Helping employees plan for retirement

It is no secret that impending retirement can be stressful for employees. The statement is very true if the employees and organisation have not carefully considered the financial and emotional implications of retirement.

Employees world over, are now more conscious of the need to plan for their sunset years. Retirement schemes are therefore, becoming a key consideration in benefits packages. It is the role of organisational leaders to ensure that pension administration and investments are handled by competent personnel and or Fund Managers. It is also the role of leadership as it is for employees to prepare for retirement. Some organisations may go beyond and continue offering employee wellness programs to pensioners.

Research has demonstrated that robust retirement packages will improve employees’ performance. Counselling programs to address a range of psychological and practical issues surrounding retirement have a huge impact on all employees. Imagine a retiring employee only getting to know how much they will be getting per month just before they are disengaged. Organisations may conduct sessions designed to prepare people to manage retirement benefits and wealth accumulated during their work life. It has been noted that attending these retirement classes often prompts employees to seek more personalised information.

Experience has shown that retiring employees, who start planning late, are more likely to face financial challenges and will try to earn extra income from activities that do not give them the much-needed satisfaction. Resultantly, health related problems like stress, anxiety and habits such as substance abuse may creep in.  

It is interesting to note that as employees age and move closer to retirement they change their interests and preferences about work retirement. In this regard individualised retirement plans are very handy and the most effective way to motivate employees at large. When conducting these programs organisations should encourage top-down commitment and dialogue. With the Zimbabwean economic situation, retirement planning has become a lower priority for employees seeking current and short-term financial relief. It will therefore, not be enough to create such programs in institutions if they do not promote open discussions internally about retirement. Organisations that have implemented interactive retirement programs have come up with a hands-on approach that benefits employees. A good example is where some local organisations have engaged and allowed the main contributors of pension funds, the long serving employees, to invest in real estate as a way to hedge their retirement packages.

Again, it should be noted that it is never too early to begin planning for employees’ retirement. It is of importance that management should customise the retirement programs to suit different ages and career stages ensuring at all times that employees construe the intended purpose of the retirement plans and counselling courses. While creating an improved retirement counselling program geared towards an aging workforce can seem like a daunting challenge, if done right it is quite manageable.

Counselling programs done earlier like in the first ten years of employment should help employees to focus on issues such as where they will live permanently. Owning a home or property will reduce the challenges as they are not likely to be bothered by landlords over rent when retired. Five years before retirement, counsellors might want to start advising employees to start shifting their investment mix from a focus on assets accumulation to income generation. Organisations can help by creating a peer network for aging employees and these do not cost institutions much. Invoking the use of peer-based counselling offers employees the opportunity to get information from people they trust. In that manner, the aging employees have a chance to balance the formal textbook information on retirement with real life anecdotal experiences in order to understand better what retirement will be like.

Retirement initiatives must never appear like the employer is pushing the retirees out. Remember as people get to retirement there are tendencies of being highly stressed as they constantly reflect on their lives after retiring. When retirement planning is taken as a key HR strategy organisations will be better placed to know if they will derive benefits from offering voluntary early retirement schemes. These are less stressful to some employees as they are viewed as an opportunity to leave an organisation with a meaningful package to embark on personal endeavours.

In the long run organisations will realise that well-crafted counselling and employee assistance programs can help improve performance and productivity, morale and enhance succession planning. These will facilitate transfer of knowledge and skills to younger employees. Employees are usually more engaged in organisations that are seen as ensuring a descent retirement.

It is incumbent on the organisational leaders be cognisant of the changes in today’s workforce. People are living longer and given a chance, employees are willing to work beyond retirement age either in their chosen or encore careers. Neglecting to properly disengage retiring employees is at the very least a missed opportunity by employers and to some extent a threat to employee morale. Today’s leaders need to consider embracing effective off boarding plans as a means to boosting employees’ odds of a successful retirement.

Jinda is the Managing Consultant of PROSERVE Consulting Group, a leading supplier of Professional Human Resources and Management services locally, regionally and internationally. He can be contacted at Tel: 263 773004143 or 263 4 772778 or visit our website at www.proservehr.com