dependent workplace There are many ways that you can reduce the amount of time spent working in an office or directly for your organisation, but where you can still be connected to them and be a part of what’s going on for them. It can help to get clear about what you want generally, then bring it back and focus in on what that means you want from your work. Then once you are clear, it is important to communicate this to your colleagues and managers. Often doing all of this alone can be very challenging and it can be hard to think ‘outside of the box’ when you’re still going to work every day, following the same routine as before. It can be helpful to work with someone outside of your organisation, to help you re-examine your options and start figuring out what to do in order to make this shift really work for you. It will also bring in some fresh thinking about how to best harness the skills and interests you have. Then when you are ready, having someone help you prepare for discussions with your boss can also really help to make sure that you get the outcome that you want. In some cases, if appropriate, an option for you may be to consider transferring your experience and knowledge to other roles, such as: •
Non-executive director
•
Trustee
•
Advisory body member 18 www.positionignition.com Moving into Retirement in the 21st Century Copyright Position Ignition Ltd 2012. All Rights Reserved
•
School governor
If you want to move from full-time work to that sort of thing it usually takes years to position yourself to do it, so it’s worth starting the plan now.
What You Need to Do So what are the key things that you need to do at this point? Some key points to think about are: • How long are you planning to continue working • How much time do you want to put into it • What you judge to be optimal in terms of your health • How much time you want for your work in line with your other commitments - to your family and other interests • How much money do you need or want to earn All of these issues are personal. There is no template for creating what will suit us all. Notice also that money and other workrelated rewards that you might want, appear below other bigger issues on the list. Herein lays the paradox that most of us encounter when it comes to the planning. While money is important and can be a key driver for helping us decide when we retire, it’s rarely as important as the other things we mention here in terms of your overall wellbeing and happiness.
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How Can This be Good for Me? The Respect Agenda At the moment there is an unusual relationship between an employer and employee. When it comes to contracts, the financial and legal sides of them have been in place for many, many years. However, the psychological element of the contract is more inconsistent. How would you feel about your employer, if you were promised a certain type of job, only for it to turn out that you’re not doing the sort of work that you expected to be doing? This isn’t a legal or contractual issue, but it is about why you were persuaded to take the job in the first place. In this situation, it puts the employee-employer relationship into a different and more equal space. Your employer can no longer control the end of your working contract. You now have choice. In order for this relationship to work satisfactorily, the employee and employer need to talk and to agree and execute a plan that’s acceptable to both you and them. To many employers, their workers have been an expendable resource. They are not charities and they have to do what is best for their shareholders (or the public) - depending on their status. As swings in the economic cycle affect their success, people need to be let go – paid off and/or made redundant. Employers may also get rid of people for different reasons, such as a worker becoming “too old”. However, a new agenda is looming; one in which employers will need to respect their workers – their elder colleagues. Elders now have the choice of when to retire. Employers will need to listen. As an elder, with all of your wisdom and experience, you deserve respect, but at the same time you’ve got to earn it. We may well want to work beyond 65, but what are we showing our employers to convince them that we can? We need to have a plan that illustrates what we want to do and that will make employers willing to invest money in and give us time and space for. However, it’s equally important that the organisation knows how to deal with your plan and how to be flexible in accommodating it for their own benefit, and yours.
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Thinking it through Many of us are not clear about what we want to do, which direction to travel in, what our overall aims are…and in fact everything else that follows on from those main objectives. The chance to have time and space to think, with your life partner or close friends and family, is incredibly precious. Of course we need to deal with our financial situation but to make that the most dominant issue is really missing the opportunity to think through your journey ahead. Given this unique and luxurious situation where you have choice, it’s crucial that you use your time well. If you’re wise you will look at this transition a long time ahead; probably years ahead. If your employer is wise they will precipitate this process by giving you that chance to think these fundamental issues through.
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Areas of Focus The key elements that you’re likely to focus on are set out below and in each case you’ll want to think about what change you would like to see and what you can achieve during the journey ahead: •
Work – for how much longer?
•
Health
•
Family Time
•
Career
•
Community Time
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Work – for how much longer? How long we want to continue working will be influenced by the job we’re in, the boss we have, the team we work as part of, how long we’ve been with organisation and how we’re feeling about continuing working at all. It’ll also need to fit in with our final economic situation regarding savings, pensions net worth, our health and any expectation that we and our partner in life have for this period. Not everybody is clear about any or all of those issues, however. Taking a step back from our everyday work and reflecting on what we’re enjoying and what is going well can often be useful in making judgements about how long we want to work and specifically what type of work we want to continue doing. The opportunity now for us is to have choice about continuing to work and - within the bounds of the type of work and organisation we work forflexibility around how long we go on contributing as an employee. The individual side of this agenda is clear in this eBook and Position Ignition has written a separate eBook addressing these challenges from the organisation’s point of view. The key element in setting yourself up to continue working for as long as you will lies in your ability to articulate clearly through your line manager, and to your organisation, what it is you want to do and for how long you plan on doing it. There’s an important assumption here that you take responsibility for thinking about these issues and have a mature and practical view of what you want to do in forthcoming years and how that transition can work not just for you but for your team.
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Health Given the chance to change your schedule and perhaps work a little less or in a different way, there’s going to be a change to your routine. There will be opportunities to break the habits around how you travel, what you eat, how much you sleep, and how much you exercise. There’ll be the chance to develop new and better habits to improve your health. As we get older our health becomes more and more important. Keeping up our strength and fitness levels are key in enabling us to continue doing all the things that matter to us. As we go through life, many of us get caught up in the pace of work and we often neglect our health, letting our bodies take the toll of working life. This is a good opportunity to re-think, re-balance and re-strategise and to make sure that we take care of ourselves again. It may also be a time to get checked out by an expert, who may advise you on your new way of life and what you can do to optimise your health. Many of us see retirement as a time to enjoy much more time away on holiday. There is no reason why you cannot build that into your plans, subject to your employer agreeing - if you continue to work, perhaps on a part-time basis. In the UK, it’s typical to take a holiday in the summer months and then to subject ourselves to the long haul of a British autumn and winter before taking time off again. When planning your journey ahead, you could take this into account in order to plan having time off in the winter for a break.
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Family Time Many of us have roles and responsibilities as grandparents and desire to have more time with our grandchildren and to support our family during their working lives. Again, this is an opportunity to work out what you would really like to achieve in this regard. Working out how much time you want to spend together with your life partner is another crucial issue. Most people will spend more time in retirement with their life partner than they have ever spent in their relationships. What an opportunity! How scary might that be! Many people, at this stage of life, have settled into their own routines. Perhaps you’ve been working for over 40 years and you’re with a partner who has had a different type of life in the same time period and is now settled into working in the community or similar. The retiring partner can be a significant distraction to the partner who has established their own “optimal” way of life at this stage. Thinking through your time together is really important. Most people, if they’ve got a plan at all at this stage, will have thought about their financial situation: How much pension provision they have - from the State and any other provision they may have made. But now there’s the opportunity to stay on working beyond the DRA, what financial rewards do you as a couple expect and need to continue living the life you desire?
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Career And this is where your work comes back in – a combination of what do you want to do and what you need to earn is going to help you to determine what sort of options you’ll think through. The amount of time that you put in will drive the amount of money that you’ll be paid. The amount of time you put in will also determine what work you’ll continue to do. Smart organisations are going to work out, between team leaders and individuals, what the most productive experience for the employee would be. What would be useful for the team and what would the employee (you) be happy to do? Such an opportunity has never presented itself to the team in this form before.
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Community Time With schedules full with work and family commitments, our time is often short as we get older, particularly if we stay in the same location for considerable number of yrs. Our desires to contribute more to the local community increases. One of the great benefits of planning your time is that you can see your time becoming richer as you have more of it. And if you’re so inclined, you can offer it to the community in a number of ways. This could include contributing regular time-not necessarily a lot-each week to a charitable cause, or to local community projects, or, if you prefer a more accountable type role, you can become an officer of a charity of a governor of a school.
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Knowing What’s Important Many factors will influence our decision on when and how best to retire. In this process it is helpful to get a better understanding of what is really driving us and what is important to us. Some of the key issues have already been outlined however to get a slightly different perspective – here are some of the main factors that influence us as we move closer to making this shift: Feeling Valued at Work As already mentioned, some employers value what we do and others don’t. However it is important that we know our value and that we feel that this value is being appreciated where we are placing our time, effort and energy. If you do not feel valued at work then: •
Is it worth carrying on there?
•
Is there anything you can do about it?
•
Will you be happy carrying on in a place that does not appreciate who you really are and what you have to offer?
The People Around You Do you like your colleagues and the people that you spend your time with every day? Since work can often take up so many years of our life – during this phase where we can begin to choose who we spend our time with and what we do in that time – we may want to spend a bit of time thinking about which people around us are most important to us and who we actually enjoy spending time with. We are all social beings and need some kind of social interaction in our daily lives in order to feel valued and fulfilled. Making sure that we have the right types of people surrounding us in our later years will become more and more important. Being around colleagues and peers who do not get on well with us will only drain you and sap you of your energy.
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Having a Sense of Purpose Do you care about your sense of purpose? Perhaps you want to give back to the community in which case where we talk about ‘Community Time’, this may be the perfect solution for you. Do you feel proud about what you have achieved to date and do you care about this? If you do then it’s worth giving it some consideration and figuring out what will provide you with that feeling of purpose and fulfilment. What will be your legacy? Caring for others We’ve already mentioned family and your partner if you have one. It might also be important for you to have the time to care for extended family and others around you too.: •
Do you have elderly parents that could do with your time and help?
•
Is your partner dependent on you?
•
Do your children see you enough every day?
Managing your Money Money is a real issue these days – with pensions diminishing, mortgages to worry about and given the recent economic times. Some of us will be lucky enough to have big enough pensions and savings to feel that we are in a good financially stable place. For others, there will be real financial strains and tensions to consider. Debts, lack of savings and mortgages can hinder us. They can also cause us an awful lot of stress and worry. Pressures from family, partners and dependents can also play a huge part in adding to the tension and concern. The fact that you now have the option to continue working and earning puts you in a much stronger position to carefully plan and manage your financial situation however this will only be done well if you start thinking about this now. Don’t wait until later down the line. Start planning and strategising now.
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Common Mistakes As much as there is to do, there are also a few common mistakes to avoid. Here are some of them:
Just giving up work If you did that and then regretted it, you might find it harder to find other work if organisations are settling into the idea of accommodating the older workers they already have.
Lack of planning Without a plan you have no clear route through to where you want to be and you won’t be in control of your own journey.
Not talking to your life partner We’ve already established how important it is to talk thing through with your spouse. Without this communication, the changes one side of the partnership enacts or experiences may impact negatively on the other.
Blindly carrying on Automatically carrying on with the same work hours, patterns and responsibilities as you always have can be just as counterproductive as automatically stopping work altogether without thinking it through. Both you and employer could be missing out on an opportunity to improve your relationship and your respective situations by trying out new scenarios
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Conclusion Once you have a greater understanding of the issues affecting your journey ahead and you’re clear about what you want from the transition and how to get it, you can focus on the key elements in that journey. Depending on your own unique situation, these may include •
Your life partner
•
Your health
•
Mental stimulation
•
Being sure to leave your employment respectfully
The journey ahead is a challenging and complex one but with the right combination of understanding, planning, support and communication, it can also be an immensely exciting and rewarding one.
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What Next? Now that you have read this eBook you may be asking yourself what shall I do now? The aim of this eBook is to give you an overview of some of the major considerations you have to think about as you move closer towards retirement. It is a very significant phase in your life and it needs careful planning to ensure that it is a smooth and painless transition for all. It is not something easily done alone and it is normal to feel a bit lost and daunted by the prospect of planning your future. However, this is also an exciting time for you and if organised and managed well, it can enable you to take charge of the remaining years of your life – to do the activities that will be of most value and interest to you. You do not have to leave your working world completely. Nor do you have to stay in it in exactly the same guise as before. You can be as imaginative and creative as you let yourself be. If you want to get supported through this process, Position Ignition has a framework and a structured way to help you manage this time of change. We can help you get clear about what it is that you want, what your various options may be and how to communicate and negotiate these with your employer. For more information on how we can help you contact us on enquiries@positionignition.com or visit our website: www.positionignition.com or point your organisation towards: www.positionignitionorg.com
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Contact Us Position Ignition Ltd is one of the UK’s leading career consulting and career management companies. Founded towards the end of 2009 by Simon North and Nisa Chitakasem, they have brought together some of the best career guides in the industry, providing much needed high quality career support and guidance to professional working men and women. Position Ignition helps working professionals to identify where they would like to go next, what roles they will find fulfilling and how to go about getting it. Their focus is on helping people to make successful career changes, establish smart job search strategies, find focus and direction in their careers and take control of their own career development. Position Ignition offers support through a variety of ways including one on one career support, programmes, workshops, career courses, seminars, webinars, ebooks and through their popular Career Advice Blog. They regularly offer expert advice in the media, press and in places like the Guardian Careers Clinics. They offer a free initial phone consultation via their website if you’d like to find out more or explore how they can help you. Find out more at: www.positionignition.com or Email: enquiries@positionignition.com Visit the Position Ignition Career Blog: www.positionignition.com/blog
Follow Position Ignition on Twitter: @PosIgnition Like Position Ignition on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/PositionIgnition
We hope that you have found this eBook useful! For comments, feedback or suggestions email us at: enquiries@positionignition.com
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More Position Ignition eBooks (Visit our website to download: www.positionignition.com)
o 100 Essential Career Change Tips o 85 Mid-Life Career Change Tips o 135 Networking Career Tips o 125 LinkedIn Job Search Tips o 125 Twitter Job Search Tips o How to Get the Job You Want o Up Your Game, Up Your Pay! (85 Tips in Salary Negotiation) o Getting Started with Interviews: Quick Guide o How to Ace the Interview 34 www.positionignition.com Moving into Retirement in the 21st Century Copyright Position Ignition Ltd 2012. All Rights Reserved