A retirement speech is your best opportunity to convey best wishes or congratulations to a retiring coworker, or your only opportunity to express your feelings about a lifetime of employment. Either way, it is the last moment in your career, and one of the most important. Do not leave a retirement speech to the last minute. Successful careers deserve an equally well planned retirement speech. Despite the anxiety that sometimes comes with public speaking, it is certainly not a time to become too anxious.

Make the most out of your retirement speech by doing a little planning beforehand. Excessive detail and notecards are certainly not a requirement, but it does pay to do a bit of planning before heading into the speech. The most important part of any speech, especially a retirement speech, is that you appear relaxed and act yourself. This can be made very easy with a little advance planning. Heading into a retirement speech, have some idea of the format you will follow.
This will keep the speech interesting and on point.

Perhaps the most effective technique in any retirement speech is the selection of one incident. Although you might be speaking of a long career, look to the past for a memorable moment that really reflects that career. This is an excellent way to show the integrity of those that you work with. A single well chosen incident can do more to illustrate your experiences than an hours worth of aimless rambling.

A touch of humor can also go a long way in a retirement speech. The humor does not have to be overwhelmingly funny, but should simply reflect the circumstances and relax everybody up a little. With just a touch of humor, you can get everybody onboard for the speech, grabbing their attention. Using a little humor throughout makes it more memorable. Humor in a retirement speech should not go overboard, nor does it need to be groundbreaking. If you have a hard time coming up with anything, the internet is a great resource for topical jokes.

Retirement speeches can be found online, sometimes free and sometimes available for a fee. If you are very pressed for time, purchasing one of these as a template might be an option. You should always try to make a retirement speech reflect personally for the best results.