Retirement messages that don't sound like a card

A good retirement message names one thing the person actually did at work and one thing you hope they get to do now. Skip the career summary and the list of fine qualities: one real detail (the spreadsheet nobody else understands, the way they answered the phone) does more than a paragraph of praise.

If you're recording a video or a voice note, aim for 30 to 60 seconds. If you're writing, two to four sentences is plenty. Below are lines you can use or adapt, sorted by who's talking, and after that, what to do about golf.

From a longtime coworker

You've shared a break room with this person for years, so you have the most material and the biggest risk of rambling. Pick one story and save the other nine for the retirement lunch.

Things to say:

• "Dana, I've sat across from you since 2011 and I still don't know how you remembered the name of every client's dog. I'm going to miss hearing you read your emails out loud before you hit send. Go see the Grand Canyon. You've been talking about it since the Obama administration."
• "Fourteen years of Tuesday staff meetings, and you never once let one run over. I don't know who's going to do that now. Probably nobody. Enjoy your Tuesdays."
• "On my first day you showed me where the copier jams and which vending machine eats dollar bills. That was the most useful training I ever got here."

Things to write:

• "Ray, thank you for 22 years, one fire drill in the snow, and that potluck where your chili won and you pretended not to care. The third floor gets a lot quieter tomorrow."
• "I'll miss our Friday walk to the bagel place. I might keep doing it, but it'll just be me complaining to myself."

From someone they managed

This one usually lands hardest, because a good boss rarely hears what they did right. Pick one moment they backed you up or taught you something. Keep it about them, not a recap of your own career since.

Things to say:

• "Linda, my first month here I shipped an order to the wrong state, and all you said was, 'Okay, what did we learn?' I've said that to every person I've trained since. Thank you."
• "You let me leave at 3:30 every Thursday for my son's swim practice and never once made it a thing. I do the same for my team now."
• "I've had four managers. You're the one I still quote."

Things to write:

• "Thank you for all the red ink on my first proposal, and for the fact that there was less of it on the second one."
• "In that budget meeting in 2019, you backed my numbers when I wasn't sure of them myself. They turned out to be right. Thank you for betting on me first."

Get everyone's messages into one video

Share one link, everyone adds a short message from their phone, and on their last day it all plays as one video with each person's name on their message.

Build a moment

From their manager

If you managed the person who's retiring, your job is to say, in front of everyone, what the place owes them. Stay away from anything that sounds like a performance review. Name the thing they built or fixed that will outlast them.

Things to say:

• "Walt, when I became your manager you'd been here eleven years longer than I had, and you were kind enough to act like I was in charge. The warehouse runs the way it does because of the systems you set up. We'll be using your spreadsheet for years, and nobody here understands the tab called DON'T TOUCH. So we won't."
• "I've written a lot of reviews for you. This is the one where I get to skip the section on areas for growth. Thank you for thirty-one years."

Things to write:

• "Almost everyone on this team learned the job from you, including me, if I'm being accurate about it. Thank you for making the rest of us look organized."

From a client

Clients don't have to say anything, which is exactly why a message from one carries weight. Keep it short and professional, with one example of a time the person made your life easier.

Things to say:

• "Maria, we've worked with your office for fifteen years, and I've never once had to explain our account twice. You picked up my panicked call on Christmas Eve 2017 and had it fixed before the ham came out. Whoever takes over has a long email thread to read."
• "You were the reason we renewed in 2020. I told my boss that at the time, and I'm telling you now."

Things to write:

• "In fourteen years of invoices, you caught three of our mistakes before we did. We'll miss working with you. Enjoy the time off, and please don't pick up if we call."

From family

Family saw the other side of the job: the early alarm, the work phone at dinner, the conference in Denver that landed on an anniversary. Your message can be the one that says what the work asked of the household, and that you're glad to have them back.

From a spouse or partner:

• "Thirty-one years of you leaving at 6:40 with a travel mug. As of Monday, the mug is retired too. I'm glad you're home. I've also made a list."

From a grown kid:

• "Mom, I grew up thinking every family talked about inventory counts at dinner. Thank you for going in every day so we never had to worry. Now come show me how you fixed the gutter that time, because I can't figure it out."

From a grandkid (let them say whatever they want, but a nudge helps):

• "Grandpa, Mom says you can come to my soccer games on Saturdays and Wednesdays now. That's two."

Written:

• "You missed a few school plays for that job and made every one that counted. Now you get a front row seat for the grandkids' shows, and they are long."

The golf, the Mondays and the other clichés

Every retirement card says some version of the same five things: enjoy all that golf, no more Mondays, the office won't be the same, don't work too hard, enjoy your permanent vacation. The trouble with them is repetition. By the tenth card, the person reading stops seeing the words.

You don't have to ban them. Make them specific and they work again:

• "Enjoy all that golf" becomes "Enjoy Pine Hollow on a Tuesday morning, when the course is empty and nobody's around to watch your slice."
• "No more Mondays" becomes "No more Monday 8 a.m. calls with Phil's speakerphone cutting out every third word. We'll sit through them for you."
• "The office won't be the same" becomes "Nobody's going to start the good coffee before 7 now. We'll be drinking the decaf by Thursday."
• "Don't be a stranger" becomes "Lunch at Rosie's on the first Friday of every month. I'm buying the first one."

A few more things to watch:

• Skip age jokes unless you're sure they'll land. "Finally old enough to retire" is funny from their best friend and awkward from someone in accounting.
• If the retirement wasn't entirely their choice, stick to thanks and leave out the jokes about freedom. You'll usually know.
• Don't use the message to hint at your own job worries or who's getting their desk.
• If you barely knew them, say so and keep it short: "We only worked together on the Carver project, but you made it the easiest six months of my year. Thank you."

For the people who can't be in the room

Most retirement send-offs have a few: the coworker who moved to Phoenix, the client three states away, the kids who live out of town. A group video lets each of them say their piece on the last day. The page for teams shows how that works at work. For more help, see what to write when a coworker leaves and how to collect video messages from a group.

Build a moment