Unless you work solo, one part of announcing your retirement is telling your boss and co-workers that you’re leaving. If you like the people you work with, you probably want to give them enough time to come up with a transition plan. The second part is telling your broader professional circle that you’ll no longer be working. How you want to time those two announcements may be different.
Of course, this assumes you’ve got the luxury to choose your own retirement date. Obviously, some people retire after losing their jobs or facing illness or other crises. Or, maybe their job has a mandatory retirement date. I was among those able to pick both my retirement date and when I’d break the news.
When to tell my boss felt fairly straightforward: I gave my company two months notice, which seemed like a good balance in my case between leaving abruptly and having things drag on and on. Obviously, each individual situation is different.
But then came the question of when to announce more publicly. I found this one a harder decision. I know that some people worry about telling co-workers too soon, fearing not being taken seriously while still on the job. But the flip side of that is as the transition plans take shape, people may better realize the contributions you’ve made and tell you so. These “work eulogies while you’re still alive”, as I call them, can be gratifying.
Giving up a full-time work identity in my wider professional circle feels like it carries higher risk. That’s where I worry people may not take me as seriously as they used to. As much as I tell myself I’ll still have the same knowledge and experience as before, “retiree” – especially in technical fields – can signal “no longer in the game” to some people. Heck, even being older and fully employed in a technical field means you need to work harder to prove that you’re still keeping up.
I decided to post about my retirement one month before my big day, later than when I shared the news at work. However, July 4 week is a bad time to expect anyone in the U.S. to be reading professional info. So, I picked the following Monday, July 8 for my social media posts.
I felt great after sharing the news within my company. I’m very curious how I’ll feel after I’ve posted in public.
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