Stay in underused role till retirement or find new job?

[Morro1985]

I've been in a job (accountant) with a medium sized company but very small local office for 3 years now. The problem is that there is literally almost nothing to do - I replaced someone whose work was mostly administrative. Also when it was very busy, my boss split my job in half and gave the other half to a family member.

I am between 2 and 7 years from retirement and I don't want a high level, pressurised job which is what most recruiters want to offer me when they see my qualifications. In reality, I did the ACCA qualification at 50 and haven't a huge amount of actual experience. I left my previous job in a practice as I was being paid a substandard wage even though I enjoyed the teamwork with my colleagues. In my new office, our divisions are very split and I am not part of the other finance team.

Now, hours go by with absolutely no communication with my manager or boss and nothing to do. One colleague suggested I go to the directors and ask them if they want me to scan all their documents onto the computer. Sorry, but I'm absolutely not doing that work! We have a couple secondary school students who can do that.

I am paid a decent salary and when it is busy I'm happy enough. But now it is very quiet. I don't know if it is worth risking finding another job and having to commute longer or having more pressure?

Basically my boss said he is our HR person but I can't really bring this to him. I have already sent numerous e-mails asking for projects/support jobs I can do for him but to no avail.

Stay 2 years and retire early (60)/Get a new job somewhere else?

What’s to stop you exploring the market for another job that’s more to your liking? You certainly have the time on your hands. If you find something that’s great, if not you just carry on as you are. Are you at risk of redundancy, and if you wee made redundant how would that work out for you? Could you suggest voluntary redundancy to them?

Get a new job. But which suits you.

I am not at risk of redundancy as my department is stable and we have plenty of work. However the manager in charge is very unwilling to delegate. He controls the incoming cost/pricing information and drip feeds it to me.

I am looking at other potential positions from time to time but I haven’t quite seen anything that fits what I am looking for.

It sounds like you already know what your choices are – stay or find another job. But you then say you’ve been looking for another job and there’s nothing that suits you so if you can’t afford to retire, you’ll have to stay until you do.

I'd stay for now. Keep asking for work when appropriate and in interim quiet times brush up on stuff you want to do, some online learning, a hobby you're interested in knowing about, write a book.

You keep asking for stuff to do, make sure you keep on that, but ultimately it's up to them to give it you.

id also keep an eye on the roles out there and find one that suits you. You're not in a rush.

As an accountant I'd imagine there is a great deal on impact you could have. Understanding how the company make money, identifying opportunities to make more or reduce any waste/identify cost savings. Definitely proactively target activity within your skillset and not take on administrative work for the sake of it. Maybe try that for a few months and see what develops. "Rust out" can do a lot of damage long term so if you can't tolerate it you may have to find something new.

“Rust out” is definitely a thing! I really loved the work I did in practice and I feel like I am losing my skills. For now, I’ve been doing CPD sometimes and definitely checking in from time to time to see if I can help boss with accounting work…

I would look around with the objective of moving jobs in the next 6 months.
As another accountant I had a similarish situation and was intending staying there (bored but strictly 9-5 and well paid for the actual work) until I retired (5 years on) but we got taken over and whilst I could have perhaps stayed it would have been very different and I took redundancy. By one of those odd twists of fate a role with a very random set of requirements (which i happened to have) came up and I got it, but I was very lucky and think I would have been out of work for a while otherwise.
Apart from that, life is too short to spend hours a day doing something you don't find rewarding if you have a choice.

Would it make any difference to your pension if you moved jobs? Being an accountant I’m sure you’ve already thought of that. Personally I’d see what’s out there, if anything that sounds great comes up then go for it!

Are you still wanting to work a bit in retirement or are you looking for a hard stop? If you want to work a bit in retirement I’d take on a couple of small businesses clients as a side project unconnected to your work.

But, if you’ve asked and there is nothing to do, then you can work a bit on your own project….

It won’t make any difference to my pension if I move to another job. I would be quite happy to work a bit longer in a more challenging role and if the environment was socially interesting and enjoyable. I find the hours working alone a bit depressing!