When you retire: can retirement be a random imposition?

Juana (she could have been called Antonia or Mercedes, but let's call her Juana) was an incredible secretary at the Spanish branch of an international company. One of those international companies that we all recognize. According to Rafa (one of the department heads), Juana was by far the best secretary he had ever known: efficient, diligent, hardworking, and tactful. Committed.

Juana, after a lifetime of experience in the same company, not only knew the ins and outs of her profession and the peculiarities of her work environment, but also perfectly understood the more personal dimension. She knew the proper way to approach the staff in each department, quirks and peculiarities included. Moreover, she had a remarkable organizational ability, both for herself and for others: Juana's labor organization mechanisms put the best-selling "getting things done" to shame.

However, despite her worth, when the date stipulated by the contract arrived, the company organized a nice retirement party, complete with a tacky farewell gift, and Juana was retired. She was retired, passively, because nobody asked her whether she wanted to retire or not: it was not an action decided by her, with intention, as a result of personal desire, but a decision made from outside. I emphasize this point because, as this department head told me: Juana would have continued working. Perhaps with a reduced schedule, with a more flexible timetable. In fact, had she been given the choice, she would have changed some things.

But Juana liked her job, enjoyed interacting with her colleagues, felt extremely useful (she knew she was needed), and felt she still had much to contribute. However, the company (real, I insist) that closed 2023 with a net attributable profit of 331.305 billion yen (2.046.9 million euros) considered that implementing mechanisms for Juana to continue contributing in her job or even asking for her opinion was unnecessary. The company considered it better to replace Juana with someone who would earn less: no seniority, no supplements.

It reminds me of the case of Ana (this is her real name), who was my colleague in a department store and did not want to retire. She was, and I say this with certainty, the best saleswoman on the floor; Ana was an artist in sales and customer service. Ana, who also needed the job due to an unexpected divorce, expressly asked to continue in her position, but was not allowed. Ana was also retired.

Returning to our Juana: after the farewell party, chaos ensued in the company; at least temporarily. Probably, Juana would have been crucial in teaching the next secretary some of the intricacies and difficulties she would have to face. Juana would have been essential in a mentoring process that would have accelerated the learning process of the new secretary, reducing errors, dysfunctions, and, above all, reducing the unnecessary stress of the person who replaced Juana. The retired secretary would have been crucial in the learning and performance of new generations of secretaries in the company, but the company did not even consider it, because the new secretaries earn less than the Juanas who are retired. This is extremely contradictory in companies that claim to invest in innovation, in new management styles, and in the social dimension of their companies. A lot of quality certificates in speech and little attention to the human dimension.

The arguments for not continuing with Juana's services (or Antonia? Mercedes?) were: a) the difficulty of reconciling salary with pension; b) the company's economy, which considered it cheaper to replace Juana with someone with a lower salary; c) the difficulty of creating a flexible schedule or a reduced workday that would have facilitated what we sometimes call "active aging"; d) a combination of the above. So, choose your option, but the fact is that this lady (whose name I make up, but not her story) has become just another retiree, and her potential has been lost. If the company were able to consider how stress affects performance, how human factors intervene in organizations and learning processes, and even how motivation works, keeping Juana and turning her into a mentor would have been the best possible investment.

There are several issues here, beyond the individual/personal dimension. We are talking about a person who does want to continue working. This is the first key. I am not talking at this moment about people who want to retire (and let's not forget, it is a right); I am talking in this post about those who do want to continue working and be part of a company, which is, after all, a social organization.

Emphasizing the social dimension of companies and organizations or how work has become a mechanism for structuring daily life is not insignificant; we are prepared all our lives (through socialization) to organize our daily lives based on our work. We relate at work, which ends up being our main source of sociability – and with this, I am not saying or thinking that it is good, but the truth is that it is -, and it is also considered one of the key factors in social integration. So much so that our work comes to define us: we introduce ourselves in everyday life based on our work. "I am Juana, and I am a secretary at company 'z'."

However, despite all that social pressure throughout our lives ("And what do you want to do when you grow up?"), at a certain moment and through a criterion as arbitrary as the years completed, it is decided (from outside, without considering our opinion) that we should no longer (or can) continue to be part of that structure. Does it mean that they no longer consider us useful?

It is understandable that imposed retirement (in this case it was) is assumed and lived as a kind of plea against our usefulness; as an insult, even. It is as if the completed years were deciding our work capacity. I insist here that I am not talking about an imposition to extend the working life but orchestrating the necessary mechanisms so that whoever wishes can continue to be part of these social structures that, in addition to being essential for our personal subsistence, have become the pillars of our social relations (about how negative this is, we will talk another day, but that does not detract from the truth of the statement).

Thinking that a person loses value as they age is applying objectification to human beings (which we women know well) and also recognizing a tremendous clumsiness within the company itself: was that person useful a few months ago, before reaching a certain age? Or are you telling me that for years that person did not contribute what was necessary? How can it be that overnight a person ceases to be useful in an organization?

I insist, once again, that retirement is a right, but emphasizing that it should not be an imposition. We cannot accept discourses that claim the decrease in the value of work performance of a person just because they are getting older.