I am not suggesting by the photograph that this discussion will be unpleasant and I have no illusions about being irreplaceable but I have been wondering when I should tell my employer that I intend to leave and enter a non-working state of retirement very soon. The company I work for won’t be expecting my retirement just yet as I am [only] 56 and most of my generation are expecting to work at least until they are 60 years old.
Before the chaos of the forthcoming reorganisation I had been thinking that I wanted to give my employer what I consider sufficient warning [about three months] but as my leaving date is now up in the air I had decided to keep quiet until I know if I will be offered a suitable working base beyond the summer.
I have concerns that once they know I am leaving they will treat me differently in some way, maybe give me all the jobs no one else wants to do or just cut me out of business discussions. However, keeping quiet brings its own problems. I have recently been given a new area of responsibility that takes up about three days a month, as a colleague has moved on. I have no doubt I wouldn’t have been given this responsibility if they knew I was leaving in the foreseeable future. This change to my role suggests my employer doesn’t intend to make me redundant but leaves me feeling guilty. I have now been trained up to carry out an important and vital role within the company and as I work in a fairly small organisation and I am the only person that is trained to carry out this task and only I know that I am planning to leave in at least eight months time [and counting down].
This new responsibility has left me feeling even more that unless I want to leave the company in the lurch [and I don’t] I do need to give a few months notice so that I can train someone else in all of the tasks I carry out but the options relating to the re-organisation continue to confuse the picture.
Things are a bit more stable and straightforward for Mr BOTRA and he plans to inform his employer in December, giving them three months notice. This decision is partly dictated by practicalities, as he holds a company credit card and will need to stop using that in enough time for all transactions to be processed before he leaves. But also like me he wants to keep his cards close to his chest for as long as he can, just in case …
Back on the road again 
You raise an interesting point. When I served in the Royal Navy I was extremely loyal to my ’employer’ – it came with the territory and I enjoyed what I did.
When I moved to the private sector, I quickly realised that such loyalty is misplaced. The majority of companies only seemed to care about the bottom line, or protecting the share price so that Directors’ portfolios remained in a happy place.
It sounds like your employer does value you, which is great. But any reorganisation can change direction very quickly – today’s ‘indispensable’ employee can easily become tomorrow’s liability. It sounds like you’ve already decided to retire early – so that’s half the battle. I used to struggle with how and when I’ll tell my boss that I’m retiring early (in 102 weeks!), then I came across this blog: http://www.thinksaveretire.com/2015/10/19/the-awesomeness-of-not-being-important When the working day gets me down, I read this and re-set my way of thinking. What rang a bell with me is that the person gliding down to early retirement no longer worries about being involved in the key business discussions or being the ‘go to’ person in a crisis.
I’m sure you’re boss would be very grateful for having maximum notice but, a few months after you’ve left and your replacement is taking the heat, how likely is he/she to remember you?
Good luck with whatever decision you make.
All the best,
Paul
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Thanks Paul … I love that blog post you sent the link to … I am generally right there, I have clearly got a bit carried away with this new piece of work, I’ll book mark it for days I forget. I took my lowly admin post for the very reason that I don’t want to be important or have responsibilities, just work nine to five and go home. I have done the senior manager stuff and I’d had enough.
I don’t have any illusions about how easily the company could get rid of me. My former manager (who worked all hours, often sending emails at midnight and took so much responsibility on her shoulders) was let go last year, one day she was there, the next she wasn’t, it was a very bad time. I always remember what they did to her if I start to take work too seriously.
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We definitely struggle with this question to you. It’s trying to balance our own interests with the company’s interests. But, ultimately I think you need to look out for yourselves. And if you were to give notice and then they were to say that you can leave right away, you have to make sure that you’re financially OK with that. Once you hit that point of total financial security, though, then go ahead and give longer notice. Like you, we want to leave on very good terms, and so our intention when we finally give notice is to leave the amount of time we stick around up to our employers.
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*like you. 🙂
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This is good advice thank you. That financial security gives you so much freedom … and it is always worth remembering you never know what might happen in the future so its best to leave on good terms just in case you need some work in some unforeseen circumstance.
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