Metric Three: The Retirement Forecast

A basic retirement forecast can stimulate discussion among impacted managers and executives.

Value. The timeline predicts the number of retirements in key positions by year through the next five to seven years. This will help to map areas of exposure over the time horizon and will be used to build action plans. Some of these job titles may not require any action plan while some may. This will give executives an opportunity to differentiate between those that need a formal plan and those that do not.

Data Elements

• Job titles of likely retirees.

• Number of retirees in that pool, by estimated year.

Gathering this data can be sensitive. This is hardly a question one should put in an e-mail survey to employees. You can gather this type of information from a few different places. If your organization has a formal career pathing process, then you may even have some indication of the employee’s intentions. If not, this may also be the opportunity to have personal conversations with potential retirees concerning their future plans and their openness to options such as part-time job sharing, mentorship, and other innovative programs. This allows Human Resources to understand the full range of options.

Presentation. The presentation of this type of timeline in Table 10.6 is straightforward, with job levels being analyzed on each row and the years of anticipated retirements on each column. Since this is a forecast, the date ranges should reflect the level of forecasting that you are able to engage in (red flag areas are shaded as an example).

Please note that since this is an initial forecast, the measurement here should not try to editorialize on solutions. Presenting this type of data to management will spur their own reactions to the data.