After 30 Years of Service, Is a Farewell Lunch Really Enough?
- Tammy Martins
- Aug 18
- 6 min read
The Case for Supporting Employees Through the Non-Financial Side of Retirement
🟢 He retired 17 years ago, survived cancer, built and sold a company, wrote three family histories and a children’s book, and still begins every morning by thinking about who he can encourage that day.
A few months ago I had the privilege of sitting down with him on Zoom after one of my retirement readiness webinars. His story was inspiring enough to share, and his perspective on how retirement goes wrong for other people was something I wasn’t expecting.
“People spend 20 or 30 years preparing financially for this retirement transition,” he said. “But they haven’t spent 30 minutes really thinking about the other dimensions of their life.”
✅ What many organizations do well
Every organizations invest in onboarding so that people arrive well. Programs, orientation weeks, handbooks, mentors and buddy systems. The goal is to help someone new understand where they are, how things work, and what is expected.
If I look over my career, one onboarding plan stands out for me and it actually started before I arrived. The CEO called me personally to tell me he was excited that I would be joining the organization and he looks forward to working with me. That never happened to me before and I was so impressed.
When my first day arrived, someone welcomed me at the door. They gave me a tour of the building, introduced me to people. Then they showed me my office so I could get settled and showed me where their office was in case I needed anything at all.
On my keyboard was a welcome letter and a printed email with my login information and a temporary password. I then read through some excellent instructions on how to start my online learning and a welcome video from the CEO. Each online module was designed by someone in Human Resources, specifically for our organization and meetings were spread out over the course of the next couple of months with key stakeholders. I had lunch with the executive team so I could get to know my colleagues better - it was the best onboarding experience I ever had.
🔍 What we don’t do well
That made me reflect, if the goal of onboarding is to help people arrive well. What is the goal of offboarding when employees retire? At first thought is the obvious need to minimize disruption for the organization. We look to quickly identify a replacement and if everything goes well, there might even be an overlap period so the incumbent can learn from the exiting employee.
Teams often want to celebrate their colleague, and the last week of employment includes a farewell lunch, a sheet cake, maybe a card and a gift that team members contributed to.
What about the organization? Well, many organizations have milestone anniversary gifts that the employee can choose from, and they recognized them in all-employee meetings. HR meets with them when the departure date is chosen and provides pension details, benefit information and they may even offer access to a financial planning webinar.
Is that it? Is that how we treat our most dedicated employees who have given 20, 30 or even 40 years of their lives to the organization? And how do other employees feel when they see valued team member walk out the door? Does it look like they are quietly phased out? Does it make them nervous about sharing their plans for the future and make them feel like they need to keep it to themselves until the last moment?
This is what a colleague told me. She said she shared her retirement plans a few years in advance and then was shocked when she was given notice and a package during an unexpected company downsizing period. Her perspective was that she was an ‘easy target’ and that if she kept her mouth shut, she may not have ended up on the chopping block. Whether or not that was actually the reason, the message it sent to other employees was clear…keep your plans to yourself.
Here is my question phrased in a positive way:
How can organizations truly honour and support those dedicated employees who are about to enter arguably one of the biggest transitions of their lives?
Very few organizations offer any form of retirement transition support that goes beyond the financial picture. I appreciate the quotes on pension and benefits. I appreciate the opportunity to join webinars that talk about withdrawing investments and tax implications. However, the reality is that there is so much more to retirement than the financial implications.
What about the structure they had for 40 years that dissolves overnight? What about the relationships that often go with it? What about the impact and sense of accomplishment that they thrived on which disappears? What about the identity that was built on their title and the role they had? Who prepares them for that?
🚪 The opportunity
Executives and people leaders may not feel that it is their responsibility to support retiring employees with the non-financial aspects of retirement readiness. However, I see a clear opportunity, and I dedicated Chapter 9 to it in my upcoming book Designing Your Second Act: offboarding.
The opportunity is more than the succession plan, the exit interview and the pension briefing.
I’m talking about a real, intentional process – a structured approach to non-financial retirement planning – that helps someone who has given decades of their best work understand who they are becoming, not just what they’re leaving behind.
If onboarding is about helping people arrive well, then leadership has a role in helping them leave well. That might look like a structured retirement readiness workshop, access to life design coaching, or simply a framework that helps the retiring employee think beyond the financial picture before their last day arrives.
This matters for organizations committed to treating their people well. And it matters for individuals who deserve more than a farewell lunch after 20, 30 or 40 years of contribution.
🌱 The scale of what we are leaving unaddressed
According to Statistics Canada, nearly 277,000 Canadians aged 55 to 80 retired in the year leading up to August 2025. That number has grown by roughly 50% over the past decade as our beloved baby boomers age. In the United States, 2025 marked what demographers have called “Peak 65,” with a record number of Americans reaching traditional retirement age.
When I read that number, I couldn’t help but think of 277,000 people walking out the door with their pension and benefit projections and a box with their belongings. Not one single conversation about who they were becoming and no support for navigating the non-financial aspects of retirement or this major life transition.
When retirees leave their organization, they don’t just take their experience with them. They take decades of institutional knowledge, relationships, judgment, pattern recognition, organizational agility, industry acumen and problem solving that cannot be documented in a manual.
What remains largely unaddressed in organizations on both sides of the border is what one senior advisor at a professional services firm told me bluntly: “Almost no one helps with the human side of life after work.”
Here is what I believe to be true – we have built an entire industry around helping people plan their money. Very little exists to help them plan their meaning.
💡 What 17 years taught him
What did 17 years of retirement teach my new colleague?
He looks back with pride on what he accomplished but he doesn’t miss work. Instead, he built something new in retirement. He told me that he found purpose in family and he established a living legacy by showing up for the people around him, intentionally, every single morning.
He is honest about what it took to get him there. It required intention, discovery and the willingness to ask himself what a good day looks like when no one is scheduling it for you.
In my retirement coaching work, I use a tool called the Life Design Purpose Wheel. It helps people assess the six dimensions of a fulfilling life:
Health and Vitality
Service and Contribution
Creativity and Play
Connection and Relationships
Growth and Learning
Financial Stability
Most retirement planning addresses only one of these – financial stability or financial readiness. The other five are largely left to chance.
“Don’t walk off the cliff without a safety rope,” he said.
The safety rope is not about money. It is a clear sense of direction across all dimensions that make life worth living. It can be utilized at any time but it’s best to build before you need it.
If you’d like to work through the Purpose Wheel yourself, I’m Tammy Martins and I’d love to help.
✍️ A final thought
The safety rope is available. Most people just don’t know to ask for it before they need it.
Tammy Martins is a retirement transition coach, speaker, and author of Designing Your Second Act, forthcoming from Routledge in November 2026. She helps professionals and executives design a purposeful and fulfilling life after work.
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