Business Services
Are your partners/senior executives gliding into retirement or re-energising your business?
The pre-retirement issues
“Too many senior people hang on because they can’t visualise a future. I want our partners to have an elegant exit – which isn’t about compromise agreements and payouts, but having a positive idea of what they want next and a plan to get there.”
“I’m realising our approach to retirement is traditional and outdated and needs to modernise. This is a time to bring people alive – help them find new ideas, make new contacts and re-energise. That will bring real value internally, making the most of their skills and experience – but also give the individual a great launching pad for when they leave.”
“Once I announced my retirement, I became ‘the walking dead’. Clients wanted the new partner; colleagues wrote me off; I struggled to find anything worthwhile to do. Yet I was at the peak of my performance. The last year wasted my skills.”
We know we have something very special to offer your partners/senior executives – we can increase their value to your organisation before they retire, help them be positive about their future, create new networks and fulfil ambitions and become ambassadors for your organisation.
We have designed workshops based on our experience of what senior executives need and what best helps them. Our workshops achieve extraordinary results.
We ask partners/executives how they feel about the future, and typically most are apprehensive and uncertain about their future. By the end of the workshop, typically 70% + are excited about opportunities ahead. How do you even measure the impact on your business in terms of positivity and mindset?
Helping people be positive about this next stage is good for client/customer handovers, colleague morale and future relationships
The Win:Win of Retirement for Employers
Value to employer
- Positive client/customer handover
- Maximise value/energy/positivity
- Prevent “deadwood”
- Maintain skills
- Support retirees
- Mentors to younger generation
- “Good exit”
Value to individual
- Potential ambassadors for employer
- Continued loyalty
- Support for internal projects
- Introduce contacts
- Share skills with new / younger employees
Employer brand
- Positive impact on colleagues who remain
- Employer of choice
- Attract and retain quality employees
- Doing the right thing for employees
- Reputation “Best company to work for”
- Minimize mental health issues
Next Steps
We help employers & partners/senior executives make the most of their skills – whether a year or two before they retire, as they are retiring or as alumni. We help people find purpose in this next stage of their lives and use their skills imaginatively. As one partner said, “I can now see a future and it doesn’t have to be random. I can make it happen.” A positive transition is good for everyone.
Workshop Objectives
- Inspire senior executives with ideas as to what they could do, beyond a non-executive director role
- An understanding of the NED route (if this is of interest), the skills to win roles and introductions to a ‘friendly’ headhunter
- Develop skills to expand networks, create a new personal brand and market themselves as individuals
- New ideas and energy for their existing roles before they leave
- Create introductions to people as a first step in expanding networks
- Give confidence that they have skills that others want – but they may need to rethink what these are and how to use them
- Ensure a positive end to one career and positive start to the next phase – as ambassadors for your organisation in whatever route they choose
- We find the relevant entrepreneurs for your audience and brief and engage them
- Before the workshop, typically only a third are excited about opportunities ahead. Our aim is to shift this to two thirds or more by the end of the workshop
Click below to see how professionals help tech entrepreneurs focus, make decisions, feel supported and make introductions
Other Services Include
- Bespoke support to develop a brand and marketing plan for a new business/consultancy
- Writing LinkedIn profiles and CVs
- Coaching sessions for individual executives
- Running workshops on becoming a consultant
- Running workshops on writing LinkedIn profiles and writing CVs
The Win:Win of Retirement for Individuals
“The biggest challenge is status change. One minute you are someone with a card that says what you are and suddenly you aren’t anyone.”
“I spent years longing for spare time. When it arrived it wasn’t the dream I’d hoped.”
“Next-Up gave me ideas, confidence and a plan. I now have a great work-life balance and loving new opportunities.”
Next-Up Blog
Remember you might still be working at 102!
You might, of course, think I am joking but that is the age of the oldest Chair of a listed company (in fact, he is Chair of two companies so is clear pretty busy). And Frances Hesselbein, an associate of the late business guru Peter Drucker, is still serving as a Non-Executive Director at 106!
Read more >
Succession planning – top of law firms’ agenda?
Succession planning is one of those things that too often goes to the back burner, according to Ronnie Fox, partner in Fox and Partners.
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Launch of Professional Services Retirement Forum
In April, Next-Up will hold its first Professional Services Retirement Forum to share the latest thinking around helping partners to retire.
Read more >