This is the second of our series of blogs aimed at helping companies to harvest their retiring employees’ invaluable legacies around succession planning, institutional knowledge transfer, and mentoring pre- and post-retirement.

Let’s focus on succession planning here. It’s one thing to have identified an heir apparent. It’s another for your desired successor to hit the ground running by having a solid mastery of work content and processes, the strategic vision, and by building and/or strengthening key relationships up, down, and over within the organization, and with clients and vendors externally.

This training takes time. The way the process often works now is that an executive has a successor in mind—and has often communicated this possibility to both the person and to senior management. And then it can get kind of vague until the executive announces her impending retirement or transition. This usually happens within a few months of the desired R-date because, historically, the moment you announce your retirement, you become a lame duck and suffer loss of responsibility and recognition. Nobody wants that.

What gets lost in this “business as usual” pattern is the time for the departing executive to ramp her successor fully up to speed while simultaneously ramping down in her own job. Part of ramping down could be providing the pre-retiree with more personal time to dream, explore, and design her next chapter of life so that when the day comes, she is prepared and excited about what’s next instead of feeling like she just fell off a cliff.

Every single day, 10,000 Baby Boomers retire. Many of them need successors to assume their responsibilities as quickly and smoothly as possible. That’s why a thoughtful and gradual succession planning process can be of enormous benefit to the organization, to the successor, and to the retiring leader as she starts her next phase of life. I’d call that a win/win/win situation.

The bigger picture here is that major contributors to your organization have legacies that truly matter. What they know, how they think, their development and mentoring skills, and their well-tended relationships are worth preserving and passing on your organization’s next generation of senior leadership. At the same time, creating a structure wherein a senior leader can explore what’s next in life represents a gift of gratitude to those who have been key players in building the organization’s growth and value.

Let us support your company’s succession process and add value to your executive packages. Contact us for more information.

Caroline MacNeill Hall is Co-Founder of Life Reinspired, a reset lab for successful Baby Boomers contemplating a meaningful next chapter of life. She is President of MAC Advisors, an executive coaching and leadership development company. She’s also senior faculty for the Coaches Training Institute.

Why should a company care about helping a retiring employee create a bridge to their next chapter of life? Isn’t it the employee’s business to handle their own retirement?  They are leaving and won’t be contributors to the company anymore, so why should I as a business owner, Human Resources executive, board member or part of a managing executive team care?

Here’s why….when it comes to a retiring high level employee, the tangible and intangible costs are high. The bad news is that according to a CAP Study, the cost is:

“Up to 213% of annual salary for highly educated executive positions.”  For example, the cost to replace a $500K CEO is $1,065,000.  This doesn’t include the many intangible and often untracked costs.

In the intangible cost category is the loss of institutional knowledge which can impact many areas including processes, employee productivity, and company profits.  Business is done through relationships.  This is a key point that is lost in the day-to-day management of the revenue and expense of a business.  Those relationships are both inside the company, within and between departments, and with outside partners and vendors, impacting productivity, product quality, delivery, customer retention, profits and more.  Multiple studies show that Baby Boomers are retiring at a rate of 10,000 a day.

With more high level employees leaving due to retirement and mid-career transition, this should be of high concern to any company.

The good news is that these costs can be mitigated through proper planning that includes:

• succession planning
• institutional knowledge transfer
• targeted mentoring pre-departure
• post-departure planning that includes mentoring and consulting

Once an action plan is in place that includes the four key topics above, it can be integrated in the day-to-day interactions and operations of a company at low cost. In developing your plan, make sure to incorporate clear outcomes and milestone check-in conversations.  This is such an important topic, we will be devoting several blog posts to it, so stay tuned for more specifics.

Life Reinspired specializes in the next chapter of life transition and planning. Contact us about how we can help you and your company.

Sabrina Roblin is Co-Founder of Life Reinspired, a reset lab for successful Baby Boomers contemplating a meaningful next chapter in life. Sabrina is an experienced executive, mentor, trainer, and coach. She has worked for organizations that include Wells Fargo Bank, Broderbund Software, and The Coaches Training Institute.

As an executive coach, I recommend to my clients that they not signal their plans to retire more than a month or two in advance for fear of losing responsibility and influence when relegated to a “lame duck” role. Over time, though, I’ve come to realize that a swift exit is good for neither the executive nor her/his organization. What’s lost for the business is a firmed-up succession plan, deep mentoring opportunities, and the transfer of institutional knowledge and wisdom. What’s lost for the executive is the time and space to dream about what’s next and make a thoughtful, gradual transition to the next chapter of life. The Life Reinspired Program was designed to add value to both sides of the equation.

Here’s some context: It’s not especially comfortable to broach the subject of retiring with executives in their 60s or early 70s who might be—even should be—thinking about creating a transition plan. And there are legal considerations, too—God forbid HR be accused of “ageism.” Yet Baby Boomer senior executives are not going to stay on the payroll forever. That said, it’s the rare leader who creates enough bandwidth while still working to envision a compelling, fulfilling future post-career. And in the absence of a vision, the prospect of retirement can loom as a daunting series of losses: loss of responsibility and influence, loss of identity, loss of reputation for success, loss of work community, loss of structure, and loss of purpose.

Positioned as a progressive executive perk, the Life Reinspired Program is like voluntary “Outplacement to Retirement,” a.k.a., a compassionate off-ramp from organizational life. Life Reinspired retreats and coaching services provide a structure and thought partners (fellow executives of a certain age or time or career stage) to think through succession planning, who and how to mentor, and the transfer of institutional knowledge. In the program, they’ll also revisit their own values and purpose; begin to redesign relationships with family and friends and identify new relationships to fill the gaps left by losing work associates; envision the next areas of learning, contribution, and influence to explore; and identify Bucket List adventures, experiences, and challenges.

Here’s how the Life Reinspired Program can help HR directors open the conversation about what’s next and offer needed resources for senior leaders. Instead of wondering when 60-something leaders are planning to pull up stakes, HR directors can actively offer this progressive new executive perk–Life Reinspired—as one of a number of enticing executive benefits. In fact, providing an outplacement-like off-ramp to the next chapter of life is one of those factors that gets companies labelled “a best place to work.”

At Life Reinspired, our dream is to create a win/win dynamic for organizations and individuals alike by changing the way Baby Boomer executives leave their careers and the way they arrive in their Encore phase of life. Find out more about our programs.

Caroline MacNeill Hall is Co-Founder of Life Reinspired, a reset lab for successful Baby Boomers contemplating a meaningful next chapter of life. She is President of MAC Advisors, an executive coaching and leadership development company. She’s also senior faculty for the Coaches Training Institute.