If you have an employee that’s about to retire, you might find yourself feeling all kinds of emotions. While you might be excited for them that they are able to take off on this new adventure in life, you may also be worried about how you’ll replace them and continue forward with your business, especially if they are an employee that’s been around for a long time or who plays a vital role in your business. Luckily, there are things that you can do to help you prepare for dealing with both of these feelings.
To help you see how this can be done, here are three things to do as an employee nears retirement.
Have Them Help You Find Their Replacement
For those with concerns about how they’ll be able to replace an invaluable employee that’s about to retire, you’ll want to use that employee to help you find their replacement.
No one knows how to do someone’s job better than himself. So if you’re needing to find someone to do this exact job as your employee who will soon retire, who better to help you fill this role than the employee.
As part of this, ask your employee to write a detailed description of what they do on a daily basis. Then, when you’re ready to start looking at candidates, ask the employee to either look over resumes for you or sit in on the interview process to help you find someone who could be a great match.
Assist With A Retirement Party
Once the countdown to retirement gets into the double-digits in days, it’s time to start reaching out to those who might be throwing your employee their retirement party. If it’s their co-workers, ask about what you can do to be of assistance and help to make this a great send-off. Or, if the party is being thrown by friends or family members of your employee, be sure that you go to the party and help or participate however you can to show your appreciation for their hard work.
Choose A Meaningful Retirement Gift
In addition to helping with the retirement party, you should also get your retiring employee a retirement gift.
Depending on your relationship with your employee, the gift that you’ll want to give will vary. But something that every employee would appreciate getting from their employer is a retirement plaque to show them how much they’ve meant to the company, to you as their boss, and to the customers or clients that they’ve worked with. But as long as you choose a gift that’s going to be meaningful to them, you really can’t go wrong.
