How to help prepare your employees mentally - not just financially - for retirement
The ad touches upon an all too often overlooked aspect of retirement and old age: wellbeing, more specifically loneliness. The retailer worked with Age UK to highlight the fact that one million older people will go a whole month without speaking to anyone.
It's a worry for anyone facing retirement and was one of a number of concerns highlighted by the Capita Employee Insight Report. The report brings to light the multiple concerns that people have about retirement such as boredom, feeling they may have no purpose during the day, missing the routine of work and potential physical incapacity amongst others. Work contributes hugely to people’s social sustenance so it is not surprising to see that it features on the list of non-financial concerns we have – and just 14.1% of people said they had no concerns at all.
According to the Institute of Economic Affairs, the chances of depression increase by circa 40% once you have retired. Retirement is one of life’s biggest milestones, a transitional period when your roles, relationships and routines all change and it can take a psychological toll. Whether you like it or not, our work is an integral part of our adult identity, most of us will have spent 40 odd years developing our professional standing before we hit retirement, so it is no surprise that we find this difficult to give up.
The importance of financial preparation for retirement should not be understated, but it isn’t the only factor to consider, we need to remove our fixation on just fiscal preparation. Although the elderly gentleman in the John Lewis advert had the financial capacity to emigrate abroad (to the moon), he doesn’t have the quality of life that he wanted or once had.
So, before you wish your retiring employees all the best for the future, providing them with some of the tools they may need to face the unknown can be of enormous value. We’ve experienced increasing demand for education programmes of this ilk as employer awareness of the psychological effects of retirement grows and they look to help employees plan for their ‘whole’ retirement. Helping employees organise their affairs, prepare their mind set and plan for the retirement they desire means that hopefully they will be better prepared than the man on the moon.
This article was written by Tracey Smith, workplace engagement manager (operations) at Capita Employee Benefits.
Supplied by REBA Associate Member, Capita Employee Solutions
UK leader in technology-enabled business process management and outsourcing solutions.
