I remember my Dad's retirement party well: it was in the early aughts and I was wearing this smashing purple-on-purple polka-dot dress (hmmm…wish I still had that dress…) and everyone was there: his former secretary from, like, 1974, past and present colleagues, friends, family, and, I could swear even one of his grad-school professors. I can picture the scene like it was yesterday, even though you'd think it would be a memory long-discarded—just like that dress.

As I mentioned in my first post in this series, in the next five years many members of the Baby Boomer Generation will be retiring. They could be leaving companies they've been with for 40-plus years or five years—and, while honoring them in a meaningful way is a must, the way they are celebrated will likely be different depending on their years of service. 

Did you know that in the next five years, a whopping 18% of the workplace could retire? Yep, the Baby Boomers (the generation born between 1946 and 1964) are getting to that age when they're ready to trade cubicle walls for wide open spaces, business casual for casual-casual, and the daily commute for quiet stroll around the neighborhood.