When to tell boss I'm retiring?

waveyjane

I plan to retire at the end of this financial year because I want an easier tax calc and start my new life going into the summer. I've got a 3 month notice period on my contract. So I was planning on resigning in January such that my last day would be on or about 6th April.

However, "appraisals" are coming up in which we have to do "goals" and a 12-month "plan" of some kind as we do every damn year. Suffice to say nobody wants to do appraisals, and I don't want to pretend I'll be around. And for various reasons (both from luck and design) I don't have much to do in the next six months.

So I was thinking - should I just tell my boss now that I intend to hand in my notice in January? So essentially giving 6 months notice not 3.

I can see some pros and cons, but what do people here think?

One thing I can think of is that they offer me a redundancy package in response (I've only been there 3 1/2 years), but that might screw up my tax/summer plan. Dunno.

Stubod

..yes.........

DullGreyGuy

They can't just make you redundant because you intend to retire. 

As you've over 2 years service it would be hard to get rid of you and so doesn't have the same risk of them turning around and just serving you your 3 months notice now. Just because you wont be here for 12 months doesn't typically get you out of doing objectives etc. It may be more lip service because you are going to be leaving but I've had HR even require them to be submitted for people who are much closer to leaving than you. For some employee/managers they are all lip service anyway. 

An employer sets the notice period and in doing so should be considering time to recruit replacements etc. As such I dont feel obliged to give them any more notice than they have contractually asked for. 6 months is also a long time and you dont know what's going to happen, uncle was going to retire 5 years ago but his step daughter died and they became the guardians of their granddaughter. Either the financials didn't stack up any more or he didn't want to be at home with a teenager but he had to cancel his plans and continue working. 

Roger175

As someone who used to run a business, I would like to think you would have the decency to give your employer as long as possible to find a replacement. Assuming that is, that you have respect for your employer and are not retiring purely because of some work related issue.

Most of our staff used to be on 2 months notice, but is astonishing how quickly that used to go and rarely were we able to find a suitable replacement in the timescale. By the time you've advertised, waited for the responses, interviewed and then factor in the fact that the new employee often has to serve their own notice period, we usually found we were without someone for months. Furthermore, the member of staff leaving often had holiday accrued, so would disappear after say 6 weeks.  What we ideally needed was to be able to find a replacement and then have a period where new member of staff could shadow the old member of staff, in other words a hand-over period - this never worked out!

Do the decent thing and make it as smooth as possible for your employer.

waveyjane

Roger175 said:

As someone who used to run a business, I would like to think you would have the decency to give your employer as long as possible to find a replacement. 

Do the decent thing and make it as smooth as possible for your employer.

Yes, I suppose this is mainly where I'm coming from. I have no problem with my employer, they've been great. So telling my boss I intend to go early is really me saying they don't have to worry about setting goals and all the rest of it (I'm one of five people reporting to them, so one less to think about!). They can relax on that and start prepping for my replacement instead.

@DullGreyGuy - good point they can't make me redundant (at least based on my giving them 6 months notice). That makes sense now I come to think of it. 

There is of course the possibility that I might have to continue working after all, but right now it would have to be a really big disaster. And I'd probably go freelance anyway I think.

born_again

Hate appraisals..
But due to my age, the bit about what you would like to do going forward for me is always now.
"Due to my age & the fact I enjoy the role I do now, I am happy to stay in this role"
Always come back with a positive response from my manager. Had them in stitches when one year company threw in where do you see yourself in 5 years.
Simply said sat at home enjoying retirement... Nothing to add to that & that question was dropped the next year as so many put the same answer 😶‍🌫️

Just give them the required notice, or you could broach the subject with your line manager now that you are going to retire in April, so how would they handle the process.

luvchocolate

I only needed to give 1 months notice but I knew when I wanted to finish so gave 3 months notice. 
It was much appreciated 

Andy_L

Are bonuses a thing? Are you likely to not get one if you hand your notice in?

Are they likely to shed staff anytime soon? In which case keeping quiet might keep you in line for a redundancy/early retirement package

gwynlas

If you are on good terms with your employer then you could give them an indication by saying that you think that you would be in a position to retire next year. This gives them a heads up but doesn't set decisions in stone, You could say that you are giving it serious consideration about timing and would like to be free of work by next summer. It then gives them the option of negociating a leaving date with  you and/or asking that you consider preparing to hand over on going work to collegues, training a replacement or agreeing that you could work freelance

Pat38493

I don't think there is anything to lose by telling them as early as possible.  If you are concerned just make it clear that you are not giving your "official" notice yet but as a courtesy you are giving them extra warning that you are planning to hand in your official notice.

I doubt they would offer you a redundancy package if they knew you were already going to quit in a few months, but if they did wouldn't that be a good thing - free money.  In fact if you think there are redundancies in the pipeline this could actually be a valid reason not to tell them as they are less likely to select you if they know you are leaving soon anyway.

I have made it known to my boss that I am either planning to scale back my work or stop completely in "a few years from now" but actually it's probably 1-3 years from now so I'm kind of laying the groundwork.  I don't have any great prospect of a promotion unless I moved to a different country and I don't really need one anyway.  There are redundancies in the pipeline at my place so maybe I should not have told them that, but there you go.

waveyjane

Andy_L said:

Are bonuses a thing? Are you likely to not get one if you hand your notice in?

Are they likely to shed staff anytime soon? In which case keeping quiet might keep you in line for a redundancy/early retirement package

Hm. Good points. Bonuses are a thing (got about 7% last year), so that's maybe a consideration, but my retirement plan simply assumes the salary stops in April. 

And yes you never know if they're going to shed staff (although my boss keeps saying they're trying to recruit more of us). But that would need to happen in the next three months, and so far no signs of that. 

I guess one way of looking at that is I'd be foregoing the possibility of maybe and extra £5-10K either as bonus (although I might lose that even if I stick to my 3 months notice plan) or redundancy payout. Which in the grand scheme of things isn't a showstopper really.