Finding My Own Maternity Cover

[LikeACandleButNotQuite]

I am a supervisor of a small team, with a line manager above me, a Director above her and a Big Boss. Also have a decent HR dept who could advise, but I thought i'd try here first.

Am I expected to find my own maternity cover?

My boss has asked "what is the plan?" for when I go on ML...well, I wasn't too sure, to be honest? Of course I totally expect to train a new person before I leave, do a detailed handover both into and back out of my ML, but I didn't think it was up to me to essentially hire someone on my level.

Line Manager has also hinted at taking on my Supervisory duties herself, and hiring a standard member of staff in my absence. I am wary of this, as 1)this would then pretty much make it my responsibility to hire a newby and 2)what if she decides while im on leave that as she is managing my duties, a Supervisor is not essential and I will be made redundant/re-directed elsewhere.

Am rather concerned, and would love some advice from any experts out there or others who have experienced this.

Thanks in advance, LACBNQ

Well you are not responsible for deciding how your maternity leave is covered, no. But if your manager decides she would like to recruit x type of person and puts you in charge of the recruitment process I can't see a lot wrong with that - obviously when it comes to interviewing etc your manager would need to make the decisions.

If your LM has hinted at taking on the supervisory stuff and hiring a standard member of staff then it would be even more appropriate for you to do it.

I think you just need to clarify what she wants you to do. Vagueness and hints are no good. If you think it's necessary to recruit a direct replacement for you, go to your boss and say 'we need to recruit a supervisor because blah blah blah'. Then you could offer to review the job description and start the recruitment process.

Or you could just say to your manager. 'I'm happy to help with the process of sorting out someone to cover my maternity leave, but to do that I need clarification of exactly what kind of person you want'.