SuperManager: Planning and Preparing for Retirement
When you mention preparing for retirement people typically think about financial planning. But what about the emotional life changing aspects of retirement? What do you plan to do with yourself? What about your friends and co-workers?
Listen in as our panel discusses a wholistic approach to planning for retirement. With:
Host:
Samantha Naes – CN Video Production
Guests:
Tara Gregor – BreakWell
Kristen Edens – kristenedens.com
Vicky Wors – Wors Consulting
CN Video Production
You’re listening to Super Manager, the podcast with a diverse panel of experts discussing what goes on in the office. And your host, Samantha Naes with CN Video Your businesses Video team on call.
Samantha Naes
All right, so welcome back to another episode of Super Manager podcast. This week we’re talking about preparing for retirement, and I have with me my panel of experts who may or may not be preparing for retirement. We have
Tara Gregor
Tara Gregor With BreakWell, a workplace well being resource and partner
Vicky Wors
Vicky Wors, Wors Consulting, a human resources consulting business for small to midsize businesses.
Kristen Edens
And I’m Kristen Edens founder of KristenEdens.com, where I provide content writing for businesses and founder of the managing midlife blog.
Samantha Naes
And I am Samantha Naes with CN Video. We do corporate video production. I actually have a friend who retired a couple of years ago. We used to work together at Washington University, and I know he was a little unhappy the last couple of years. I guess he was nearing the end of his career there, and so they weren’t giving him anything new and interesting to work on that kind of shoved him into a corner, which was a good thing because it kind of helped ease him into retirement. But I was asking him what were some of the shocking things that happened when he retired that he wasn’t expecting and he said that one thing that he didn’t really count on that really hit him pretty hard was just having a purpose. That he used to have to get up every day because he had to go into work. There were people counting on him, and you think retirement is going to be this big vacation? I no longer have to do this, but you wake up in the morning and you don’t have a reason to get up. You’ve got nobody really counting on you are depending on you for anything. And he said that took him a while to get used to. It was kind of emotionally difficult.
Vicky Wors
I’m at the age that this is what’s happening quite frequently with friends of mine, and I cautioned them, prepare yourself in advance of… Maybe there’s a hobby and it’s something you’d like to learn more about or really get involved with, or I mean, of course there’s family responsibilities.
Samantha Naes
My friend John made that statement as well. He said. You shouldn’t be retiring from something. You should be retiring to something.
Vicky Wors
Actually, that’s a good idea. There’s some financial planners that actually give some assessments to say, What are you interested? It’s okay if you retire, but you’re still working. The ideal is lets spell work F U N instead of W O R K. That you can still generate money. But doing things you enjoy doing, Here’s the bottom line that we need to know. A lot of people in our country, are not going to be able to retire ever. So
Samantha Naes
That’s a problem.
Tara Gregor
That’s depressing.
Vicky Wors
Well, but what I’m trying to get at is that if you’ve got a hobby and it’s something you can work at, and you may be able to generate funds from it, then begin developing that well in advance of you leaving your day job.
Samantha Naes
So some things to consider I guess when retirement is coming up, assuming that you’re able to retire there and you may not have a choice, even if you financially can’t retire, that’s also up to your employer. You may not
Tara Gregor
Forced retirement
Samantha Naes
Exactly, exactly. You may not be able to keep your job forever. Just because you need the money doesn’t mean that you’re not going to retire. But other than financially, it’s a big change. It’s a big change in someone’s life.
Tara Gregor
Well, the routine too and the purpose in waking up to have a purpose. That day is a huge piece in somebody s well being. So career well being is actually like the number one thing in somebody’s life. If that is not going right, then the rest of the wellbeing areas air not going right.
Samantha Naes
And then there’s also the consideration of your friends and co workers that you’ve worked with for presumably several years. You know, now they have social media, so you can connect with everybody on Facebook before you leave. But, you know, you wake up in the morning and you no longer have an entire office that needs you. But that office still needs someone. So how do you not leave people in a bad situation? I mean, you’re going to be leaving. It affects you. It affects them. It affects your family.
Kristen Edens
The retirement is not just a.. Friday, I’m done. And then Monday I am playing the rest of my life. It is a process. So it’s something we should be thinking about, instead of just waiting till you’re 66 birthday. Bam, you’re retired. You need to prepare for it. And it’s not just the financial part of it. So I’m putting that side away. What do you want to do? It’s a different version of what do you want to be when you grow up? Now it’s what do you want to be when you retire? So a lot of people will want to go into volunteering. A lot of people may want to return to a hobby. My father started glass blowing in his forties.
Samantha Naes
Oh I always thought that would be fun.
Kristen Edens
And then when he was getting closer to retirement, he started taking courses, built a studio, and then by the time he retired, he was glass pulling full time and earned some income from it. That’s the process we all need. I want gardening. I want quilting. I want bicycle touring, but start thinking about what that is and ease into it.
Samantha Naes
Almost like what you were talking about in our last discussion about switching careers retirements the same way you’ve got to kind of start.
Kristen Edens
It’s a process
Samantha Naes
hit the ground running a little bit before you leave the job behind.
Kristen Edens
You don’t graduate high school and start college with your major declared the next week. Y ou’re not going to hit your 66th birthday and then retire on Monday and go, huh? And then try to figure it out.
Samantha Naes
Travel the world!
Kristen Edens
Yeah, it requires planning.
Vicky Wors
There’s just so many cruises you could take in a year.
Kristen Edens
But then also, this is an opportunity to finally be yourself. You’ve been what everybody else wanted you to be up until this point.
Samantha Naes
I think part of the problem is you may not know who yourself is anymore, because you’ve spent your entire career being depended on by some kind of environment, whatever it is that you’re exactly ah, lot of people define themselves by their career,
Kristen Edens
but you make a good point when you finally do this and you’re leaving all of the work life behind. What do you do?
Samantha Naes
You have to redefine yourself.
Kristen Edens
You have to redefine yourself, but you can go into consulting for this company or other companies,
Samantha Naes
Ah, like a professional athlete becomes a coach.
Kristen Edens
Yes, yes, it doesn’t stop again. We’re at a point where everything is being redefined and retirement is being redefined, when we retire. There’s a community out there, a movement called F.I.R.E. Financial Independence Retire Early, and that’s where people in their twenties and thirties sock away as much as they can so they can retire by 40 and then play the rest of their life. But, no, they’re not playing. They’re doing what they really want to do. So retirement can be whatever you want it to be. When you want it to be, you just have to work up to it. You have to plan it.
Tara Gregor
Sure, and I think the people who have a plan after retirement, they do not age as fast. I’ve seen people who have nothing lined up in all of a sudden. It’s just the aging process takes over so quickly, so
Samantha Naes
well, you’re probably getting less exercise because if you have to get up every day and take a shower and get dressed and go into the office, and you know all of these things, you’re out and about doing things. If you don’t have anything to do. Like you said, you retire on Friday and you wake up Monday morning and you’ve got nothing to do. Are you going to get yourself up, get dressed up, go out, be around people you know do things, or are you gonna turn on the TV, sit around at home
Tara Gregor
so that isolation, peace and again that social well being
Samantha Naes
right
Tara Gregor
piece is huge, because going into an office and having that camaraderie with other employees and co workers is huge into somebody’s happiness in that fulfillment piece of it. So
Samantha Naes
maybe join a group or something of people that have recently retired that you can socially spend some time with.
Kristen Edens
And there’s lots of them out there you go to meet up. Maybe you want to go into swing dancing Or maybe you want to date again. Oh, my goodness, you have a whole new path open to you. It’s not just, Oh, what do I do now? I mean, it is gonna be a little bit of that, but that’s again. Where the planning comes is start thinking about that today. My financial planner has me retiring in 11 years from now when I’ll be 66. And so I’m thinking, I love what I do, and I’m going to keep doing it as long as I’m able. But not with the intensity and so I’ll do the other things that I enjoy.
Samantha Naes
That’s one of things I like about being a business owner, and I think some other positions and other management positions might have the same options available. I kind of like the idea of being able to phase myself out like maybe go to fewer hours, part time, you know, and then more of a support role
Vicky Wors
and actually to be offering financial planning for employees.
Samantha Naes
I think financial planning is a really important part of retirement, but it seems to be the only part that people talk about. I mean, obviously you have to be able to take care of yourself financially when you retire. When someone says planning for retirement, what do you think of
Tara Gregor
financial
Samantha Naes
But there’s really so much more to consider… your own well being, your own sense of purpose. Like you said, health risks. If you’re not getting out and about, you could age prematurely.
Tara Gregor
I think people discover a lot about themselves because if they have never thought about their interests or what has maybe been lacking in their life,
Samantha Naes
right,
Tara Gregor
there’s this huge confusion piece that’s going on in your life
Samantha Naes
your job is a great excuse for not having a hobby or not getting out in doing things
Tara Gregor
or not tapping into what you really want or who you really are.
Vicky Wors
One item that I think that statistics show that there’s a higher incidence of divorce, right at retirement.
Samantha Naes
You have to spend time with your spouse.
Kristen Edens
Exactly
Kristen Edens
That role shifts, you’re around each other…
Vicky Wors
You’ve had the job as an excuse to not have to deal with that relationship. And it should have been dealt with a long time ago and then, to your point, Tara the isolation. At that point, Yeah, I get a divorce here, and I have come home to an empty house. The kids are gone, the spouses gone,
Samantha Naes
even if the spouse isn’t gone. Even if you maintain your relationship, you’ve got to find a way to get out of the house because you cannot just spend 24 hours a day with your family. I don’t mean that a negative way. I mean, you might have a wonderful family love spending time with them, but that’s a lot of time when you’re used to for at least eight hours a day, five days a week being away and being a different person or what not?
Tara Gregor
Well, and you probably have very different conversations at home, then at work, right? I mean, those rules are probably very different. Anyway, you might be the CEO of a company at work, but at home….
Kristen Edens
You’re dad First National Bank of Dad.
Tara Gregor
So how do you still fulfill that inner peace with all of that?
Kristen Edens
So what it is is planning for retirement is not just financial, it’s mental,
Samantha Naes
mental, emotional. Yeah, there’s
Kristen Edens
right. So it’s something to start because it’s not just the financial end of it. What are you gonna do with your co workers? Who many of them become friends? That doesn’t mean I likened it to graduating from high school because you have those relationships that you had. Oh, we’re gonna be friends forever. And that fades away. It just doesn’t happen.
Samantha Naes
Well, that’s what I was talking about earlier on about social media. I haven’t left an office in 13 years, but I can imagine now it would be a little bit easier because back then we would go around and oh, let’s take pictures. So I’ve got photo albums from jobs that I left.. Me with this person me with this department, me with this group of people. But that doesn’t help you to keep in touch. If you’re connecting with everybody on instagram or Facebook or linked in or what not. You still have a means to naturally communicate with them even when you’re not in the office.
Tara Gregor
But you also see what you’re missing out on. So if there’s still that piece in you that you I feel like it’s lacking and they’re moving on and they’re doing great things within that company. And that’s something that you were not ready to really mentally let go of
Vicky Wors
a little bit of bereavement,
Tara Gregor
exactly
Vicky Wors
that You grieve the loss of that association.
Tara Gregor
Sure, and clients, vendors…
Kristen Edens
It doesn’t mean you have to stay retired, though. No, we have it ingrained in our head for decades and generations that bam we retire, we’re done and we die pretty much play with the grand children.
Samantha Naes
doesn’t sound very good to me.
Kristen Edens
It doesn’t
Samantha Naes
Especially when you say it that way.
Kristen Edens
exactly, but you may find out that retirement isn’t all that dreamy. So you can go into consulting. You can start a new business a second act as they call it. You can even volunteer. You can start whole new activities. You can even go back to school
Tara Gregor
or be on boards of…
Kristen Edens
Yes, yeah, there are so many things. Find those organizations that you love and be an adviser or a board.
Samantha Naes
What’s that organization, score? Retired executives were they consult with new executives kind of thing. Showing them the ropes. Small businesses, Entepreneurs.
Vicky Wors
Their assistant mentorship
Kristen Edens
ST Louis, is one of the top entrepreneurial cities in the country. And if you want to get involved with that, my goodness, there’s so many opportunities and co working spaces and people looking for mentors. There’s your time away from family. There’s your time to share that expertise,
Samantha Naes
and she means that in the kind of thing. But it’s true.
Kristen Edens
The other thing is you could start writing about your experiences. Let’s take some corporate executive in human resources, and that person can start writing for other trade magazines or companies about their experiences. And there’s a whole opportunity
Samantha Naes
side hustles. We were talking about that. It’s a side hustle economy these days, and so there’s no reason when you retire, you can’t take on a side hustle.
Tara Gregor
And maybe it’s not monetary, but it’s fulfilling
Kristen Edens
its fulfilling
Tara Gregor
and you’re passing along your knowledge
Kristen Edens
exactly, and it gets you involved and any more, retirement is not just kicking back and finding the local beach and staying there for the rest of your life. It’s finding How can you give back?
Samantha Naes
You know, when my mom, I hadn’t thought about this for this podcast, but when my mom retired, she took a job at McDonald’s. She liked working the drive through at McDonald’s because it was a way for her to. For her, it wasn’t a job, you know. She needed the money. It was a way to be around people, interact with other people on a day to day basis, and it gave her a purpose and she came home and she would talk about what happened at work and what’s going on at work and people she’s working with.
Kristen Edens
But that’s what it is. is find that’s something that maybe keeps you involved. It could be working the drive thru it McDonald’s. It could be the greeter at Wal Mart or consulting at an entrepreneurial co working space, But the stress is pretty much gone because you don’t. You’re not expected. And
Vicky Wors
well, but the stress then could be. If you’re not doing something is being alone, isolated and losing yourself. Then you’re you’re stressing that when am I going to do? And it’s almost like it gets deeper and deeper and deeper. Once you don’t do something, it’s like you’re digging a hole for yourself.
Samantha Naes
You know, it sounds like you if you know somebody who has recently retired, maybe a coworker has already taken that leap. Maybe it’s not a bad idea to reach out to them. You want to, you know, kind of check in, see how they’re doing. What about the office?
Samantha Naes
What about people in the office? If you’re so needed at your job, people need you. You’ve got value. Now you leave.
Kristen Edens
That might be the phased retirement. It doesn’t have to stop on Friday at five and you’re doing nothing. Maybe. Okay,
Samantha Naes
if you can cut back your hours,
Kristen Edens
cut back the hours hours
Samantha Naes
keep training people showing people what you do
Kristen Edens
and that’s how you do that soon to be retirees can reexamine their work contribution is going to their manager and say, Hey, I know I retire in the next few months or even next year or whatever and say What’s your thoughts on phased retirement?
Vicky Wors
Actually I think employers would appreciate that because what’s walking out isn’t just a specific technology or how to do something. It’s a history. It’s a culture that’s walking out the door that needs to be passed on.
Samantha Naes
We had a client who their employee talked with them. He was six months from retiring and they started on a program where we were brought in to do a video capture of their responsibilities and things that they do. It was kind of an interesting story. They had him train his replacement. She was his sidekick for six months, basically doing everything that he did learning the ropes. And they had CN Video come in and do a little training videos while he was training his replacement. We were capturing the training video and it was actually a good thing because one week before he was supposed to retire, I contacted him and we had created a list of all of his responsibilities and we had one left and I said Well, we’ve got one Responsibility left in one week left What time do you want me to come in? And he said, Oh, change of plans. The person I’ve been working with all this time, she just got promoted to a different department. And so basically, he had one week to get a different replacement. And thankfully, they had the training that he had done previously on video to help bring the other person of the speed.
Tara Gregor
That’s there’s so much knowledge that’s lost in that transition. So
Samantha Naes
there is
Kristen Edens
that comes back to why the consulting would be very good as part of a phased retirement. Also, as Vicky’s mentioning the experience, that culture, the knowledge, the training is all stuff that needs to be passed on with a new employee that’s been with the company for 30 some years, you don’t want just that to end.
Samantha Naes
Don’t businesses usually, I mean, when you retire, don’t you usually leave your contact information and say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Call me if you have any questions.
Kristen Edens
I think that’s a recent development, because I don’t really I think so. But also we’ve all heard of ageism. I think that was a short term thing that began around 2008 when the economy was suffering and all the new young blood was brought in. But they realized, with letting go, those older 40 plus people that they lost what Vicky was talking about. Yeah, so now it’s coming back that instead of just dumping him off, let’s phase it out. If the person wants there’s nothing wrong with
Samantha Naes
I think it’s a win win. It’s definitely a win win. If you can get with your supervisor and come up with a plan to phase yourself out of your employment, phase somebody else into your position and phase yourself into your retirement, that’s definitely a win win.
Samantha Naes
So does somebody have a retirement horror story?
Samantha Naes
I know not mentioning any names. I talked to somebody who was getting ready to retire, and I asked him how he felt about it. If he had a plan, What what are you going to do after retirement? And he seemed really depressed about it, and he wasn’t overly enthusiastic about his job. So I thought he’d been happy about retiring, and he thought, That’s a lot of time with my wife.
Tara Gregor
and for the wife it might be a lot of time with her husband!
Samantha Naes
Exactly, exactly. Right.
Samantha Naes
If you’re interested in some knowledge capture and transfer video for your organization contact me at 314-843-3663 That’s 314 Video me.
CN Video Production
Thanks for listening to SuperManager by CN Video Production Give us a call at 314-843-3663 That’s 314 Video me. or visit our website at cn-video.com for additional episodes, information or to discuss video services.