By: Barbara Bowes
Date: June 19, 2010
The Winnipeg Free Press

If you are a news junkie like me, you'll often spend the weekend scanning the newspapers from cover to cover looking for tidbits of information about what is going on in our community and the world.

At this time of year, much of the news and many of the announcements are about scholarship and fundraising activities as well as graduation ceremonies. Picture after picture and article after article highlight the smiling faces as they accept their high school, college or university diplomas. It is also the time of year when honorary degrees are granted to local dignitaries who have made significant contributions to society.

However, quietly interspersed within all of these graduation ceremonies is another kind of announcement, that of "graduating" to the next phase of life -- a career in the sunset of life called retirement. These smiling faces have contributed to society, to corporations and not-for-profit organizations for terms ranging from 30- to 40-plus years. These people have decided that whatever power, money, prestige or job satisfaction they achieved in the work world is no longer important enough. They have reached the stage in their lives where they want more control of their day, they want freedom, and they believe that retirement is the answer. After all, the summer season is the best time to call it quits and simply relax at the lake.

Yet more and more, you can expect that many of these smiling retirees won't be smiling by the time fall rolls around. That's because they focused solely on the financial aspects of retirement and they didn't really think through all of the psychological impacts, which can be so powerful that people will feel they've been hit with a "ton of bricks," so to speak. And it hurts!

One of the first pangs of pain a retiree will experience is the issue of personal and professional identity. This is because most of us have gained some of our identity from our professions. For instance, when asked what we do, we say that we are a teacher, an engineer, an accountant, a carpenter, an electrician and or a consultant. There is a good deal of pride in what we do at work. This is where we have gained all of our job satisfaction and accomplishments.

With this in mind, you might now be able to understand why women cringe when they have to answer "just a housewife." And it's even more difficult for a man who has decided to be a stay-at-home dad. Being a homemaker has simply never been given any value in society. And to some extent, this same concept of undervaluing segments of society has been applied to retirees. Somehow, society has considered retirees as a "non-entity" with little value.

So as you can imagine, the retiree who has allowed his/her identity and sense of satisfaction to be tied too tightly into a profession and/or an employer will go from feeling like a "somebody" to feeling like a "nobody." These feelings can represent a wide range of responses including severe depression; after all, a sudden change of identity can be quite upsetting.

A second shock wave to hit a new retiree might be the lack of social interaction. Those with a large social circle which included work colleagues, bosses, customers and vendors as well as corporate volunteer activities is suddenly shrunk to one's immediate family. And while most will gladly last the summer season with friends, grandchildren, travel or golf, once the tempo of life dies down, it can get pretty quiet and lonely. This is often the time when longtime marriages fall apart.

A third shock to the retiree's system is that of personal time management. More than likely, he or she didn't realize how they had become so attuned to a day that was managed, scheduled and scripted by their work responsibilities. While we might say we can't wait until we are in control of our time, it is quite another thing to manage your time "all of the time." It's not just one day or vacation that you have to manage -- it is every minute of every day.

As the economy heats up, I predict we'll start to see that more and more of those baby boomers will be looking more closely at taking the retirement route. Yet, at the same time, there is a challenge for both employees and employers. First of all, many potential retirees are not psychologically ready to retire and would perhaps consider working part time. Secondly, employers are not ready to let their seasoned employees go. We need their skills, particularly as we move through an economic recovery,

So, what can be done? The answer lies in the application of three concepts: succession planning, pre-retirement training workshops and phased-in retirement.

First, organizations need to get a handle on their retirement and succession issues. You need to determine the age demographics, identify who is eligible to retire and when and what risks might be created. You then need to develop a succession and replacement plan that enables you to plan for at least five years ahead. Many of the succession plans we create include developmental plans for incumbents, yet most planning fails to consider what could be done for and with the potential retirees.

Pre-retirement planning creates a second opportunity for organizations. While providing pre-retirement planning in the workplace has not been common practice, there is no reason why employers can't play a more active role. According to Greg Genik, managing partner of Career Partners International in Winnipeg, their "New Horizons, Mapping Your Path to Retirement" program is directed to all employees and helps them to develop a plan for a successful and satisfying retirement. And while many baby boomers want to take a different path at this stage of their life, they don't want to leave the workforce completely.

This creates a great opportunity for employers to find ways to accommodate the work-life balance interests of their employees. One such strategy is phased-in retirement, which allows both the employer and employee to avoid the classical approach of "full-stop" retirement and instead enables them to engage in a broad range of alternatives. This could include a gradual reduction of a workload from five days to four days and then perhaps three days. Phased-in retirement can also include job sharing, part time, seasonal work and/or any other creative combination of time and energy.

With the growing economic recovery, baby boomers will be looking for new ways to live their lives. So, it is time for organizations to get creative and to think outside the so-called traditional retirement box.

Barbara J. Bowes, FCHRP, CMC is president of Legacy Bowes Group, Manitoba's leading Talent Management Solutions firm. She is also host of the weekly "Bowes Knows" radio show and is the author of another new book called Resume Rescue. Barbara can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it