A few years ago, I was working with a company who offered a lucrative early retirement package. The CEO was shocked when only five of the 80 eligible employees signed up. Why wouldn’t more eligible employees sign up? Money, it turned out, wasn’t an effective motivator for employees who had “enough” money (whatever “enough” happened to mean to them). They preferred to continue coming to work.

I helped the company entice more eligible employees to accept the retirement package. The key turned out to be offering more focus on non-financial aspects –emotional and psychological-of planning for the future. When people don’t have a plan beyond work, they are more likely to “retire while on the job.” When people do have a plan, however, they know where they are going and have ideas on how to spend their time.

Here are three non-financial ways to make your retirement packages more appealing.

Reduce Fears

Retiring is a big life change, and people often fear change. In your HR role, you can help alleviate some common fears of those resisting retirement.

One of these common fears, for instance, is “who will I talk to if I’m not at work?” Most of our socialization comes from interactions in the workplace. That is one reason why mostly remote organizations still want employees to return to the physical workplace a few days a week.

The fear of losing the social aspect of work is supported by the research. Robert Waldinger, current director of the longest longitudinal study called the Harvard Study of Adult Development observed this: “Based on their responses, the No. 1 challenge people faced in retirement was not being able to replace the social connections that had sustained them for so long at work.” The main conclusion was that people don’t miss the work, but they miss the people.

One of the other biggest fears of leaving the workplace is the loss of identity. As Marsha Aldridge, Vice President of Shared Services, explains, “If employees are unaware of the identity transition that may take place in retirement, they will fail to prepare psychologically. Therefore, identity and emotional transition at retirement should be explored, applied, and planned.”

Aldridge makes an important point. If we are what we do and we don’t do it anymore, then who are we? This fear may be holding your employee back from shifting into retirement. (Read on for more about this.)

In your HR role, reducing fears involves addressing loneliness and preparing people to leave with tools and techniques for replacing the benefits from working with others in structured environments.

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