Applications - Retirement

The Birkman Method® assessment can be a cornerstone to creative retirement planning for individuals, couples and employers. For most people, retirement is a period of reassessment. Which aspects of my pre-retirement life do I want to retain? Which do I want to discard? What parts of my personality have been under-explored or under-utilized until now? What legacy do I wish to leave behind? How can I best serve the interests of my family, my community, my spiritual growth?

Because many of us do not have a clear vocabulary to describe the answers to these questions, the Birkman Method® assessment becomes a resource in defining our way forward. As many retirees have discovered, the period of retirement becomes an engagement with complex personal redeployment-- if I don't have the daily structure of work, how do I define my daily boundaries? If I don't have my colleagues to define my community, how do I re-create a social structure? If my work no longer provides purpose for my life, where will I find new purpose, focus and direction? In each of these categories, the Birkman can help define opportunity based on the interests and motivational needs of the individual.

For couples, since the marital landscape is materially changed, the Birkman's unique and proprietary "Differences to Watch" report can help them transition to clearer ways of negotiating the changed boundaries of home life.

To learn how the Birkman Method® can be used as the basis for intelligent retirement planning, and how it has been applied by one Birkman certified consultant as a core element of his retirement planning practice, click here.

For employers, The Birkman Method® can also be a resource in "phased retirement" employee programs. Rather than simply reducing hours, the Birkman can help the employee define the parts of a career which most reflect this stage of life-- even expanding employment opportunities into new skills. By using the Birkman to explore the individual's interests, working style and needs, the retirement phase of employment can become a deeply exciting period of growth serving the employer as well as the individual. If your company is facing the outflow of talent with the retirement of your baby boomer employees, the Birkman may be an important tool to allow you to redefine the workplace and keep your talent base intact.

This phase of life, perhaps inaptly named retirement, can be a renaissance, and the Birkman can be utilized as a map to discover contours and keep the individual on course. To learn more about the Birkman and retirement, click here.