A retirement speech is one of the nicer jobs you can be given at work. The person retiring has usually been there for years, often decades, and the room is full of people who like them. Their partner and family may be there too, along with some senior managers and a few old faces who left years ago and have come back for the afternoon. Your job is to say thank you on everyone's behalf and send them off feeling appreciated.
This page covers the whole speech. If you want to read more complete speeches, there are three retirement speech examples for different jobs and different voices. If it's your own retirement, see your own retirement speech instead.
Who gives the speech
Usually it's the person's line manager or the head of their department. That makes sense, as they can speak for the organisation and they tend to know the person's career. It doesn't have to be the manager, though. If a new manager has only known them for a year, it is often better for a long-standing colleague or a friend from work to speak, because they have the stories. Sometimes the manager says a short formal thank-you and hands over the gift, and a colleague follows with the funnier speech.
If you are a friend from outside work, speaking at a retirement party at home or in a pub, the speech works in much the same way. You just have more freedom to talk about their life outside the office.
A simple structure
Most good retirement speeches follow roughly this order:
- A welcome (about 20 seconds). Get everyone's attention, say who you are and how you know them. Welcome their partner and family if they've come.
- Their career in brief (about 30 seconds). When they started, the jobs they've had and how things have changed since. A couple of dates or numbers help people picture it.
- Two or three stories (one to two minutes). Moments from work that show what they're like. This is the part people remember.
- What they're like to work with (about 30 seconds). What colleagues will miss about them, in plain words.
- What's next (about 20 seconds). Their plans, whether that's grandchildren, the allotment, a long trip or the golf course.
- The gift and the toast (about 30 seconds). Hand over the card or present, then ask everyone to raise a glass.
How long to speak for
Aim for three to five minutes. That's about 400 to 650 words when spoken at a comfortable pace. At most leaving dos people are standing up with a drink, and some of them will have come straight from a shift, so it helps to keep it moving. If there will be several speakers, stay nearer to three minutes each. Two minutes is fine for a small office gathering around the kettle and a cake.
Finding the stories
Ask around. Talk to the people who have worked with them longest, and to anyone who has since left. Ask what they were like when they started, what they always say, what they keep in their desk drawer, what goes wrong when they're on holiday. You will hear the same few things over and over, and those are the stories to use.
Pick stories that show something good about the person, such as their patience or the way they looked after new starters. A funny story works best when it ends with them coming out of it well.
Getting it right for a mixed room
A retirement do usually has an unusual audience. Their husband, wife or partner might be sitting next to the chief executive, and their grown-up children might be next to the apprentices. A few rules help:
- Explain any in-joke in a sentence, so partners and families can follow it.
- Leave out anything that would embarrass them in front of their family or their bosses.
- Don't mention why they are leaving unless it is happy news they have shared themselves.
- Keep jokes about the organisation out, however tempting. Senior people are in the room, and the person retiring may still want to keep in touch.
- Go easy on acronyms and job titles. "She ran the payroll for eleven hundred people" is clearer than her job title.
If you want some laughs, the gentlest jokes are about their habits at work, like the mug nobody else is allowed to use or the famous filing system. Keep stories about their health or their age out unless you know they're happy to hear them.
Presenting a gift or card
If there's a collection, the speech is usually when the present gets handed over. Do it near the end, just before the toast. Say who it's from ("from everyone here, and quite a few people who couldn't make it") and a word about why you chose it, if there's a story behind it. Then hand it over and give them a moment. If they want to open it there and then, wait. Once they've finished, raise the toast so they can say a few words back if they want to.
The toast
Keep the last line simple so everyone knows when to drink. For example: "So would you all please raise your glasses. To Colin, and a very happy retirement." At a leaving do it's fine for people to stay sitting, but at a formal dinner you can ask them to stand.
If the person is moving to a new job, going on parental leave or moving away, the speech is a bit different. The leaving speech guide covers those.
An example retirement speech (about 3 minutes)
Farida manages a small heating engineers' firm in Manchester. Colin, her senior service engineer, is retiring after 33 years. His wife Pauline and their granddaughter Ruby have come to the do at a pub in Didsbury.
Right, can I have everyone's attention for a few minutes? Thank you. For those who don't know me, I'm Farida, and I've been Colin's manager for the last eight years. I say manager. For most of that time Colin has been managing me, and he's been very patient about it.
Colin joined the company in 1993 as an apprentice, when the whole office was one room above a carpet shop on Barlow Moor Road. Thirty-three years later he's our senior service engineer, and he's fixed more boilers across south Manchester than anyone can count.
Pauline, I know you've heard a lot of Colin's work stories over the years, so I've tried to pick some you might not know.
The first is his van. Everyone who has ever worked here knows Colin's van. It's the cleanest vehicle in the North West. There's a tin of Quality Street in the glovebox for any children who watch him work, and he's worn shoe covers on every job since long before anyone told us to. One lady in Didsbury asked for "the gentleman with the tidy van" every winter for twenty years.
The second is Christmas Eve 2010, when it snowed and half the roads were shut. An elderly customer in Ramsbottom rang to say her heating had gone off. Colin wasn't on call. He went anyway, fixed it in forty minutes, and came back with a tub of her mince pies, which he shared with the office after Boxing Day.
The third is really about the rest of us. Colin has trained most of the engineers in this room, including me when I started. He'll explain something twice without making you feel daft, and before anything else he always asks "Have you checked the pressure?" I think some of you will hear him saying it for years.
So what's next? Colin tells me the plan is his allotment in Chorlton and more weekends in the caravan on Anglesey. Ruby has already told me her grandad is going to build her a treehouse, so Colin, your first job is sorted.
Before we raise a glass, we've got something for you. The card has been round every van in the company, so apologies for the oil on the back. Pauline tells us you've wanted a proper greenhouse for the allotment for years, so everyone has chipped in for one.
So would you all please raise your glasses. To Colin, and a very happy retirement.
What makes it work: Farida welcomes Pauline early and picks stories the family can follow. Each story shows something good about Colin, and the jokes are about his tidiness, which he's proud of. The gift has a reason behind it, and the toast is one clear line.
More retirement and leaving guides
Common questions
Who usually gives the retirement speech?
Most often it's the person's manager or head of department. At smaller dos it might be a long-standing colleague or a friend from work. If more than one person wants to speak, keep each speech short and agree beforehand who is telling which stories.
How long should a retirement speech be?
Three to five minutes is about right. That is roughly 400 to 650 words at a steady pace. People are usually standing with a drink in their hand, so a shorter speech goes down better than a long one.
Should I mention how old they are?
Only if you know they won't mind, and keep it light. Most people retiring would prefer to hear about what they did at work than about their age. It is safer to talk about how many years they have been there.
Do I need to present the gift during the speech?
It works well near the end, just before the toast. Say who it is from and hand it over, then give them a moment to open it. Then raise your glass so they can sit down or say a few words of their own.
Can I use AI to write a retirement speech?
Yes. Speechmade writes a first draft with AI from your answers about the person and their work. You read the opening free before you decide, and you can change any of it so it sounds like you.