How to use your last 10 years of work, to prepare for the next 30 years in retirement?
As your workforce reaches their career peak and earning capacity, they may not be feeling the sense of reward expected.
Listen to Andre Agassi… “I don’t feel that (winning) Wimbledon changed me. I feel in fact as if I’ve been let in on a dirty little secret: winning changes nothing. Now that I’ve won a Slam, I know something that very few people on earth are permitted to know. A win doesn’t feel as good as a loss feels bad, and the good feeling doesn’t last as long as the bad. Not even close.”
Many in your workforce will be feeling their age, especially blue collar. And they will approach retirement in varying degrees of preparation and optimism. Languishing late in careers, aimless and clock-watching, no longer learning are major workforce challenges. Redundancy at 50 is a threat to chronic stress, mental health (anxiety/depression), team morale and productivity.
Facts:
- Life expectancy is increasing (82 yrs of age), meaning longer retirements
- 30% of us will retire with less than $100k superannuation (SMH 2014)
- more of us retire with debt
In what way is your company targeting and supporting this older niche, prior to major change?
Where’s your pain?
How do we finish our careers? They don’t always end well, and we may be familiar with the plights of some:
- A specialist for so long, that they have become too comfortable, too narrow, and can’t or won’t be given the opportunity to expand. They are trapped, cranky about it, and hard to work with.
- The business leader working so hard, in the prime of their career / earning capacity, that they don’t interact with any of their friends or personal interests, and their happy-metre starts to drop back
- The lined, humourless, dead-eyed executive doing soulless work they no longer believe in, in pursuit of the numbers – it’s only about the numbers. There is too much money, status, and benefits to lose to walk away, too much “lifestyle that money can buy” to risk actually pondering any deeper mysteries or lifelong dreams.
- The redundant General Manager who is supposedly overqualified now for work at the same level and is suddenly financially and personally exposed, with limited self-management to handle the lack of structure and focus.
- The retiree who has taken the money (superannuation) but failed to plan what they will do for the remaining 30 years of their life, only to find it boring, empty – and for some – family-breaking, for others depressing.
- You’re approaching retirement and realise Super is not enough – you have to keep working if you want the lifestyle. But what to do? Part-time? Projects? Same old job, or a completely new direction?
The problems here lie in those last 10 years of employment – whether its spent winding down, or gearing up for a retirement that is now longer than ever before.
What to do?
Skillbiz can help you/your workforce to use the second half of their working life to plan for the post-working part.
And what might you create? A new entrepreneurial you? Turn a hobby into a small business? Be a teacher or consultant? Turn something you specialise in, into a niche innovation?
At 50, you may be only half way through your career. Not full-time necessarily, but your own boss certainly.
At 50, you may still yet reach your potential.
If you’re unhappy now, you don’t have to wait until you retire to fix it.
If you’re unhappy now, you can’t afford to wait for any corresponding lapse in performance.
If you can see trouble coming, now is a great time to start finding a new way.
Call Skillbiz on (+61) 412 994 718 to learn about the community we are building.