when is the best time to tell your boss that you are retiring?

[Luvtoride]

This!

Company culture plays a big part. What have other people at your company done, and how were they treated?

I work at a company that still has a pension program. Management knows when you will "get your points" and will be full pension eligible. So it is no big secret when one's retirement is at least somewhat probable.
Advanced notice has not caused any issues, and most people do that. They are not treated any differently. It gives time to hire new people and cross-train.

Taco, Thanks. finally a response other than “screw the man”!

I also gave 60 days notice at my company that I recently retired from after working for over 30 years. As noted by Gumby, we have a pension and retiree health benefits that they need 60 days to have Pension calculated and all paperwork prepared.

During this time my main responsibility was training people who would be assuming my functions and wrapping up any loose ends on projects. Even with this time period, when the week of my retirement came, many of my colleagues were unaware of it.

For a career the length of mine, company loyalty certainly came into play as well. I had given my boss a heads up a year earlier as to my approximate timing of my retirement.

 

[eytonxav]

The first time I retired back in 2003, accepted an early retirement offer that was announced in Sept, accepted it in October, and had to be out the door before Thanksgiving as I recall. After going back to work and retiring for the last time back in 2013, I gave them 6 months notice that they greatly appreciated.

 

[Koolau]

Told many times.


On a Thursday late, I was told that my assignment would be changing. I would no longer be doing the assignment that I had more or less created for myself years earlier (and that I enjoyed doing.) I would soon be doing "grunt" w*rk to fill my time.


That weekend, DW and I had THE TALK.



Friday I had a remote meeting - another plant site. Monday was labor day. Tues. was my first day able to speak to my direct supervision. I told the boss that Friday was my last day in the office. My last official day at Megacorp was Sept. 30 because I had just that much vacation time left to use up.



My Boss's boss and her boss stopped by to see what was "wrong." I told them "Nothing is wrong. I was told I'd be doing XYZ and I said 'No, Im not doing XYZ. I'm retiring. I'm not mad I'm just finished.'" Deathly silence - then my manager hugged me. You can't make this stuff up.

 

[youbet]

Give just as much notice as they give employees they lay off. Or two weeks, which is two weeks longer.

Would that include time covered by severance? For example, I was given one year's severance, one year's full benefits and my stock options.

 

[RetMD21]

I'm guessing I was the exception to the rule. I was very up front with my intention to retire at a specific time starting about five years out. It became an office joke to swing by my cube and ask how many days I had left. At about 2 years I out stepped down from being a manager and took a role of coach/mentor (at the same pay).

One of my coworkers had an excel countdown for 5 years and let everyone know about it. No negative consequences and an ongoing topic of conversation for years. He was a valued senior tech guy and turned down some training because of his well known plans.

In my case it was a day when boss was handing out crappy assignments which had nothing to do with maintaining and repair electric trains for public transport. Had been waiting for such an event with typed notice, which I carried in my pocket for many weeks.
At beginning of the meeting, pulled out this crumpled paper, signed and handed it to him.
The dropped jaws of all attendees were priceless. Yeah, they did get two more weeks of my time.

Great story, I was FI and at one point I was peeved and made an undated resignation notice that I kept in my desk drawer. Things got better and I held on for several years before making a planned exit. It was nice to know I could resign at the time of my choosing.

 

[big-papa]

One of my coworkers had an excel countdown for 5 years and let everyone know about it. No negative consequences and an ongoing topic of conversation for years. He was a valued senior tech guy and turned down some training because of his well known plans.

I gave notice about 18 months in advance and downloaded a desktop app that was continually counting down until the final day.

 

[Route246]

Regarding burning bridges, this tends to work when you have control over references but where I work (Silicon Valley) it is a relatively small work community and if you've been around it is very easy to have ex-colleagues who did not like you to chime in and block you from consideration in a role where they are at and you are applying to, even as much as a decade later. Technically, it is probably unethical to seek word-of-mouth references in such an uncontrolled way but it happens.

I've worked at a few larger companies and I frequently get asked about prospective candidates. It is often done in code such as, "ever worked with this guy, you were at xyz.com at the same time?" Generally if someone is very favorable you can speak out and say it but if you say something like, "Yes, I know him, no comment, though" is as good as the death sentence for your assessment.

<snip>
Also, I would not have cared about burning bridges with my last boss, I had plenty before them, and colleagues, for any references I might have ever wanted. My bosses seemed to rotate every 18 months, either out of the company, or lateral, or promotions, and always with even less notice than a month.

 

[Scuba]

I gave my contractually required notice which was 30 days. However, I had been preparing my team to take on more responsibilities for months, so by the time I gave notice, I was confident the day to day functions of my department could proceed smoothly.

My boss tried to get me to stay “until they could get a replacement” and asked me to name what I would need. The problem was, if I had still needed money, I wouldn’t have resigned. I decided that time with DH and enjoying family, travel, other interests and friends was far more precious to me than a few extra bucks, or even a lot of extra bucks, so I stuck to my 30 days.

No regrets whatsoever.

 

[2017ish]

DW gave 2 years notice. I gave a couple months less than that. Both of us were in very small professional groups (4 doctors, 5 lawyers). Replacement time for her group to get a newly minted OBGyn was expected to be at least a year, more likely 2. In both cases, we said we'd leave earlier if replacements were obtained--but both worked until the noticed date, when our replacements were onboarded.

Very different situation than most cases.

________________
E.T.A., when I quit biglaw to stay home with kids in early 90's, I gave 4 months notice. When she quit her first group to move states in early 2000s, she gave the contractually required 6 months, even though she had no idea of which state, much less which job, she would be going to. There were some hard feelings with that one, but it didn't affect her ability to do her job.

 

[KarenF]

I gave 3 months notice and got loaded up with extra work. 2 weeks with option to extend sounds good.

 

[MMxyz74]

About a couple of weeks before the annual review process started. Who needed to go thru that stuff again?
Worked out fine since accrued vacation time let me get paid thru the end of the year.
However, I knew at the start of the year that I was going to FIRE. This allowed me to make plans to max out 401k earlier.

 

[Raygun99]

Monday Morning

 

[cranberryjoe]

when is the best time to tell your boss that you are retiring?

Depends on how much you like your boss and your job. If you hate your boss, tell them at the most stressful possible time for them.

Ok, now for a serious reply...

For all your FIRED people, when did you tell the boss? Two week notice or 6 months?

Since I retired as part of a downsizing package targeted at the older generation, I didn't have a lot of choice: 6 months from when I accepted the package and had to tell my boss until I was officially off roll.

6 months was way too long. I got most of my projects transitioned to other employees fairly quickly, then spent months with mostly nothing useful to do (planning my retirement activities on company time!) yet working one final and extremely annoying assignment that nobody else took. I hated that part.

1 month would have been about right, allowing plenty of time to tie up loose ends. 2 weeks would have been even better, but it would have been tight to get all my projects transitioned. I recommend not more than 1 month.

 

[bigriver]

I gave 2 weeks, they could have negotiated, but didn’t and I didn’t expect them too.

 

[1242Vintage]

Do it like I did … at your annual performance evaluation! It was awesome and completely took my executive by surprise.

I was appointed Principal Engr of my organization a year earlier. So at the performance evaluation we went over all the normal benchmarks … which were easily met, profit and overhead numbers, customer retention and all the standard corporate B.S. All was excellent and no issues.

After the formalities we chatted informally about life and family and as the conversation was winding down I shocked the chief by asking how many weeks notice does he need before I retired? We settled on 6 weeks.

Then I quickly escaped executive row, and went down and out to the street level and called my wife. Never forget her words when I told her … “Come on home baby!” So I grabbed my bags, hopped on a plane back home that afternoon and ran out my six weeks remotely.

Done!

 

[swabby01]

Each of our jobs is different which means yours has to be what meats the circumstance best

In my case I was running a large portfolio of programs with MANY people that had contributed to the success and depended on my support and at many times providing them coverage to from above to allow them to succeed. Many were also being mentored by me to grow to the next position / advancement.

This played a major part in when to tell my boss that it was time to pass the baton. I told my direct reports first and asked them what they would suggest. Almost all said that i needed to to what was best for me but said that they would like several months to work through areas that they wanted more support. We ended up agreeing that if the company didn't accelerate things from their point of view I should give six months to allow transition time to my replacement and allowing us (them, my replacement and myself) to travel to my customers and my business areas major suppliers and ease all of them into a more comfortable place with the upcoming change.

Bottom line, I gave my boss five months notice. From there on I worked transition and kept asking to have my replacement decided so I could help him ir her transition as seamlessly as possible. Five weeks before my last day (four weeks of vacation to be all but one week left) I finally got my replacement announced and we went on a whirlwind tour around the world to "meet and greet" my replacement. I gave up two of my four weeks of vacation (got pay out instead) but when my boss asked me to extend another four months I refused and left the day I had chosen when I told him.

So, long winded but my point was in my case a long notice helped me, my direct reports and our company. So much depends on uniqueness of your position.

In prior jobs I was "one of a team" that was working things that made it easy for me to give two weeks notice with no major impact to any one else

 

[meleana]

I gave a month. Went on an already planned vacation the third week. Came back and worked the next week training my replacement. They said I did t have to but I insisted.

(New management had spent a year trying to force me (and others) out. I finally had enough but wanted to leave on my own terms. Left with nothing. No pension, no health insurance. No severance. Just my small 401 k.

 

[Katoslake]

I retired from MegaCorp in October 2020. I felt guilty so I gave my boss two months notice. He was the best manager I had out of 13 in my career. He was happy for me and actually let me help interview candidates for my position.
All that being said, in retrospect three weeks would’ve been plenty.

The only people that really needed to know in advance were HR staff that initiated my retirement options and pay off.

 

[Uplooking]

In my professional career I've given notice two times now and been asked to leave three times. Two led to new opportunities and one - became a few extensions and finally a - why don't you just stay on? I did and from that j-b now its time for me to explore new horizons.

In my case I gave my manager a rough target month about 9 months in advance. The situation we have at our facility is unique - a really good technical company with competent staff and actively hiring for several technical positions. About two months later he asked for a more firm date and I picked a mid December exit date. In the mean time I'm doing a pile of needed documentation, helping to finish up a project and providing some mentoring for my replacement. Seems odd to not have a new project and I feel a bit disconnected (few meetings!). But, as others are getting to the on-ramp of a new complex project - I'll just settle to wave at them as I sail off!

Come December I'll just consider this transition to be just a very long Christmas Holiday break!

 

[jeffst]

I gave 4 weeks
We’re all replaceable.

 

[Koolau]

I gave 4 weeks
We’re all replaceable.

And don't let the screen door hit you on the way out.

 

[anothercog]

For me, if I want my unvested stock to vest I need to leave on good terms with 90 days notice. I may do up to six months. We’ll see how things are when I get there in 4-5 more years.

 

[thod]

My company determined my retirement day for me.

They basically told my entire team (about 12 people) including our boss that our positions were being moved to India.

It would be effective in 10 months. In the 10 months we had to get the next product release shipped and then train our replacements.

We were allowed to find other teams to stay with the company if we liked. About half of the group did that.

The release and transition would last for 9 months, during which we would be paid 2 extra weeks for each month worked and during that time we would continue to receive all the various stock related compensation.

Half the team stayed with the company and half left.

On the last day, there were 5 of us standing in my bosses office saying good byes. Our boss was also taking the package, so there was really no one else to see us leave. We basically all walked together out to the parking lot said good bye to each other and left.

 

[Koolau]

My company determined my retirement day for me.

They basically told my entire team (about 12 people) including our boss that our positions were being moved to India.

It would be effective in 10 months. In the 10 months we had to get the next product release shipped and then train our replacements.

We were allowed to find other teams to stay with the company if we liked. About half of the group did that.

The release and transition would last for 9 months, during which we would be paid 2 extra weeks for each month worked and during that time we would continue to receive all the various stock related compensation.

Half the team stayed with the company and half left.

On the last day, there were 5 of us standing in my bosses office saying good byes. Our boss was also taking the package, so there was really no one else to see us leave. We basically all walked together out to the parking lot said good bye to each other and left.

Sadly sweet. The best way to go IMO. Folks in the same situation who came to the same conclusion. A very good way to leave, I think.

 

[bobandsherry]

Do not want to burn bridges.

If I'm serious about being retired, and my relationship with boss is one that I couldn't openly discuss in advance, then I have no concerns about burning bridges as I'll never be walking back across one. [emoji41]