What is the purpose of a speech about a colleague leaving the company?
Your aim is to create a sense of community among the people who are gathered for the occasion. Remember, there may be new people in the company who do not know the person well. You should bring harmony between the people in the audience and the person being honoured. The ideal speech recalls favourable memories of the person leaving and makes this a celebration of the person's contribution to the group and the company.
What type of farewell speech do I give if I know the person well?
When you know the person who is leaving, you will give the 'personal' speech. The personal speech involves lots of emotion. You speak from the heart. You recall memories, anecdotes and experiences from the past. Usually, a popular person will take all the comments you make in good stride, even if you remind them of embarrassing moments,
How do I create a farewell speech for a person I know well?
There are four major steps when creating a farewell speech to a colleague:
Researching
Organising
Rehearsing and editing
Delivering
Researching
Sit down and list all the experiences that you yourself have shared with your colleague. The longer you spend on this, the more you will uncover.
Talk to colleagues and see what they can remember. They may come up with incidents that you have forgotten and would be brilliant for your farewell speech. Ask:
- what are your fondest memories?
- what did you see as their special qualities?
- what will you miss most about them?
- what were their most unusual but loveable habits?
- how have they helped you?
To provide some thoughts for an introduction, you may want to research:
- what was their career path: before joining the company?
- the year the person joined the company
- what their title was and is?
- accomplishments at work
- accomplishments outside of work
Any and all material you can gather is useful at this stage. The main thing you must do is to write it all down. Don't rely on your memory.
Organising
You have written down lots of ideas for your speech. But they need organising. You could organise them by time. "Three years ago . . . " or "Only last month . . ." or "Next . . ."
You could organise your ideas by place. "When xxxx was in London . . . " or "When xxxx moved from accounts to administration . . ."
You could organise your ideas by event. "Remember when the new manager arrived and said. . . ." or "We'll never forget what xxxx did at the Christmas party . . ."
Whichever method of organisation you choose, it should seem logical and easy to follow.
Rehearsing and editing
You have got a rough draft or your speech. At this stage, it is a written speech. But you will be delivering a vocal speech. So ask yourself, "What will it sound like to the audience?"
Read your speech out loud. Some words or phrases may not seem right. Some words you could delete or change to make the speech better. Now is the time to take a written speech and make it sound like a spoken speech.
Once you have perfected your speech to your satisfaction, you should practice, practice, practice. Say your words aloud until you feel confident you could speak without your notes. You are now ready.
Delivering
You are at the event. Everyone is looking at you. Yes, you are nervous. However, you have rehearsed your speech time after time and you are ready. Off you go.
The only thing left to do is to ask your colleagues to toast or applaud the colleague who is leaving. And perhaps present the 'leaving gift'.
Conclusion
I hope this session on giving a farewell speech to a person who is leaving or retiring has been useful. This speech is intended to create a warm and communal event. You are all recalling the good times you shared together. You are all wishing your colleague a great future. Be sincere and you will deliver a memorable speech. Every success.
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