Presentation: What is End-of-Career / Retirement Coaching and How can it Help My Agency?
Abstract: Many federal agencies have 30%, 40%, or even more retirement-eligible staff. Many retirement-eligible employees are eligible to leave at any given moment, leaving organizations, programs, and projects at risk of being able to offer ongoing capable services.
Being able to provide a program that supports your retirement-eligible employees to prepare for this major life transition can help maintain continuity within your federal agency. When employees have a chance to explore their current roles and identity, they can better support succession planning and be mentally and emotionally ready to retire.
In 2024, Menzies Coach & Consulting performed an End-of-Career / Retirement Coaching pilot program within a federal agency. The pilot program focused on preparing employees for the emotional, psychological, and social readiness to leave their professional careers as they prepared themselves personally for their next chapter of life.
The End-of-Career / Retirement Coaching pilot program consisted of five one-hour individual coaching sessions that covered the following topic areas:
- Session 1: Setting the stage and envisioning your future
- Session 2: Your professional journey
- Session 3: Your personal transformation
- Session 4: Develop a professional succession plan or explore more into how you will show up in your personal life
- Session 5: Next steps
In this presentation, we will review the coaching program, identify short-term benefits to the organization and the employees, and discuss long-term benefits that are currently monitored.
Learning Objective
- Be able to define End-of-career/ Retirement Coaching
- Understand how coaching programs tailored to retirement eligible can enhance your organizations readiness for ongoing continuity and improve employee morale.
PMI Talent Triangle: Ways of Working
Biography: Ms. Menzies is a retirement, leadership, and career coach with over 35 years of experience in project and program management, combined with 20 years at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
When she retired from the FDA, she was a little lost. Not knowing what she would do and how she would spend her time. As a result, she developed an ‘End-of-Career / Retirement Coaching’ program to help individuals end their careers in a way that is meaningful to them and prepare to live their best next chapter outside of the office. She offers this program to individuals and for-profit, non-profit, and federal agencies to help their employees prepare themselves for retirement.
Ms. Menzies uses techniques that challenge clients to get out of their head and acknowledge their feelings, emotions, and convictions. Her purpose is to encourage exploration and practice building resilience so people can show up at work in ways that honor them and prepare to live instead of existing through life.
