Why firms like Abbott and Land O’Lakes let workers retire gradually

When Michelle Whiffen’s husband retired, she realized there were some things to look forward to if and when she joined him.

As she saw her husband take time to ski and golf, she thought about how she’d have time to develop her own new hobbies. Sleeping in didn’t seem bad either. And once they were both retired, she and her spouse would certainly have time to check a few travel destinations, like Scotland and Alaska, off their bucket list.

But when she thought about stopping work altogether, the feeling was more akin to dread than delight, Whiffen, SVP of client services for recruitment marketing firm HireClix, told HR Brew.

“I really enjoy my work, and I love my co-workers a ton,” she said. “And the thought, for me, of walking out the door one day, seemed like jumping off a bridge.”

To ease the transition into retirement, Whiffen is planning to take advantage of HireClix’s phased retirement program (dubbed “flextirement”), which allows employees to work fewer hours while still collecting benefits, including the company’s 401(k) match.

Just 7% of employers offered such a program in 2025, according to SHRM, but those that do see a few positive returns. Companies like HireClix see phased retirement as a way to give workers additional time to save for retirement, as well as gradually transition out of roles that have long been core to their identities. Additionally, employers told us that phased retirement programs are helpful for training the next generation of workers in their firms.

Preparing the next generation. Whiffen, who has worked for HireClix for eight years, said she hopes to start phased retirement in 2027. She plans to work 75–80% of her schedule—say, four days a week—to start, and then gradually decrease her hours until she officially retires.

Part of the appeal of “flextirement” is that it will allow Whiffen more time to train her colleagues on how to do her job. She spends her days helping customers strategize, using HireClix software to create recruitment marketing plans that in turn serve as a tool for attracting talent. When training colleagues, she tries to explain not only how she helps customers, but why she does things a certain way. The hope is that this will encourage them to think critically and solve problems on their own when they arise.

“Almost everything I do today revolves around teaching people to live without me,” said Whiffen, who has five direct reports. “I want them to thrive and not use me as a resource all the time.”

Land O’Lakes, which has had a phased retirement benefit for eight years, sees “knowledge transfer” as a key tenet of the program, CHRO Julie Sexton said. The scheme tends to work particularly well for roles “where the knowledge needs to run so deep within our supply chain organization,” she told us. Phased retirement might look like a scientist studying agricultural chemicals who partners with someone to document his work, for example, or a 50-year sales employee who works side-by-side with a newer hire.

Funny enough, one Land O’Lakes employee who took phased retirement also happened to be an expert in the company’s retirement plans, Sexton said. This employee, she said, had “legacy information” not only about Land O’Lakes’s defined benefit plan, which has since been phased out, but also its current 401(k) plan. She was also familiar with other retirement plans that were grandfathered in through organizations that Land O’Lakes acquired.

Having this employee spend additional time passing on this information to her successor “left us all in a better place, and left the team much more settled as we got into the new structure,” Sexton said.

More time to save. At a time when many workers worry they’re not saving enough to comfortably retire, phased retirement programs may allow them to continue building savings while scaling back their work schedules.

Worker anxieties about retirement savings were top-of-mind for healthcare firm Abbott’s HR team when they designed a phased retirement program called Freedom to Work in 2008. “We knew that what was getting in the way of people just taking time off was that they felt like it would hurt their retirement savings,” Mary Moreland, Abbott’s head of HR, said.

Abbott designed a program that allows employees to collect a full 401(k) match, or pension contribution, even while working four days a week, or taking five additional weeks of vacation annually. Participating employees’ pay is reduced, but their retirement benefits remain the same as other full-time workers.

“In that way, you can have a little more time with family, time to explore what you want to do outside of work. But at the same time, we can start planning for your retirement,” Moreland said. About 2,100 Abbott employees have participated in Freedom to Work since it launched, and 85 are currently enrolled, the company said.

Phased retirement fits nicely within the financial well-being pillar of Land O’Lakes’s total rewards strategy, given workers are “gradually getting used to more of a fixed income mindset” while continuing to receive their healthcare benefits and participate in the company’s 401(k), Sexton said.

Navigating the new normal. Americans are retiring later than they used to, and with long careers comes complex feelings about leaving them, HireClix’s Whiffen observed.

“When my dad retired, he couldn't wait,” Whiffen said. “Retirement today, at least for me, seems and feels different than that…I’ve worked hard to get to this point in my career, and I do get a lot of satisfaction.”

Whiffen added that she’d feel good about being able to leave HireClix “in the very best hands,” and set others at the organization up for success.

For some Land O’Lakes employees, 10% of whom have been with the company for 25 years or more, the feeling is similar, Sexton said.

“There’s a lot of pride in our long-term employees about making sure that they’re transferring that knowledge…leaving things intact or in a better place for the organization.”