Stop Asking ‘When Will You Retire?’ Start Asking ‘What’s Next?’
- RetirementGuy
- Aug 21
- 1 min read
When 83-year-old Harrison Ford was asked recently if he plans to retire, he didn’t miss a beat: “No. That’s one of the things I thought was attractive about the job of an actor, was that they need old people, too, to play old people’s parts.”
That one line says more about age inclusion than most corporate handbooks.
In a world where we’re finally beginning to celebrate the full range of human experiences and identities, it’s time to extend that celebration to age. Yet far too often, I still hear the same tired question whispered in conference rooms or tossed out over coffee: “When are you thinking of retiring?”
We don’t ask young professionals when they’re planning to quit. So why do we ask older professionals when they’re planning to leave?
This question isn’t just outdated. It’s loaded with assumptions. It implies that age equals decline, that experience equals irrelevance, and that opportunity has an expiration date. It’s ageism in disguise and, in many workplaces, still one of the last socially acceptable biases.
Comments