How to Replace a Retiring Worker

There comes a time in everyone’s career when you finally decide to call it a day and retire. As a director in your business, you need to be aware of your senior workers’ inevitable retirement and plan accordingly.

When it comes to a key employee retiring, you can never be too well prepared. Here we will outline some key aspects to consider when you’re faced with hiring a replacement for a retiring senior worker.

Consult the Retiring Employee about Ideal Candidates

Before you start searching for a replacement, it’s important to consult the retiring worker. Your retiring employee will know better than anyone who is the most suitable person to fill the role. Make sure to have a thorough discussion with them regarding what type of people you should be looking for, what qualities/experience they need to possess, and any other input they might have regarding the future of the role.

Also, inquire into their further involvement in the upcoming recruitment process. If the retiring employee is willing to work alongside you throughout the process of finding their replacement, you may be able to conduct the recruitment much more efficiently.

Ask for the Retiring Employee’s Assistance in the Interview Process

The interview stage is one of the most important parts of the recruitment process. As your retiring employee will likely have an extremely in-depth knowledge of the requirements for the role, you should want them to be involved in the interviews in some capacity.

It’s often a good idea to structure the interviews with a formal interviewer with the retiring employee as a secondary participant. By doing this, they can judge the candidate themselves in person, whilst also providing input or asking questions when necessary.

If they can’t physically be present or take part in the interviewing, try to gather input from them on what type of questions to ask, what format to use etc. This will at the very least give you a more tailored, informed structure than you would have without their input.

Go over the candidate’s interview performance and answers afterwards. Your retiring worker’s input is valuable and could be the difference maker in the success of your new hire.

One idea for interview preparation is to consult your retiring worker and produce a list of key questions or prompts to pitch to your candidates. This gives the interviews a solid structure with comparable results, using questions that are specifically tailored to the role.

Internal or External Recruitment

When considering how to replace a retiring worker, you need to think about the method of recruitment you’re going to use. You should think about whether you’re going to conduct your recruitment process internally or externally. Consult your retiring employee about this decision and make sure that you take the time to fully weigh up the pros and cons of both options.

If the ideal replacement can be found internally, your retiring worker should have an idea of who would be a suitable replacement.

If not, they may be able to scout your business and come to a decision. If nobody comes to mind as a replacement, external recruitment is the way to go.

Talent Pipeline

If you are opting to recruit for a replacement internally, you have to make sure that your internal talent pipeline is healthy and strong. This refers to your pipeline of talented, promising individuals within your business that may be suitable for more senior positions.

Maintaining a healthy talent pipeline involves keeping promising employees trained and guided in order to prime them for career advancement. This is hugely beneficial for both the employees and your business, as it makes future recruitment easier, provides career advancement opportunities and useful skills for employees, and can greatly enhance morale and engagement within your business.

Without a strong talent pipeline, recruiting internally can be difficult/risky. Though it’s generally cheaper and faster than external recruitment, you shouldn’t fall into the trap of utilising internal recruitment if your candidates aren’t actually ideal for the role. Hiring a less than ideal candidate internally just to save time and money runs the risk of costing you more, in the long run, should the hire not work out and you need to rehire.

Should you find your replacement internally, not only can you save time and money, but you can also reduce the amount of onboarding required. This is because existing employees already have a good knowledge of your business, structure, and employees.

As such, they only really require onboarding for the role itself, whilst external recruits will need time to be introduced to the company and co-workers. In this case, you’ll want to give the new hire adequate time to get used to the business and get to know your other workers. This is sometimes done in the weeks leading up to the hire’s start date.

Downsides of Internal Recruitment

Beware that recruiting a replacement internally, whilst being cheaper and quicker than external recruitment, does come with a few significant downsides.

Perhaps the main downside is that whilst promoting current employees can help increase workplace engagement and morale, it also may have the opposite effect. After all, you can’t promote everyone, and some workers are bound to feel left out. Be considerate of your other workers when appointing a successor from within, as some employees may feel left out or disrespected.

They may feel that the wrong worker was chosen, or that they should have been chosen. You need to make sure that advancement opportunities are clear, fair, and justified. The last thing you want is to sacrifice the harmony of your business because you didn’t give your other workers sufficient consideration. If necessary, engage with potentially disgruntled workers. Tell them why specifically the chosen individual was selected, and how they can be a contender for other promotions in the future.

In addition, hiring internally simply creates another opening elsewhere in the company. Essentially you’re going to have to conduct another recruitment process to replace the individual who replaces the retiring employee.

Make sure to consider this and plan appropriately or else you risk being caught in an unfortunate situation.

This need for recruitment elsewhere could mean that you may be out of pocket more than you originally planned, as you may end up needing to consult a recruiter to help fill that position anyway. This is why it’s important to only conduct recruitment for senior positions internally if you have a clear stand-out candidate in mind.

Internal Emergency Placement (Short Term)

In the case of a key employee retiring, you may not have time to conduct an entire thorough recruitment process. It’s possible that hiring a replacement is an urgent matter. In the possibility that this case arises, you’re going to want to have an emergency plan. Remember that your first replacement hire doesn’t necessarily have to be permanent.

Perhaps consider identifying an internal employee who could act as a temporary replacement for your retiring employee. This way that employee can take over any essential duties whilst you conduct your external recruitment for a more permanent replacement.

Another option that you may choose if you have no replacement employee in mind is to distribute duties amongst multiple workers. This may be a more complex process, but depending on the structure of your business and employee availability, you may be able to temporarily assign core duties of the role to a range of employees.

Consult your retiring worker to discuss the possibility of this, as well as who they believe could effectively carry out such responsibilities.

Hire Before They Leave

When thinking about how to replace a retiring worker, the success of your replacement hire could be greatly affected by the retiring employee’s continued involvement. Should you hire your candidate before your retiring employee fully leaves, they can provide a level of hands-on input into the final hiring stages. This also ensures there is a cross-over period and no gaps in the role, meaning duties and responsibilities can be handed over smoothly.

Retiring Worker can Assist with Onboarding

This can be vital to the success of your candidate’s adjustment to the role and your business. By hiring and introducing the replacement whilst the retiring employee is still with the company, you are creating the possibility for them to conduct the new hire’s onboarding personally. This can be very advantageous for both the replacement and your business, as it can decrease the total amount of time it takes for the replacement to fully adjust to the organisation culture, and provides an opportunity for your retiring employee to give them detailed guidance and advice for succeeding in the role.

Backup Info Pack/Detailed Starter’s Guide

Of course, it may not be possible to hire and introduce the new hire during the retiring worker’s time with the business. In this case, you’re going to want to assist with the hire’s onboarding as much as possible, which ideally requires solid planning. If you know in advance that the retiring employee won’t be available to assist with the onboarding process, it can be very useful to consult them when you can and plan ahead. Consider liaising with your retiring worker and producing a form of information pack or detailed starter’s pack for the replacement to inherit before they begin in the role. This pack would ideally contain all the necessary details of the role, the responsibilities involved, who will be reported to, and so on.

This information pack should be as exhaustive as possible and ideally should serve not only as an initial guide to the business/role, but as a continued reference point for the candidate to use for staff development training.

Headhunters

Should you chose to conduct your recruitment externally, you have two main options; contingency recruiters and headhunting firms. In this case, retained headhunting agencies are your best option for finding quality talent. This is because whilst contingency recruiters are generally non-retained and utilised for lower-level roles, headhunters (or executive search firms) are more bespoke and focused on targeting senior candidates for high-level roles. Agencies such as Executive Headhunters EMA Partners are bespoke to the client’s role and needs, which means they are generally the best option for finding the ideal talent for your role.

Headhunters can liaise with you and your retiring worker, gathering any information needed to target and attract the right people.

Importantly, headhunters have the ability to nurture potential candidates, familiarising them with your business and your opportunity. This is important as often the best senior candidates aren’t looking to move business, and as a result require to be nurtured over a longer period of time in order to consider a move. In addition to providing the best talent possible, headhunters also often offer replacement guarantees. This means that you are covered in the unlikely instance that the new hire leaves shortly after starting with your business.

Have All Three Parties Involved In Process

When recruiting the perfect replacement for your role, it’s important to include all parties in as much of the process as possible. Try and build a relationship between yourself, the retiring worker, and the replacement. This means that there is a pre-existing relationship established before the candidate begins work, which helps greatly with the onboarding process. This provides the retiring employee with time to give their replacement the guidance necessary to succeed in the role.

Of course, your retiring worker’s involvement in this process is reliant on the retiring employee themselves doing a good job in the role. This assumes that you are looking for a replacement who is similar to the retiring employee in performance and ability. However, if you’re dissatisfied with the retiring employee’s performance in the role and are looking for something different, then including them in the recruitment process can be a hindrance.

Also keep in mind that when the retiring worker is involved in the process, they may have very high standards for their successor, as they know the details of the role extensively. This can be both a positive and a negative.

On one hand it means that they won’t settle for anything less than high-quality. However, on the other hand they may be a bit too strict, and you may end up turning down perfectly good candidates.

Remember that whilst you should involve your retiring employee in the process, the recruitment process should be a group effort. You should utilise your retiring employee for guidance, to provide insight into your final decision.

Summary

Recruiting a replacement in the case of a key employee retiring is something that requires a lot of careful consideration and planning. By planning for this instance far enough in advance and providing your workers with adequate training, you may be able to quickly and easily replace your retiring employee internally. If not, your best option is likely working alongside an executive search firm in order to source the best candidate possible as your retiring employee’s replacement.

Perhaps the most important thing to note when considering how to replace a retiring worker is to involve them wherever possible. As they are experienced in the role, their input will be a very valuable tool in hiring the right person for the job, and will make the onboarding process much easier.