What does retirement really cost a company?
Today at 12:30 I attended a retirement reception for a woman who was retiring after 31 years with the company. The sidebar conversations I overheard consisted of "remember whens" and "I'll trade you places." The cake was ok, a bit dry, but good frosting. At 12:29, my overall attitude was "good for her, hope I get a corner piece of cake, I'm looking forward to working on that ad this afternoon." Then, it happened. I returned to my desk where an afternoon of genuinely enjoyable tasks awaited me, but I'd gone through a subliminal change of attitude. Now I no longer had motivation to work because I realized I have 24 years and 10 months before I get a retirement party. I was not productive; I was spent.
I thought about it, and I wonder how much those sentimental 20 minute retirement receptions cost companies each year. They spend $25 on a cake, maybe a plaque, and then there's always the office pool to buy gag gifts (the lady today got a rain gauge because she was always talking about the only people who check rainfall are old retired people). This is what my research found:
- average number of retirement receptions each year per company (A): 4
- average number of employees who attend a retirement reception while at work per company (based on my own experience) (B): 40
- average American hourly wage (C): $23
- number of hours spent in unproductivity after mid-day retirement receptions (D): 4
- money lost by the average American company due to retirement receptions (E): $14,720
- methodology: A*(B*(C*D))=E
$14,720. And that's just one company. I don't know about you, but THAT'S CRAZY! Most companies probably think a cheap, dry cake and a plaque is all it costs them to get someone out the door for good. Think again. I think now there are two things that should only be given at 4:45 on a Friday afternoon: pink slips and retirement receptions.
3 Comments:
Wow, that is rather pricey! My husbands company does a lunch on Friday for staff and my husband complains he can't get anyone to do any work afterwards. I wonder if they know how much it is really costing!
Interesting blog. First comment - that's why I really don't want a retirement gathering (did I mention that will be in about 14 months?). Most people truly don't care about you leaving (they really are just interested in the cake and getting away from their desk) and the ones that do really care will do something specialon their own (probably on non-company time).
Second comment - we recently received the results of an employee satisfaction survey on which our agency scored very low. These surveys always result in a push for "better communications." In our public affairs department we put together a number of ideas for improving internal communication and presented them to the management group. One of the ideas was for the boss to do a blog. You should have seen the stares and uncomfortable shifting around in chairs. You'd have thought we proposed giving all employees access to pornographic websites. After first explaining what a blog is (nobody there knew), most of the time was spent discussing how much it will cost for all this "down time" and who will pay for it. It seems to me if you want to improve communication/morale in an organization you are going to have to devote some time and resources to it. There are just certain costs for keeping employees informed, involved, productive and happy.
The retirement party or Friday luncheon certainly costs something, but what does it do for morale and ultimately for overall productivity? That's something every manager has to try to figure out. The creation and production of a widget is easy to measure. Employee morale is much more difficult to gauge.
Remind me not to work for you!!! (unless you're underlying message is that the cake should be upgraded... then I'll reconsider!)
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home