Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy

Someone close to me is retiring early at the end of the week. She is consumed with thoughts about her pending Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy. Many people think about leaving a legacy at work and I had the same mindset with my first early retirement. To some people this may sound crazy. But it is a very common emotion that many people have before pulling the retirement-trigger from a long-held career.

There seems to be two far-end retirement camps. The extreme ends are those who could care less and even do all they can to be dismissed before they retire. They try to secure a severance package and/or start their retirement collecting unemployment payments. On the other end there are those who don’t want to do anything or leave behind anything that will tarnish their good works. Certainly there are those who fall between the extremes.

Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy – Your What And Why

If you are having any thoughts about leaving a legacy at work or think you might then do so understanding your legacy’s What and Why. Take it from me, most of us miss the boat. There are a lot of people who after years of financial planning and taking successful action have this retirement and leaving a workplace legacy issue gnaw at them. It can cause misguided efforts to try to fulfill their desire of leaving a legacy at work in the final months, weeks, or days of their career.

Non-financial aspects of early retirement, Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy / leaving a legacy at workThere is a desire to leave behind something meaningful to be remembered for after giving your all towards a long career. Especially for those who worked for the same employer for many of those years.

I know that I did and I have talked to a lot of people who had the same thoughts. But I admit I missed the boat on what was really going on and what the reality of leaving a legacy at work truly is.

Perhaps this is a boomer issue or that of older Gen X where we worked many years under the earlier employer/employee culture. It may sound crazy to many younger employees today to concern ourselves with leaving a legacy at work. Especially in this current mobile employer/employee career environment. However I believe that anyone who fully engages into their career and their company with the idealistic view of always working hard to make a difference will one day struggle with this same legacy issue.

Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy – Your What…

Understand What you truly feel your workplace legacy is.

  • Was it the mentoring you did?
  • Is it all the operational processes you created that are now the backbone of the organization?
  • Was it transferring your knowledge through the formal training classes you developed and taught to all the new talent coming through the company?
  • Maybe it was how you freely shared your knowledge and experience.
  • Was it always being there when the stuff hit the fan and staying late to help your co-workers out?

These examples were what I considered my legacy for career #1. Leaving a legacy at work is about what you have achieved and passed on to others. That is what lives on after your retirement. It is about having a defining purpose for all the work you did. Purpose that is bigger than yourself just doing a job.

There was no way I could slack-off to get let-go with a severance package and tarnish all that I did. Even though it would have made more financial sense. There was a lot of personal sacrifice through my career. I couldn’t sell that for some temporary financial gain. I didn’t want to be remembered as a go-getter who in the end dropped the ball or couldn’t do my job any more. Leaving a legacy at work was something I really cared about.

Ask yourself Questions to find your “WHAT”
  • What is it exactly you want your colleagues to remember about you?
  • Exactly what is it that you want any of your customers, clients, and external stakeholders to remember about you?
  • What is it of your work that you believe is important to be passed down to everyone coming up the ladder at your work?
  • What is it that you have done that helped and will continue to help your organization succeed?

Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy – Your Why…

Once you know what you consider your legacy is then understand your WHY.  Why you feel the need to leave a legacy at work. There must be a reason why you have this gnawing desire to leave a workplace legacy.

For me it was about all my personal life sacrifice. The constant engagement. Trying to make a difference every day. It was about making sense of a long hard career and mentally trying to justify all the hardship and BS as something bigger than myself. Trying to reconcile in my mind that it was more than a paycheck.

How much of our desire to leave a workplace legacy is just vanity or ego?

For those of us in the “leaving a legacy at work” camp we all want to be liked. We want to be fondly remembered. I admit that was also part of my Why. Truthfully, if that didn’t matter to me I could have been one of the countless mediocre. Those who barely engaged and never advanced or could be depended on.

Those of us who shoot for financial independence and early retirement are very driven and that is also how we are in our work.

The hard truth. In the end I believe the biggest reason for wanting to leave a workplace legacy is nothing more than our own mind trying to deal with our walking away. Walking away from what was a huge part of our life. It’s about fooling ourselves into believing we leave it better than we found it. But it has nothing to do with them and is all about ourselves. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy – The Reality…

When you have identified your Legacy What and Why it is obviously the accumulation of your career. No busting your keister at the end is going to make much of a difference.

Even if in the end we did leave the organization better than when we found it, most workplace legacies are short-lived. The reality is that our workplace legacy will be very limited to those we mentored. To those we had a personal relationship with. In many cases it will only last with them while they stay in the same position/organization that we shared. Also realize that it will fade in short-time.

That is one of the differences between yesterday’s and today’s employment culture. It is now always moving. You seldom hear of anyone staying in a job very long. People are either taking an internal company transfer or heading to a new company. Even if they do stay, your past organization may change direction with new management every 6 months. Making all of your workplace accomplishments and contributions obsolete and forgotten.

Even if your organization and your closest colleagues stay in place. Your retirement and leaving a workplace legacy will have no institutional or organizational memory. No matter what you accomplished nor how many fans you have. Our work and accomplishments belong to the company. They can do with them what they want to.

The Reality about Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy

The reality is, our workplace Legacy WHY is for our own peace of mind and going into retirement with a positive attitude. Retiring and having a feeling of accomplishment. It is about retiring on our own terms. Without any doubts and going full speed ahead. Retiring without ever having a feeling of retreat or regret.

Our workplace Legacy WHAT is all about the personal relationships we have made during our career. It is not about the accomplishments. It’s about how our accomplishments, efforts, and good work helped others to do their job. How our accomplishments made part of their lives easier. That is what will be remembered about us after we retire.

Final Comments on Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy

What I told my pal was you have created a legacy of good work through your entire career. So don’t kill yourself in the final weeks or days trying to secure it any more than it already is. It is all about those who you enjoyed working with and those who have enjoyed working with you.

  • Still do your job well. Do so with the realization that your work is soon finished. It is OK to have a little celebration hidden in your stride. You never want to burn bridges. If you want to do the retire early and often thing you can count on them as a reference.
  • Look at your Legacy What and Why and if there is a legacy to be remembered for, it has already been accomplished.
  • Do let everyone know daily how you have appreciated working with them. Be honest about any work you have that is unfinished and may need to be picked up. It isn’t necessary to work extra hours to clear everything up before the big retirement day.
  • Transition and delegate all that you have left on your plate. Leave without negative feelings.
  • Your work is now the company’s to deal with and do what they want to do with it. Just like all of your past contributions to the organization.
  • Those close to you will still remember you fondly. You don’t have to kill yourself in your final stretch to have that.
Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy is more about getting our own mindset right.

Our true workplace legacy is within our mind where it will endure far longer than in the actual workplace. At least that is my experience and that of those I have had an honest talk with about it.

Did you retire with feelings of wanting to leave a workplace legacy?

Do you see yourself falling into the workplace legacy camp? Or more towards doing something to get yourself let-go and collect some severance and/or unemployment cash? Not that there is anything wrong with that.

9 thoughts on “Retirement and Leaving a Workplace Legacy

  1. I left my job after 31 – 28 in the same department. The reason I kept working and made sure everything was handed off correctly was also my own self respect. I thought that I would leave a legacy of a great co-worker, but as you said that probably only lasted a short while. I still can look back after 6 years, 6 years today in fact, and know that I never became one of the people that were retired in place.

    1. Thanks for the comment Rolff. That “retired in place” tag would be one I could not live with. Self respect is another reason some people begin to think about their workplace legacy before they retire. Being remembered as a great co-worker as you mention is the true workplace legacy we can leave behind.
      Tommy

  2. Great thoughts! I like the question you asked:

    “But how much of our desire to leave a workplace legacy is just vanity or ego?”

    I think often this is the key point. We become what we do and our ego becomes attached to it. The more we can just be concerned with who we are instead of what we are, the more we can let go. The simple fact is 99.9% of us are completely replaceable. Some may be depressed by this, but it is actually liberating. We can relax with the knowledge we don’t need a legacy, only to be filled with joy and purpose.

    Great blog 🙂

    1. Thanks for the comment. Glad yo like the LF Site. We all need to ask that question at times, is this all about ego and vanity before making decisions or taking questionable actions. Letting go of our ego and being kind seems to be a way to live a better life.
      Tommy

  3. Great topic. When I retired early, I spent the last 2 years preparing my team to take over after I left and it paid big dividends for my former employer.

    1. Thanks for the comment Steve. That was a long pre-retirement time-frame to do it right for your past team. In the end any legacy and memory of us is done during our time in our career and I am sure they have fond memories of your relationship with them. Especially how the transition made their work life easier because of your forward thinking efforts.
      Tommy

  4. Sad to say but my workplace environment is too weird. When someone leaves it’s as if he or she was never even there. They want to forget you so quickly – probably because they’re all stuck there. A good percentage of the staff has been there more than 20 years. I have no illusion that anyone will say great things about me. But I know I’ve given 10+ years of quality work.

    1. Thanks for the comment Mrs. Groovy. In my second or should I say my encore career when I retired for my second time it was the same as you describe. I wasn’t surprised and had no illusions about legacy. It was my long first career that I had the issue and I still believe that it was a misguided Remanent from the old days work culture that I had shared with so many since the late 70s thru early 80s. Many were still there on the job when I left. It now feels like it was a previous life.
      Tommy

  5. Thanks for the tip to still work hard and do your job well when you approach the end of your time working before retirement. My parents recently inherited a lot of money from my great grandfather, and they feel that they are financially stable to retire with the inheritance they received. I’ll share this tip about still working hard and advise them to work with a financial planner before retirement so they can do everything they need to in a smart manner.

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