What should you write in a retirement message to a colleague?

One specific thing they did or taught you, and what became of it. A retirement message has no next job to wish luck with, so the whole message is about the years here. The number of years is the occasion; something the person did during them is the content.

How is a retirement message different from a farewell message?

It looks backward rather than forward. A farewell message can talk about the new role; a retirement message cannot, so it has to find its content in the past, which is usually a habit, a lesson or a piece of work that outlasted the person.

What should you avoid in a retirement message?

Jokes about age and free time, and adjectives that would fit anyone. Both have been used at every retirement for decades. A single detail from the person’s actual career does more than either.

Should a retirement message be public or private?

Both, if you can. The public post tells the company what a long career here produced. The private note can hold the sentence you would not write in a channel, and that is the one people keep.

What if you only worked with them for a short time?

Say so, and name the one thing you did see. Two honest sentences from a newer colleague read better than a warm paragraph that could not have come from lived experience.

Recognition messages

Retirement Messages for a Colleague: 12 Examples

A retirement message is the one leaving note that has nothing to do with the next job. It can only be about what the person was here.

The years are the occasion, not the content

A retirement post that lists the years and wishes the person well has said what the calendar could have said. The reader already knows how long they worked here.

What they do not know is which of the things they did got noticed. That is what a retirement message exists to tell them, and it is why the smallest details land hardest: the plant kept alive for decades, Friday numbers that were late once, a folder of replies still being copied a decade later.

Reach back

Colleagues default to the last project because it is the one they remember. A retirement is the one occasion where it is normal to reach back fifteen years and name something from the beginning.

If you are stuck, ask one question and write down the answer: what does this person do that somebody else will now have to learn to do?

12 messages you can send

Thirty-one years, Margaret. You trained the person who trained me, and the way you both explain a ledger is the way I still do it.
Peer, long overlap
Traces a line from the retiree through to the present, which is what a career leaves behind.
Happy retirement, Tomas. Every new starter for twenty years has had the same first conversation with you, and every one of them left it knowing where the fire exits and the good coffee were.
Peer, on the welcome
Names a small ritual that only a long-serving colleague would have.
Enjoy it, Dev. You told me in 2014 that the product would outlive the org chart, and you were right on both counts.
Manager, dry
Quotes the person back to themselves, which is more specific than praising them.
Thank you for the last eight years, Rosa. The archive you kept is the only reason anyone can answer a question about what happened before 2019.
Report, on institutional memory
Points at a concrete artefact the company will keep using.
Congratulations, Ahmed. You were the person who asked how the customer would actually feel about a change, in every review, for as long as I have been here.
Peer, on a habit
One habit, its duration, its effect.
Happy retirement, Linda. I still open a difficult email the way you showed me: read it twice, wait an hour, answer the question that was actually asked.
Peer, on a lesson
The advice is quoted in full, so the reader can see it was worth keeping.
Forty years, Bill. The plant on the third floor is older than half the department and you kept both alive.
Peer, humorous
The joke carries a real observation about care.
Enjoy the garden, Hannah. You handed over three months early, wrote everything down, and then spent the three months answering questions anyway. That is how to leave.
Manager, on the handover
Praises the exit itself, which is rarely mentioned in a retirement message.
Thank you, Pieter. You hired me when my CV said nothing that suggested I could do this, and you never once mentioned it.
Report, personal
A single decision, credited decades later, and the restraint that followed it.
Happy retirement, Grace. The support team has a folder of your replies from 2011 that we still copy from. The customers never knew they were reading you.
Peer, on written work
Shows the work continuing without the author, which is the highest form of the compliment.
Congratulations, Sam. You ran the Friday numbers for eighteen years and they were late once, in the week your daughter was born.
Manager, on reliability
An exact record, with the one exception that proves it was a person keeping it.
Enjoy it, Yuki. You were the person who noticed when somebody new was eating lunch alone. Nobody put that in your job description.
Peer, on kindness
Recognises unpaid, unassigned work, which is what people remember most.

What makes one land

Reach back further than the last project. A retirement message can name something from fifteen years ago, and the older the detail, the more it says that the person was noticed all along.
Say what continues. A document still in use, the habit other people picked up, one hire that worked out. The message is about what stays.
Leave the future alone beyond a good wish. Jokes about free time and daytime television have been made at every retirement since the concept existed.
If you overlapped briefly, say so and be exact about what you saw. Two honest sentences beat a warm paragraph the reader knows you could not have written.
Post it where the whole company can read it. A public retirement message tells everybody what a long career here is measured in.

Questions people ask

What should you write in a retirement message to a colleague?: One specific thing they did or taught you, and what became of it. A retirement message has no next job to wish luck with, so the whole message is about the years here. The number of years is the occasion; something the person did during them is the content.
How is a retirement message different from a farewell message?: It looks backward rather than forward. A farewell message can talk about the new role; a retirement message cannot, so it has to find its content in the past, which is usually a habit, a lesson or a piece of work that outlasted the person.
What should you avoid in a retirement message?: Jokes about age and free time, and adjectives that would fit anyone. Both have been used at every retirement for decades. A single detail from the person’s actual career does more than either.
Should a retirement message be public or private?: Both, if you can. The public post tells the company what a long career here produced. The private note can hold the sentence you would not write in a channel, and that is the one people keep.
What if you only worked with them for a short time?: Say so, and name the one thing you did see. Two honest sentences from a newer colleague read better than a warm paragraph that could not have come from lived experience.