Join HPAlumni If you were formerly a regular, direct employee of HP, HPInc, or HPE -- or are in the process of leaving. Transition, Benefits, and Finance forums. No login or password involved. No charge, thanks to HPAA members.

Questions or comments to: info@hpalumni.org 

Actions you can take

Establish your personal network. Powerful while at your current company -- and you may need it later:

Move from company to personal PC and email. For privacy reasons now -- and impossible to do quickly if you retire or leave.

- Personal business on company systems. No matter where you work, what your job situation, or how innocent your activities -- there are legal and privacy issues with using your employer's IT facilities for your personal business. The email accounts and files (and the email and file backup archives -- which may cover years) all legally belong to your employer, not to you. Emails that you wish to receive may be inadvertently discarded as spam or phishing by the company firewall. There are also identity-theft and data-loss risks.

- How to set up professional email. Advice from HPAA members on getting a private email account on Yahoo Mail, Google Gmail, or Microsoft Outlook.com -- and choosing a professional email username.

Plan for transition when you retire, get WFRed, or leave:

- ASAP Checklist. What you need to do before losing access to internal systems and in the following few weeks.

- Questions to ask if you are offered the "Golden Boot" Pragmatic advice from Jane Bryant Quinn.

- "What I wish I had known before I left"

- Advice from HPAA members on job hunting -- inside or outside HP.

- How much notice to give on retirement -- at any company. Advice from HPAA members.

- Advice and info on returning to HPInc, HPE, DXC, or Micro Focus -- including informal and formal restrictions.

- Time to untangle your stock! With any employer, no one but you really cares about your employment-related stock. Due to the HP Breakup, you may have stock in up to seven HP-related companies. It may not all be held in the same place. Many find stray accounts -- or need to retrieve stock or dividends turned over to a state as "unclaimed." With each spinoff, the cost basis for your shares changed. You could pay taxes twice on the same income. Your heirs won't need to know your cost basis, but will need to find all the shares. An HP Alumni team developed a step-by-step process to find and protect your stock. Go to Employee Stock

- How to Choose a Financial Advisor. Member advice on sorting out the different types of financial salespeople and advisors.

References recommended by HP alumni:

- "Think you might lose your income? Four money moves to make now" by Michelle Singletary. Washington Post (Several free articles per month.)

- "Making the Most of Your Money Now" by Jane Bryant Quinn. Explains how financial things really work -- especially good for analytic folks. ISBN-10: 0743269969

- "Get a Life" by Ralph Warner. "How to beat the anxiety surrounding retirement, and to develop a plan to make your golden years the best of your life." ISBN-10: 1413300847

- Social Security. Slides from the August 2016 HPAA Social Security presentation and webinar. Member advice from an ex-HP/HPInc/HPE perspective.

- "You're no longer nailed to your job in order to get health insurance" (AARP membership not required.)

- If not 65 yet: A “qualifying life event” gives you a limited “special enrollment period” to purchase health insurance under the ACA: www.healthcare.gov

- If approaching 65: "Medicare and You" Download a searchable pdf copy from the official Medicare site. Especially see the very helpful flowchart on page 16 and the table on page 69.

Information and links specifically for people from...   Agilent    Autonomy    Compaq    DEC    DXC    EDS    HP    HPE    Keysight    Micro Focus    Perspecta    Tandem