Stop the presses! Stop the presses! No wait – START the presses!
My newest ebook, Managing the Soon To Retire Employee has just been released and is available on amazon.com. It’s filled with tips, insight, and practical solutions to issues that can arise when you manage people who are approaching retirement.
Highly effective managers vary their approach and use different techniques with various subsets of employees. A style that might work well with seasoned veterans could be highly ineffective with a group of new hires. One group that has received little attention, from a manager’s perspective, is people I call Sooners.
These are folks who are three years or less from full retirement. As a group, they share some critical characteristics:
- They are likely to be older than most of their peers and perhaps their boss.
- They are in the midst of a major transition – from employee to retiree.
- They face the unique challenge of staying focused on their job while looking ahead to the time when they will no longer be working.
- They may be overwhelmed with anxiety, a sense of isolation, nostalgia, positive anticipation or negative reluctance, burnout, etc.
- They may face stereotyping (such as being seen as resistant to change or aloof or self-absorbed)
Managing the Soon To Retire Employee is an ebook you can read in an hour or so. You’ll learn just what it’s like to be a Sooner, the three stages of transition, why some Sooners become problem employees while others become outstanding contributors – and what you can do to facilitate a positive experience in their remaining months and years. You’ll read an Open Letter from a real-life Sooner which makes a compelling case for managers to adjust their approach to better lead Sooners.
This may be the first book of its kind – with a focus on equipping managers with the tools they need to get good performance from their Sooners while “being there” for them in terms of helping them prepare for retirement. If you have Sooners on your staff, you should check this one out.
