The labour ministry recently concluded a two-day pre-retirement workshop with participants from the environment and tourism ministry. The evidence-based project provided training to employees in the 50-60 years age range, with the training aimed at preparing participants to plan for, adjust and cope better with retirement.
The pre-retirement programme is an initiative taken to assist employees in their planning for retirement and focused on decisions and stages of retirement, lifestyle and finance and wills.
“The ministry has observed that employees who retire from formal employment without proper planning seem to fail in coping with the life changes thereby negatively affecting the quality of their lives. The ministry hypothesised that individuals who engage in pre-retirement planning are able to plan for, adjust to and cope better with retirement than those who do not,” stated the ministry’s acting executive director (ED), ambassador Balbina Daes Pienaar.
The ED added that in order to complement employees’ retirement planning efforts, the labour ministry feels it has an obligation to cater for the welfare of employees beyond their active working period, hence the decision to embark on the training workshops.
“Participants are equipped with various skills that can ease their life after retirement. These skills include coping with the impacts of retirement; exploring what their hopes are in retirement; addressing the concerns that they have about retirement; and lastly assisting participants in planning more effectively for a richer retirement, a factor that is believed to put many people under pressure who are not prepared for retirement,” Pienaar stated.
Institutions who are willing to have their employees coached on retirement planning are requested to identify respective staff members, and liaise with the labour ministry to arrange workshops. The ministry offers this service free of charge, and countrywide too.