When a popular boss retires you may want to send them a personal letter to wish them well in their retirement, or maybe you’ve been chosen to write a letter on behalf of the team?
A letter to a retiring boss needs to be personal, heartfelt and genuine. Depending how well you know your boss the letter can be very informal, or if they are a nice but more formal boss, then that should be reflected in the tone of the letter too.
It would be nice to include some personal memories about working with your boss, whether it’s something that happened in the team, or something that is between the two of you, perhaps a time when they went above and beyond to help you. Adding in those memories makes the letter much more meaningful and something your retiring boss will treasure. Everyone likes to think they made a difference to someone’s life.
This is one time when a letter rather than an email is the preferred way of sending your best wishes. This can be done within a large retirement greeting card or on plain paper, whichever you decide is best, however it is probable that all their staff will want to sign the letter so make sure there’s enough room for all the signatures.
Any retirement letter will be very personal to the individual boss, so the following are just sample ideas of how you could write one yourself – just remember to make it genuine.
A letter to a retiring boss should include:
- Their name
- Their time at the company
- Acknowledgement of their positive actions on the team or yourself
- A personal or team anecdote
- A mention of their hobby and how they can spend more time on it
- Best wishes for the future
- Everyone’s signature
You might also like this sample retirement resignation letter
Letter to a retiring boss – sample 1
(Informal and personal)
Dear [first name]
So you’re finally going! Before your last day, I just wanted to put down in words how much I have enjoyed working with you over the last [number] of years. When I started at [company name] I was a nervous [age] year old, but you took the time to make me feel welcome and made sure that I was able to fulfill my role to the best of my ability.
You took an interest in my career and helped me to progress to the position I’m in now through mentoring me and making sure the right training was put in place to help me. I really appreciate all your help.
Although I will miss you, I’m thrilled that you can now take the time to do things for yourself whenever you want to. Are you actually going to travel Europe in your motorhome as you kept saying you would? I really hope so. But whatever you do in your retirement I hope you will enjoy it and occasionally think back to your time with [company name] with fondness.
Good luck in everything you do.
Best Wishes
[your name]
Letter to a retiring boss – sample 2
(On behalf of a team)
Dear [boss’s name]
On behalf of all of us in [team name], we would like to wish you all the best in your retirement.
You have been a great boss to us all, not only taking an interest in our personal lives but also encouraging us to be the best we can be at work. We all fondly remember [mention some event that took place e.g. our Team Away Day when you abseiled first down that cliff face whilst screaming non stop, which made us all laugh].
We hope you have a fantastic retirement and get to do all the things you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t had the time for.
We will miss you.
[All team members sign individually]
Letter to a retiring boss – sample 3
(On behalf of a team)
Dear [boss’s name]
We all wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for being such a great boss. You have now been working with us for [number] years and we appreciate the fact that you know us all as individuals and treat us in the same way. You have taken the time to encourage each of us to be the best we can be and ensured we have had the training to do our jobs to the best of our ability. We feel we are a proper team.
I know we’ll all remember the time we [insert memory here]
Now it’s time for you to look after you and do all those things you’ve talked about for a while. We hope you will enjoy your morning lie-ins and having time to read the paper from cover to cover.
Of course we will miss you and hope you think of us from time to time, but from now on this is about YOU.
ENJOY.
From everyone in your team,
[All team members sign individually]
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