Her Majesty’s Prison in conjunction with the Public Service Centre for Human Resources Development will host a seminar to provide practical action plans for reducing some of the anxiety associated with retirement.
Speaking at the opening of the seminar Tuesday, training officer at the Public Service Training Centre Nicola Clarke said, “The old adage, ‘he who fails to plan, plans to fail’ is more than appropriate when preparing for retirement and this period can be a very traumatic time for the unprepared. But we are saying in this session that no one is unprepared.”
Ms. Clarke went through the objectives of the seminar with prison officers who are preparing for retirement. These include:
Providing information on the challenges of retirement in a changing environment;
Exposing participants to the entitlements and benefits provided under the Pensions Act and National Insurance Act;
Exposing participants to a variety of revenue producing opportunities they can choose from to support their financial status in retirement;
Discussing diseases and other ailments associated with aging and providing information on precautionary health measures;
Informing participants of the Inheritance Act with the view to assisting them with the preparation of wills and deeds of gifts;
Discussing avenues for spiritual enrichment and community involvement during the retirement period;
Exploring opportunities for sound financial investments for retirement funds.
Training officer Tomasina Adderley explained that gone are the days when retirees would go home to sit in a rocking chair and retire away from life or watch over the grandchildren.
“I know a lot of persons go into full-time church work; some persons go into insurance work,” Ms. Adderley said. “Those are some of the things we are preparing them for in terms of giving them an opportunity to work after they would have retired from the public service.
“This seminar is specifically designed to give information on the challenges of retirement in a changing environment and we are looking to exposing participants to a variety of revenue producing opportunities that they can choose from.”
She added that retirees from the public service can practice new trades they never had the time to learn when they were employed by the government full-time.
Ms. Adderley explained that the training unit organises in-house training courses, and caters to government ministries and departments that want seminars to be held at their offices.
The unit provides training for all positions within government in a number of areas including customer service, personal development and enhancing productivity.
Rather than bringing experts from abroad who might not understand the specific needs of Bahamian civil servants and how things work in the country, Ms. Adderley said the facilitators utilised by the unit are successful Bahamians who understand the respective needs.
“We have a reservoir of knowledge in this country,” she said. “If you look at this pre-retirement seminar programme, all of our facilitators either work privately or they are in the public service.”
So when presenting, the facilitators can speak directly to the concerns of their fellow Bahamians.