Post-Retirement Career Planning

Retirement and career are words that have an important place in many people's lives. Many people work at a long and exhausting pace throughout their life and leave their dreams to retirement. When professional working life ends and retirement begins, a period of crisis occurs and people feel idle. The habits brought about by the busy pace of work have been abandoned and the transition to a much more stagnant life has started. In this new life, retirees go through a difficult adaptation process and are not fully perceived by the people around them. In this case, certain conflicts occur spontaneously. If these conflicts are not resolved, retired people slowly withdraw from life and years of experience suddenly become passive. Just at this point some kind of burnout syndrome emerges.

It is possible to see many studies on this subject in the literature abroad. Indeed, Donald E. Super also divides the life stages into five and describes age 65 and beyond as a “withdrawal period.” He states that at this stage, individuals' work tempos and physical activity decrease, while their mental potential and knowledge increase. Of course this is a general situation. Super also states that from time to time individuals in this period would exhibit the features of the other 4 periods. That is to say, people of retirement age may also want to explore new things like students. Super also mentions that people in their late 60s change their values on work and that priorities return to work, family and social life.

As individuals living in rural areas and working in the agricultural sector do not have a retirement status, a crisis situation does not occur and their lives continue in their normal course. However, the number of people living in the cities is increasing nowadays, and as a result of this, the number of retired people is increasing rapidly every year. We need to prevent the conflict these people go through after retirement and the feeling of burnout that comes after, and bring these people back to life. We must prevent years of knowledge and experience from disappearing at once and develop projects that will enable them to transfer to new generations because old age is the period when people's mental activities are highest and physical activities are lowest. If we can combine the mental activities of individuals and the physical strengths of young individuals in this period, we can eliminate many problems much more easily and quickly with the synergy that will come out.

So, how can we make this union work?

Many projects can be created for this purpose. For example, there are thousands of young people volunteering for many social responsibility projects today. In these projects we can use the experienced elderly people who worked in the industry for years and experienced many events as a consultant or mentor. In this way, we get to the solution and the result much faster and we also provide an intergenerational knowledge transfer by preventing young people from discovering years of experience on their own. Mr. Hayrettin KARACA, president of the TEMA Foundation, is one of the most outstanding examples of our country in this regard. While he creates many favorable projects in the TEMA Foundation with his years of experience, the young generation around him carries out these projects one by one and this makes a very serious contribution to the nature of our country.

Another important step that can be taken at this point may be to give tasks to the elderly people in Think Tanks. Experience can be transferred by bringing these people, who have already gained success in their lives and who have had a good career, together with young people who want to see themselves at key positions in the future. Young people working in the private sector can be brought together with people over 50 who have retired or are still working in the sector to teach our young people both verbally and practically how to overcome the difficulties experienced in the sector. In this way, more powerful and more dynamic companies can be created in the future and the industrial power in our country can be increased.

Youths Trained

Today, we read in newspapers and magazines that many famous businessmen have tried to do so and that they have brought up some young people with them. In order for this situation to reach a wider audience, different projects can be put forward both by the education and training centers and by the companies in the sector and by non-governmental organizations. In the same way, this system can be used for individuals who will be employed at the state levels and who may be appointed to important positions in the future. Indeed, we see this in our history both in Lala-Prince education and in the master-apprentice relationship within the ahi community.

Projects for retirees, of course, do not have to be just about transferring experience to the young. Although it is partially implemented today, there should also be workshops for the hobby areas and curiosity areas of the elderly. In this way, despite their age and deteriorating physical activities, they may be able to produce new products with their vast experience and mental activities. Today's work is far from producing new products.

Especially in such programs, many of which are run by municipalities, the working environment can be very crowded and/or the working conditions unfavorable. In order to prevent this situation, NGOs such as municipalities and other representatives need to step in. In this way, our retirees will have brought together by the work and/or arts they have dreamed doing during their retirement. This will increase the peace and happiness of both our elders and our society.

Let's not forget that to the extent that we can take our elders into the flow of life, we will not repeat the mistakes made in the past and become a more successful community.

Recep TURAN / Career Advisor