Safety Culture & Virtue 8: Retirement (8 mins)

How does your organization celebrate retirement? It's not a typical interview question, but perhaps it should be: How we treat the people who have given years of their lives to the organization speaks volumes about how we value everyone else. 

Today's episode is half-podcast, half-tribute to Sostenes the lab director -- because listening to people speak about his life at retirement made me want to live mine better.

Key Points:

-Just another party?

-Getting rid of the "old guard"

-Building a legacy

Transcript

Retirement

He had worked through 7 different CEOs. He had hired nearly every employee in the department. Everyone knew his name and everyone knew that they could count on him. He treated people like human beings rather than tasks to be dealt with. It didn’t matter if you were entry-level or c-suite, he learned your name and smiled when you passed in the hallway. If your department did something well, he was excited for you. If you were grieving a personal loss, you could expect heartfelt condolences no matter how busy the meeting schedule. I was standing in front of a pile of sushi, and thinking that I had never seen something as expensive as sushi at one of the hospital’s parties before, when it dawned on me that this was one more expression of how much people appreciated a man who gave decades of service to work as the lab director of a community hospital.

When I interviewed for the position, I didn’t ask how retirement is celebrated, but in the years to come I would witness a variety of approaches to the topic. Some included stale cookies and watery punch with a quick mention at the last meeting they attended. Others were lavish – but none so grand as the one for Sostenes, the lab director. But the platters of sushi and shrimp cocktail were a testament to how a quiet servant leader could make a lasting impact on thousands.

I left that celebration wanting to do meaningful work like Sostenes. I thought about how he cared for the people around him and how they loved him for it. I thought about the kind of legacy I wanted to leave when I retired. Had I ever thought of retirement and legacy before that day? Probably not. My only discussion of retirement included the fact that I would pay into social security but would likely never receive benefits, and that 401k’s seemed to be a great way to fleece the elderly with hidden fees and strings attached to their own savings. Never had I considered whether I wanted to be an employee who inspired others to do great work.

That is why an organization’s approach to retirement is a critical sign of virtue and safety culture. The retirement of one seemingly innocuous individual reveals whether the work is valued and whether the people who do it are valuable in the eyes of leadership. If employees are not valuable, then certainly the strangers in the sickbed are not valued either. And if the hidden message is derisive or derogatory, or if it sounds like leadership is thrilled to get rid of “the old guard” and replace those senior members with fresh, new blood, then every employee in the organization is going to feel like they are quickly replaceable, that their work is without meaning, and that they will never be appreciated – even if they give 30 years to the hospital, no one will notice.

But when the community came together to celebrate a life well lived and job well done, it changed my entire outlook at work. I acquired a long-term vision and realized that even my mundane tasks could be done well and contribute to a legacy worth celebrating. It helped to shift my perspective from an achievement-oriented, career-building, self-focus to a service-oriented, legacy-building, others-focus to my work.

As a nurse who graduated into a national recession, I also had a bit of a cut-throat attitude about work. No one would hire me when I graduated at the top of my class. It felt like I had to strive just to get into a program and then I had no future when I graduated. So I started my career waiting for the ax to fall because I entered the field when layoffs were rampant, hospitals were going bankrupt, unions were going on strike, and my colleagues were losing their homes because they couldn’t get work. So the idea of loyalty to a workplace, or building relationships with coworkers was a distant one – I couldn’t imagine that I would have enough job security to stay more than two years in any workplace, so why would I invest in getting to know the people around me?

So when my coworkers shared stories about how Sostenes was there to encourage them when they wanted to propose to their wife, or how he came to their hospital room when they lost a child, I thought long and hard about whether anyone could say something like that about me. Did I acknowledge the human beings around me? Did I value them? Did I understand that my life and choices affected them?

Today, if your retirement practices are stale and watery, I would encourage you to begin tracking years of employment. Just start there. Begin to absorb the level of commitment and retention at your organization and consider what it says about your culture. Today, a lot of organizations do nothing to mark an employee’s years of service after so many budget cuts, but the report is certainly available from Human Resources and it doesn’t hurt to ask.

Next, begin thinking about retirement the way we view graduation – it’s a chance to appreciate all the hard work completed and then launch someone to the next stage of life surrounded by people they care about. It can be a bewildering step to leave a routine that was engrained over decades of service, so a kind word about the future means a lot.

Then think about what you could afford to celebrate retirement in a more meaningful way. Ask the people at the ground floor to share some ideas and gather personal reflections before a retirement day. Even if you can’t afford sushi, it means a great deal to gather words of appreciation. Every kindness bestowed on a retiring employee is a balm to the current worker who now believes that one day, perhaps they will hear some appreciation for their work. Maybe they will find out that they changed someone else’s life for the better. Perhaps the CEO will come. Maybe their work is important after all. Maybe they’ll serve sushi. Because every retiree that is honored is a breath of hope to the ones left behind to carry the load. Everyone wants to hear “well done” at the end of their career, even if they haven’t realized that it matters yet.

Does your organization honor retirement? If so, give yourself 1 point for the ten-point assessment. Or, does your organization speak derisively of retiring employees? If so, give yourself a 0 for this item and consider how you can affect change. One day, it will be your retirement day, and unless you love watery punch, there’s no better day than today to begin preparing for your last day of work. And that is why retirement celebrations are part of my safety culture assessment.