In-house Retirement Planning Courses and Seminars

WHY PROVIDE RETIREMENT EDUCATION?

When considering retirement advice for staff within the UK, employers have the option of running a retirement course seminar, or to offer one-to-one retirement counselling. Alternatively, employers could simply issue retiring staff with a self-teaching retirement pack or a book on the subject. Worst of all, they could give no support whatsoever. We believe that employees are aware of the support available and are placing an increasing amount of value on an employer who provides the opportunity to attend a course.

Nowadays the majority of people look forward to retirement. These employees see it as a well-deserved 'rest' and the chance to please themselves - doing things at their own pace. However, it is not an overwhelming majority, and a large number of impending retirees are either dreading it or are apprehensive regarding one or a number of aspects. Questions on what health they can expect; whether they will manage financially; and what they will do with all the extra time, are the most frequently asked.

In our considerable experience the majority, whether in executive administrative roles or from the factory, office or a shop, do not give anything like the required attention to planning their post-work years and as a result largely waste the first eighteen to twenty four months of their retirement - their 'youngest' period.

For a modest cost, employers can reward the valuable service their employees have given by giving them the opportunity to go through a well-structured and rehearsed 'check-list' of things they ought to have considered. We say 'check-list' because we would not insult participants by proposing or offering a teaching or back-to-school approach to such a learned group who have seen and experienced so much during their long lives. We merely aim to ensure they exploit retirement's rich potential.

Retirement Education Services Ltd offer a unique cross-section of services which no other commercial provider comes close to matching. The following paragraphs explain why:

Regrettably, many commercial companies providing training seminars and courses have not entered this field of training because they believe in them. They have something to promote - usually insurance, savings or investment plans. We have no financial tie-up whatsoever, and use independent speakers that we consider good presenters and who hold comprehensive knowledge on all financial topics.

Most of our speakers have industrial and/or commercial backgrounds coupled with many years experience in training and educating adults.

CUSTOMER CARE – BEFORE AND AFTER

We are interested in your employees before, during and after they attend. We offer a free helpline to all client's employees who have attended one of our programmes. They can contact us concerning any of the topics that concern them with their retirement

At the end of the course we issue to each delegate (or couple) a course pack in an attractive wallet. It contains a copy of our book 'Retirement - A Positive Approach' as well as a very comprehensive collection of booklets and leaflets relevant to all aspects of retirement.

In addition we care about those who decline their employer's invitation to attend. We offer the client two or three separate proposals to cater for what is on average 15 to 20% of employees who won't attend a course.

If preferred, we will design the programme on a modular basis over a number of weeks if the client company believes this is a more educationally acceptable approach: we know of no other commercial provider who offers this service.

Because they have a financial or insurance service rather than a training background, many providers in the market place fail to tailor courses to the needs of the participants. They may build their programmes around dated videos. Many offer a parade of disjointed speakers who frequently repeat or worse, contradict the earlier words of the course leader or the previous speaker.

At Retirement Education Services, we are constantly revising our material because we are determined to lead the field, rather than following the pack. As a result of liaison with educationalists in the retirement planning world - yes inside and beyond the UK - we are able to keep our clients informed as to developments in technique, style and content to the benefit of their employees.

To give an example, our Managing Director Tony Wheeler himself won a scholarship in 1985 to compare the situation on retirement planning training and education in the United Kingdom with that of Sweden and West Germany.

In 1993 he developed the only totally audio based self teaching pack. This was aimed at employees with impaired vision or for whom English wasn't their first language.

During 1995 RES won an EEC grant to produce a similar audio package to German workers. This was successfully completed in 1996

Our style includes a good deal of participation but in an informal way that avoids intimidation and encourages a contribution from everyone. Don't take our word for this - we invite you to ask both our clients and individual participants!

If you have not yet offered retirement planning to your employees, then there is no better time to start than now. The difficulty of recruiting top quality staff makes it more important than ever that your employment benefit package includes planning training to ease them into retirement. This you should do first through mid-life planning programmes (one day in duration) in their mid 50's. Then by a comprehensive retirement planning course; seminar or modular programme, two - three years before retirement day.

Our Retirement Education Services team would be pleased to meet you to discuss your feelings and needs, or as an alternative we would invite you to sit in on one of our courses (with the client's permission) to witness our programmes first hand. We believe this is the best way to judge us. If you have been sceptical regarding whether this type of training has a benefit you will lose this scepticism completely following just one day's attendance.

Example Programmes

Click HERE for a One-day sample programme and HERE for a Two-day sample programme, to get an idea of the content and layout of a typical Open course.

Prices

Our prices are tailored to each customer's needs, and are based on length and date of course, frequency and content. Please contact us for further details.