More than half of my team in my organisation is nearing retirement. As a young employee, what can I get out of this?
My organisation has a small team, consisting of less than 40 staff. More than half of them are nearing retirement in more or less than 5 years. I joined the team half a year ago and that’s when I noticed the composition of our team with more than half nearing retirement (as they have been in the organisation for so many years) and the other half are young folks around less than 40 years old. Only 1 or 2 at the age 40 category. The succession planning is pretty poor, in my opinion.
The working culture is laid back and lots of learning in my job because being in a small team, bound to cross to other areas, so I’m good. My goal is to climb the corporate ladder and achieve as high an income as I possibly can, although I am perfectly aware that high salary comes with greater responsibilities = more pressure and added stress (that’s another discussion for another day).
I want to ask the experienced people here if anyone has come across such a situation before, because this sort of situation can be viewed as a leverage for younger staff like us during mid-year review to push for salary adjustment or one grade higher.
What other positives/negatives can we, young employees, potentially achieve from such a position? One red flag I can think of is the handover.
Netizens’ comments
- Organize a Paintball team bonding activity and expedite the process
- How old are you and how many years of working experience do you have? If one retires, are you the next in line? Do you know what are your company’s criteria for promotion? Is your current role compatible to succeed one of the upcoming retiree’s position?
- Salary increments and promotions are typically given to those who have consistently demonstrated that they are already capable of performing at the next level. So what you should do now is to ask to take on more responsibilities, asking your senior colleagues to teach you what they know, etc. I have no idea why impending colleague retirements = leverage for your increment/promotion if you haven’t don’t anything yet to deserve one.
If you’re eyeing the position of a retiring colleague, please first self evaluate if you are performing at their level and/or have the same level of skill/knowledge as them. It’s not a no brainer at all OK, the firm could easily decide to hire someone with more experience than you from the outside if the gulf of experience/quality between you and the retiring colleague is too wide to bridge.