Every year, companies lose experienced employees without having planned for a smooth transition. Phased retirement changes the game: it gives older employees time to scale back their work while receiving a portion of their pension, and offers employers a rare opportunity to pass on their knowledge. As of late 2024, only 31,368 retirees were using this program in France—a minuscule number given its potential. In this article, you’ll learn how to integrate phased retirement into your end-of-career management strategy, what concrete benefits it offers, and where to set your safeguards. For HR, it’s the difference between a forced departure and a controlled transition.
In short:
- Phased retirement is available starting at age 60 to employees who have accumulated 150 valid quarters, whether working part-time or on a reduced schedule.
- An employee working 80% of full-time hours receives a prorated portion of their salary plus 20% of their pension.
- For employers: visibility into employee departures, knowledge transfer, and a reputation as an inclusive company.
- Processing times average 5 months: planning ahead is key.
- A refusal is still possible, but must be justified.
In this article:
Phased Retirement: Who Is This Program Really For?
Phased retirement allows an employee nearing the end of their career to reduce their working hours while receiving a portion of their pension. As of September 1, 2025, eligibility begins at age 60, down from 62 previously. There are three eligibility requirements, which apply regardless of the pension plan to which the employee belongs.
The Three Eligibility Requirements You Need to Know
To apply for a phased retirement plan, the employee must check three specific boxes. There are no exceptions to these basic requirements, which simplifies the verification process for HR.
- Be at least 60 years old.
- Work part-time or on a reduced schedule.
- Have at least 150 valid quarters of coverage.
Let’s take the example of a small-to-medium-sized industrial company in the Hauts-de-France region. Its HR director identifies a 61-year-old maintenance technician with forty years of shop floor experience. He verifies the employee’s eligibility, proposes a reduction to 70% of full-time hours, and the program becomes available. Without this identification, that expertise would have been lost all at once on the day of the farewell party.
How is compensation calculated?
The principle is clear. Employees receive their salary on a pro-rata basis for the time worked, supplemented by a portion of their pension corresponding to the time not worked. An employee working at 80% capacity therefore receives 80% of their salary and 20% of their basic pension.
| Working Hours | Percentage of salary | Pension Share |
|---|---|---|
| 80 % | 80 % | 20 % |
| 70 % | 70 % | 30 % |
| 60 % | 60 % | 40 % |
| 50 % | 50 % | 50 % |
The supplemental pension plan operates under the same mechanism as the basic plan. Employees therefore maintain a stable income, which alleviates the main concern: a net loss of purchasing power. This detail is extremely reassuring during end-of-career consultations.
The real issue goes beyond eligibility. Identifying the relevant candidates early on means giving ourselves the means to plan for a smooth transition, rather than being caught off guard by a sudden vacuum.
What are the concrete benefits for employers and employees?
Phased retirement is a win-win situation. Employees can ease into retirement without a sudden drop in income; employers gain valuable insight into upcoming departures and precious time to transfer skills. When managed effectively, it becomes a key factor in attracting and retaining older employees.
From a planning perspective, the system turns uncertainty into a schedule. An HR manager knows that a particular employee will be reducing their hours over a period of two or three years before leaving the company permanently. This allows the manager to launch a recruitment process at the right time, organize a handover, and avoid the panic of having to find a replacement at the last minute.
A strong message for the employer brand
Implementing a phased retirement program sends a clear message to all generations. The company demonstrates that it supports employees as they approach the end of their careers rather than simply rushing them out the door. This gesture fosters a culture of care that candidates closely observe—including younger ones who are thinking about their long-term future.
An alumni and mentoring platform aligns perfectly with this approach. It extends the organization’s responsibility beyond the employment contract: transferring expertise, fostering a mix of generations, supporting employability, encouraging volunteer work that leverages professional skills, and building lasting relationships. It limits the loss of expertise by capitalizing on the experiences of former employees. In terms of image, it demonstrates a genuine culture of development: better-prepared onboarding, smoother career paths, a useful network for advancement, and transparency through testimonials and credible ambassadors. The result: enhanced attractiveness, easier recruitment, and increased employee retention, with tangible impact metrics that align HR, CSR, and communications.
The Driving Force Behind Intergenerational Transfer
The more valued a senior employee feels, the more willing they are to share their knowledge. Phased retirement naturally creates this opportunity: the employee is still on the job, but has more free time that can be devoted to mentoring. Consider a training manager at a prestigious university who revived his dormant network by asking alumni to serve as mentors for new students. The result: active mentoring pairs, documented knowledge, and a legacy that no longer fades away.
In community platform projects, one observation keeps coming up: a network of former colleagues loses momentum as soon as it is reduced to a simple directory. Engagement endures when the tool also facilitates communication, networking, mentoring, and the sharing of real opportunities. Phased retirement helps build this pool of natural ambassadors.
To put it plainly, the program is not merely a social benefit: it is a tool for ensuring continuity that serves the company’s human capital.
What should you keep in mind before starting a phased retirement?
Phased retirement involves operational challenges that must be anticipated. HR must understand the regulatory nuances, incorporate monitoring of participants into their processes, and ensure that the workload is not shifted onto full-time colleagues. If not properly prepared, it creates tensions rather than resolving them.
Rethinking the Organization of Work
When an employee reduces their hours to 60% or 70%, the hours they no longer cover don’t just disappear. Without prior planning, those hours fall on the remaining teams, who eventually reach their limit. Assessing feasibility in advance helps avoid this common pitfall.
Also keep in mind one technical detail: employees on a phased retirement plan may work overtime only up to 10% of their regular working hours. It is therefore impossible to ask them to cover peak workloads as they did before. The redistribution of work must be planned structurally, not pieced together on a case-by-case basis.
Administrative Burden and Timeframes
Putting together an application requires careful attention to detail. Pension funds process applications in an average of 5 months, a timeframe that should be factored into any planning. An application submitted in January will not be finalized until summer.
| Point to watch | Best practice |
|---|---|
| 5-month processing time | Plan well in advance for filing |
| 10% cap on overtime hours | Structurally redistribute tasks |
| Specific HR Monitoring | Integrate the system into the HRIS |
| Possible refusal, but with justification | Document the decision in writing |
Good to know: The employer is not required to accept every request. A refusal is legitimate if it is based on a reason related to the organization’s operations, provided that the employer clearly justifies it. The director of an association that had recently undergone a leadership transition understood this well: he approved his executive secretary’s phased retirement specifically to prevent the loss of institutional memory during the transition.
Vigilance should not dampen momentum. It simply provides a framework for a system that, when properly managed, benefits everyone.
How Can You Incorporate Phased Retirement into Your HR Strategy?
To be successful, the HR department must shift from a passive to a proactive approach. Communicate widely about this right, identify eligible employees, and make this topic a regular part of your career development processes. Phased retirement will then become a cornerstone of your age management strategy, rather than an exception handled on a case-by-case basis.
First step: raise awareness of the program. Many employees are still unaware of their rights. An internal memo, a discussion during a team meeting, or a dedicated page on the intranet are enough to spark conversations. This transparency often reveals unexpected candidates.
Identify and support eligible candidates
Adopt a mapping approach. Identify employees who have at least 150 quarters of service and whose positions are suitable for reduced hours. Cross-reference this data with your age pyramid to identify areas at risk of knowledge loss.
Take advantage of key moments along the way. The career assessment offered starting at age 55, as well as mid-career and end-of-career reviews, are ideal opportunities to discuss phased retirement. An employee who is informed early on approaches this transition with confidence rather than apprehension.
Streamlining Monitoring and Reporting
Managing these programs using a scattered spreadsheet always ends up being a headache. A dedicated platform centralizes profiles, schedules mentoring pairs, documents skills, and measures engagement. There, you can track tutoring hours, content shared, and feedback.
Here are the steps to take this week to move from talk to action:
- Identify eligible employees using your age distribution chart.
- Discuss the right to phased retirement during the next HR meeting.
- Plan senior-junior mentoring pairs to begin the knowledge transfer.
- Track mentoring hours and documented knowledge.
- Automate tracking on a platform rather than in a spreadsheet.
This dual trend is more important than ever. The age pyramid is becoming more skewed, artificial intelligence is reshaping professions, and the tacit knowledge of your senior employees is becoming a treasure to safeguard before they leave the company. Phased retirement provides the window of opportunity; a community of alumni and mentors provides the channel for knowledge transfer.
Are you an HR department, school, vocational training center, or nonprofit looking to turn every departure into a lasting legacy? Bringing people together, passing on knowledge, and fostering growth: that’s exactly what alumni.space promises. Request a demo to scale up your mentoring program and your alumni network.
Source: Publication *Gradual Retirement*, Pension Insurance (31,368 beneficiaries as of the end of 2024).
