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Retiring From Healthcare: How HR Can Help

June 23, 2017 by Josh Hrala

For those retiring from healthcare, the transition out of the workforce can be both liberating and scary at the same time, which presents a tricky situation for the HR managers who are tasked with assisting their employees along this journey.

But wait, isn’t retirement always a good thing? Yes, of course! It’s a brilliant stage of life that allows workers to finally focus on other things like family, friends, hobbies or even other careers. However, the journey to a fulfilling retirement can be tough if an employee isn’t prepared.

For an employee to transition into retirement without all the stress, a proper plan has to be laid out. Also, for you, the HR manager responsible for this turnover, a proper workforce plan is of utmost importance. Luckily, we have you covered on both fronts. Check out our surefire, 100 percent free workforce planning template:

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Now that that’s out of the way, here’s what your HR department can do to help those retiring from healthcare organizations and how helping these employees is actually a great move for everyone involved.

Understanding What Your Employee Needs

Retirement, like we mentioned above, is a wonderful thing. That is, for most people. See, the idea of retirement is always romantic but the reality is that retiring from healthcare, or other industries that are heavily social, can be a shock to the system after the honeymoon phase is over.

Think about it for a second. You go to work every day, building relationships along the way, having a structured week to look forward to, and falling into a nice, comfortable routine. Then, after years of looking forward to retirement, you actually make the move only to realize that you miss working. You miss the people you’re used to talking to, the atmosphere, the hustle and bustle. What now?

This is a common situation amongst those retiring from healthcare and other industries where people tend to leave after the minimum age for social security and have had enough time to save properly. So, what your employee needs is a way to overcome the other stresses that are not financially related, which is where retirement lifestyle planning comes into play.

When Retiring From Healthcare, Planning Makes Perfect

The good news is that overcoming these problems is easy with a little retirement lifestyle planning. In short, this type of planning is used as a service that HR managers can provide their employees as they transition out of the workforce.

At Careerminds, we help those retiring from healthcare and other fields create their own retirement lifestyle plans, which serve to give them an accurate picture of what retired life will look like before making the jump.

This involves working one-on-one with coaches over the internet, a system that allows us to work with clients anywhere they happen to be, and e-learning systems, which – when used together – ensure that upcoming retirees weigh all of the necessary options when it comes to retirement.

Using this method, retirees can figure out if they want to simply relax, volunteer their time to organizations they care about, work new and exciting jobs – maybe one that they’ve always thought about working – or taking up a new hobby. It really depends on the individual, which is why using an outside service can seriously help you with this process.

Why Planning Is Important to You, the HR Manager

While helping retirees is just the right thing to do in the first place, it’s also important for your organization as a whole.

Here’s the problem: if someone is set to retire and they have doubts about the lifestyle change, they simply will put off retiring for as long as they can. This is no good for them because they’ve worked their entire lives to get to this point. It’s also not good for you because it can stifle growth in the long run.

These individuals that put off retirement are known as reluctant retirees, and they can seriously impact your overall organization by not allowing new, fresh talent to develop naturally. This means that you may not be able to obtain or hold onto new talent, either, which causes your organization to miss out on new and improved ideas, technologies or other advancements.

Luckily, with retirement lifestyle planning, people retiring from healthcare, one of the most technologically advanced industries out there, can move on easily, which is a win-win situation for all involved.

Things Your Organization Can Handle Inhouse

While having a retirement lifestyle coach available for your employees is important, there are things you can do without outside help as well.

One of the best options is looking into phased retirement plans. Retiring from healthcare can be odd even if the person is ready for the change, phased retirement is a way for them to slowly ease out of full-time work, adjusting over time.

The second, and easiest solution, is to keep social events open to your employee even after they leave the organization. For example, if you have a company picnic every year or you commonly go out after work together, inviting newly retired staffers to join in still will allow them to ease out of the social setting the workplace offers.

When you add all of this together, you see that those retiring from healthcare and other markets may need help adjusting to their new lifestyles. Using retirement lifestyle planning and simple organizational tactics, you can reduce the number of reluctant retirees that may pop up while also showing the outgoing members of your community that they are cared for.

If you need help assisting your upcoming retirees, check out our demo for free:

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Josh Hrala

Josh Hrala

Josh is an HR journalist and ghostwriter who's been covering outplacement and offboarding for over six years. Before pivoting to the HR world, he was a science journalist whose work can be found in Popular Science, ScienceAlert, The Huffington Post, Cracked, Modern Notion, and more.

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