How to Organise a Retirement Leaving Do

The four lines that always work

If the envelope is already in your hand, any two of these makes a card that gets kept.

Ask what they want, once, plainly

Big do, small lunch, or nothing. Ask it so that "nothing" is an acceptable answer, because for a real number of people it is the honest one and they will not offer it.

Get the number of years right

The wrong length of service in the speech is the commonest error at a British leaving do. The leaver always notices and never corrects it.

Collect one specific memory from four people

One email in advance. Read them out or put them in the card. It is the single element most likely to be remembered in ten years and the only reliable way to get specifics into a leaving card.

Invite the ones who left before

The retired predecessor, the person who moved on, the one who went part time. Costs nothing, they nearly always come, and it changes the room.

Move it to a pub

A leaving do in a meeting room ends in a dwindle. One in a pub ends in an evening. Whoever says "shall we go over the road" is doing the leaver a considerable favour.

Do not make it about age

The badge, the balloons, the cake with a joke about being ancient. The person is retiring, not expiring, and half the room signed the card without reading the others.

How do you organise a retirement leaving do?

Ask the person leaving what they want, once and plainly, in a way that makes "nothing" an acceptable answer. A meaningful number of people would genuinely rather have lunch with six colleagues than a room with a speech in it.

Ask early, before the room is booked. The person organising is usually relieved by a clear answer, and the person leaving almost never volunteers a preference unprompted because it feels ungrateful.

Get the facts right in the speech. Check how long they were actually here and what they actually did. The wrong number of years is the single most common error at a British leaving do, and the leaver always notices and never says.

What is the best thing to do at a leaving do?

Ask four or five people to each write down one specific memory in advance, then read them out or put them in the card. It takes one email and it is the part people remember a decade later.

It is also, in practice, the only reliable way to get anything specific into a leaving card, because a card signed at a desk mid-task produces thirty versions of "all the best".

Invite the people who left before. The retired predecessor, the colleague who moved on three years ago, the one who went part time. It costs nothing, they nearly always come, and it changes the event completely.

What do you do about the awkward part at the end?

Move it to a pub. The natural end of a leaving do in a meeting room is a dwindle; the natural end of one in a pub is an evening.

The other fix costs nothing: the person leaving should sit down. The goodbye queue forms because they are standing by the door. Sitting at a table turns twenty-five identical ninety-second goodbyes into six real conversations, which is what almost everybody afterwards says they wish they had had.

What if there is no obvious last day?

Name one anyway and tell somebody. People who wind down gradually, from five days to three to two to a consultancy arrangement, frequently leave without ever being marked as having left.

It sounds like a small thing. It is reported consistently as one of the flattest parts of an otherwise good transition: a year later there was never a thank you and there is no card.

From the outside a gradual leaving has no edges, so everybody assumes somebody else is on it. If it is a colleague, do it for them. It takes the same email.

Common questions

How do you organise a retirement leaving do?

Ask the person leaving what they want first, plainly, and in a way that makes "nothing" an acceptable answer. Then get the facts right in the speech, invite people who have already left, and ask four or five colleagues to write down one specific memory in advance so the card and the speech contain something other than general good wishes.

What should you say in a retirement speech?

Keep it to about ninety seconds and three things: a specific thanks to two or three named people who are not the senior ones, one short funny story from a long time ago where you come off badly, and something plain about being glad you were there. Leaving speeches go wrong by being long or by turning into a state of the nation.

What if the person retiring does not want a leaving do?

That is a legitimate preference and more common than people expect. A lunch with a handful of colleagues is a complete and dignified alternative. The only real failure is not asking, and then putting somebody through the wrong version of the event out of politeness.