The theme this week on the Retirement Quick Tips Podcast is: A Phased Retirement…Is It Right For You? 

Today, I’m talking about some of most common applications of a phased retirement. 

My husband is a CPA and with his experience and qualifications, he could pretty much work wherever he wants and command a high income. I don’t say this to brag…he’s actually decided not to do that since he doesn’t like to tax season grind and would prefer to have a more balanced schedule. I say this because labor shortages are a serious problem in the world of public accounting, and in many other industries as well. I’ve had conversations with clients who are lawyers and architects and the same problem exists in their industries. They can’t find qualified younger workers to fill positions of those who have quit or retired…this was a problem before Covid and it’s only gotten worse over the last couple years. 

So if you’re in an industry that has some real labor shortages, you can more likely negotiate your way into a phased retirement that’s going to give you the balance of schedule and free time that you’re looking for while still maintaining some of your income and benefits. 

Phased retirements work really well for knowledge workers like CPAs, lawyers, engineers, many desk jobs - especially in government, education, healthcare, and pretty much any position with hard-to-replace skills or knowledge. Phased retirements can also work well for more physically demanding jobs where you might be on your feet all day. Nursing comes to mind here. It’s physically demanding and stressful, but you can maybe last a couple more years on the job if you are working 20 hours a week instead of 40-50+. 

Owens Corning, a Toledo, Ohio-based maker of building and construction materials, launched a phased retirement program in 2020. Paula Russell, their chief human resource officer said that with a projected wave of retirements, “we were concerned we were going to lose a lot of institutional knowledge and intellectual capital,”

That’s it for today. Thanks for listening! My name is Ashley Micciche and this is the Retirement Quick Tips podcast. 

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