by George Ray

This post was originally published on July 28, 2016 at federalbenefitsadvocates.com

In 2012, Congress passed a law allowing eligible employees to partially retire while remaining on the job part-time in order to mentor other workers. Phased Retirement was designed to help agencies gain workforce flexibility, and limit the need to potentially re-employ retired workers. OPM began releasing guidance to agencies in 2014 with the release of several Benefits Administration Letters, booklets, and forms.

Over the last several years, only a handful of generally smaller agencies have implemented the use of phased retirement for their workforces. One of the key challenges for human resources personnel has been defining the term ‘mentoring’ (OPM gave agencies some discretion on this), and determining how to go about implementing and measuring the effectiveness of the program for the agency. One of the larger agencies to implement the program, and generally pave the way for other agencies, has been Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

On June 21, 2016, Peter Levine, the Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, issued Directive-Type Memorandum 16-004 which now authorizes the use of the Phased Retirement Program for employees in the Department of Defense (DOD). It includes attachments outlining Responsibilities and Procedures to be used to offer and provide phased retirement. For more information, you can read DTM 16-004 here. (PDF)

The Takeaway: We work with many Department of Defense agencies throughout the US, and have been acknowledging that phased retirement would eventually become another decision in the many important decisions an employee must make about their retirement. One HR employee told us that they are still looking for further direction on implementation, but there are many employees who are eligible to enter the program who are asking about it. If used appropriately, both the agency and the employee, should reap benefits from phased retirement.