Retirement gifts for a colleague

A colleague leaving is a strange piece of workplace admin. There is a card going round, a collection whose per-head figure nobody has actually agreed, and one person who volunteered in a meeting to sort the present and now has to.

3 of 9 in who is retiring

Set their details in typeSee the portrait styles
An office desk in slatted sunlight with a blank card on a wooden stand, a mug of coffee, a notebook and pen, and a potted plant.
AI-made illustration.

A picture for their next chapter

Open a design for its formats, sizes and prices.

The constraint nobody says out loud is that this gift has got to be picked by a group who disagree, from a budget that is not known until the envelope comes back, for somebody half the group does not know well. That rules out anything that depends on taste, and it explains why so many leaving presents end up as vouchers.

What a workplace actually knows

A team may have no idea about her taste in art or his taste in whisky. It does know the job title, the number of years and the name of the place, because those facts live on an org chart. A present built out of exactly those facts cannot be wrong about the person, and it's something a committee can settle in one email thread.

Leaving gifts for colleagues

The name print takes four fields, filled in once: their name, their profession, their years of service, and where they worked. Those get set in type under the fixed Happy Retirement line, and printed here. Nobody has to source a photograph or write a speech into a text box.

It comes unframed at A4 or A3, or framed at A3, ready to go straight up; every size is priced on the name print page, delivery included, so a collection divides that one figure. Group retirement gifts covers how the collection itself is usually run. If the team would rather hand over something used daily, the same four details go on a mug.

Signing it

If you take the framed version, sign the backing board, not the print itself. If you take it unframed, it can go round the office in its sleeve on the Thursday and be framed afterwards by whoever receives it.

Getting it there

A flat parcel in a wire post tray on an office post-room shelf.
Send it to the office, or to their home if the handover is elsewhere.

Allow nine working days. Reckon on two to four working days at the printers and two to five in the post, with delivery already paid for, and checkout takes any UK address: the office, or their home if the handover is happening somewhere else.

Where the person leaving is your manager, not your peer, the guide to buying for a boss handles that particular awkwardness. Where you would rather start from the job than the relationship, the twenty profession guides do exactly that. Both hang off who is retiring.

The name print on an unframed paper print: HAPPY RETIREMENT above the name Margaret, then TEACHER · 35 YEARS and St Mary's Primary School, set in type. The Personalised Name Print From £15.99

Poster

The colleague's name, role, years with you and the workplace, typed for the leaving do.

See all sizes and prices

A few practical answers

How much does a workplace collection need to raise?

Enough for the piece you pick, and no more: delivery is included, so the price shown is the target. Divide that price by the number of people giving.

What if nobody knows their exact years of service?

Leave the field empty. Only the name is required; profession, years of service and where they worked are each optional, and the print is set to whatever you fill in.

Can it be delivered to the office?

Yes. Any UK address works at checkout, whether that is the workplace or the retiree’s home.

What is the best gift for a retiring colleague?

One the whole team can agree on without knowing their taste: the name print, with their name, job title, years and workplace, which are facts a workplace already has. If the leaving do is too close for printing, the digital file is sent by email.

A leather-topped office desk and a green leather chair by a sunny window, with papers, a stack of books and bookshelves behind.

For the boss

A manager leaving is the one retirement where a team isn't sure how much feeling it's allowed to show. Too little reads as cold, too much reads as an audition, and the person who has to judge it is usually whoever agreed to run the collection.

Buying for someone in particular?