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Ken Cutler’s question about his retirement status made me think about how my retirement started. I’m curious about what path you all followed. As I approached retirement in 2020, I considered how much notice to give my employer. I had worked for the company for 20 years. I was not a manager, but I was an expert technical professional and had carved out a very specialized niche within the organization. Substantial organizational changes were implemented during the first three months of the calendar year and as a result I had three different managers over a very short span of time. Because I had questions about exit benefits, vacation pay, 401(k) handling, and other details, I decided to discuss my thoughts with HR.
My HR contact set a time for a confidential discussion. I told her I planned to provide notice three to four months in advance, and leave on the last Friday of June 2020, which would be the 26th. I was very surprised to hear her response.
I scheduled knee replacement surgery to happen very early in the year. The pandemic put that on hold, but I was still able to get the surgery done in May. I was on company-provided short term disability while recovering from the surgery. But the timing was such that I gave my notice the day I returned to work. I had not worked for my manager for very long, but I had known him and worked with him for 15 years. He took it well.
Because of the pandemic, there was no opportunity for a trip to headquarters to see my coworkers one last time. Goodbyes were limited to emails, telephone calls, and Zoom calls. It’s been four years, but I maintain contact with a number of former coworkers via Facebook, LinkedIn, and occasional telephone calls.
My approach was different. As the principal in a small C-corp the board and I decided to spin this into two companies. This allowed me to reduce my involvement.
As I approached retirement age I began a “phased” retirement at age 67, reducing my work hours. I became a consultant and did that for several years, eventually retiring completely at age 76. However, to accomplish this I did have to disconnect the cell phones (I had two) and obtain a new number. That was to reduce client contact.
Had I not done this I would have been working unbelievable hours during the covid pandemic. The multinational companies I worked with had leaned down to the point that it was usual to fly engineers from technical centers to points around the globe for varying projects troubleshooting issues or providing supervision and training. This reduced local staffing requirements. When covid struck some people, including senior managers, were scattered all over the globe. For example, the president of a German firm I worked with was at a subsidiary when airline travel became impossible. He was stranded for months.
I decided on a July 1, 2025 retirement date during spring 2024. I attended several webinars hosted by the two university retirement systems I have worked for and learned that:
With this in mind, I quietly told my closest colleagues of my plans last fall. This enabled them to start planning next year’s teaching schedule without me in the mix. However, we agreed to keep that information to ourselves until I actually filed the paperwork. There are university administrators who would use that knowledge to our unit’s detriment, and they didn’t need to know anything any earlier than I had to tell them. In fact, I told my colleagues that if anyone started poking around about my plans to tell them, “Oh, Dana seems like the kind of person who will just die at her desk. I can’t see her ever retiring. Did you know she rides Peloton now? She has more energy than I do, and I’m 20 years younger.”
So time went by, and I finally filed my paperwork in April and formally notified my department chair, our unit’s chief administrator, and the associate dean and HR person for the college. I’m sure I made the budget dean’s day with that news. It’s no longer a secret. But I could still change my mind!*
*not a chance 😂
I don’t have data for this observation, but at mine and my husband’s orgs (academic med ctr, health philanthropy), HR personnel seem more short term than other departments and not at all representative of otherwise stable scientific, tech and clinical employees. Also they tend to be much younger. I’m not sure I would take their advice alone. Most employees seem to work closely with their managers to either phase into retirement or set a date months or a couple of years in the future.
I have no plans yet, and we have 80-year-olds still in the saddle, but my husband and his director will retire together (one wants to avoid personnel responsibilities, the other can do that but is not as analytically deft, so a symbiotic thing). This org requires a 6-month separation before returning as a contractor, but it is likely they would both return on a part-time basis. It’s worth noting that if we thought we were standing in the way of a younger person filling our roles, we would give serious thought to leaving, but in fact there are never enough candidates for our jobs.