Training your maternity cover

[thewaitislong]

How common is it to be asked to train your maternity cover?
My role is a fairly broad role which I have essentially crafted myself over time,a fairly non typical one. I have hired and built up a team of 4 people reporting to me, a team I'm really proud of, quite a technical and niche area so it took a year to train two already good and hard to hire individuals. They self lead their areas well. I am also leaving behind a very detailed and well documented plan of work for this whole year essentially, although I only plan to take 6 months of maternity leave. I know my team will do well in my absence because they are quite good at their jobs and I have left enough clarity on what to do and how to drive it. I do really trust them to get on decently without needing a maternity cover

My manager was very keen to get a maternity cover because she is the panicky sort. We couldn't get anyone from my team to step up because each do very different things and don't have the breadth of understanding of the full team's workload, and promoting one over the other would cause serious discontent.
We couldn't find a good maternity cover in limited time, so offered to a non technical person, completely unfamiliar with the area we work in which is very technical and quite complex, and who has never managed a team before. She was the only option and my manager really wanted somebody in the role because she had negotiated the funds with Finance already.
I'm 7 weeks away from leave in which I have to complete a lot of documentation to leave for the team and tie up lots of things I'm involved with and transfer them over to the people in my team who will handle each of the very many bits.

My manager now expects me to train the new person and I'm wondering if training my maternity cover is really my job? Is this expected? Especially when the time is better spent on knowledge transfer to existing team members who can carry things forward. The maternity cover will probably spend 6 months and possibly a year just finding her feet and learning the work and the area from existing team. She is less experienced than existing team members, and also no background in what they do. She has never managed a team or other people before. I fail to see how she will manage them, and am baffled by manager putting pressure on me to train her up in such a short time.
What have others experiences been with training their maternity cover? How should I be handling it?

My manager was very keen to get a maternity cover because she is the panicky sort.

I mean if they didn't then it'd demonstrate the business could do without your role for up to a year, so I'd probably be thanking her to be honest.

Yes it can be normal, as long as it's during work hours and you have the capacity to do so it's in your interest if you're heading back to the role afterwards. I doubt the aim is to train them to be able to do the same as you do every day and to the same standard, but I'm sure there are things you can hand over to them to help. Your manager will have to support her in managing the team, but you could show her the HR system, if there's anything useful to know; this will also benefit the team you manage. Give an overview of the work you're handing over (top level) so she has an awareness of the teams workload and can help escalate stuff if needed ie if one of the team members highlights a problem etc. You seem to be confident in your work and in your abilities, so I'm sure you can think of realistic, reasonable training to give someone knowing the function they will have to serve. If your current work can truly all be split up between the rest of the team and they're presumably content and have capacity to do this then perhaps you won't have a job to come back to! I'd be mindful of making a fuss.

Surely your job needs to be covered by someone while you're away, if not then it demonstrates that your role is not necessary! You can't expect colleagues to take on your role alongside their own.

And yes, of course you should train up your maternity cover if asked to do so. Why would you not??

I’ve always trained my maternity cover (two pregnancies), in my 2nd she’d only just found her feet and I was back at work!

Especially when the time is better spent on knowledge transfer to existing team members who can carry things forward.

so what you’re telling work, is that the team can do your job, essentially you’re not needed then? Be careful with that. Yes you need to train a replacement to cover for you. congrats and good luck x

Agree with the above. If the business survives without you for your maternity, and it's a role no one else knows/can cover... it's fairly likely it'll be made redundant down the line. Your manager is ensuring that doesn't happen and your role is preserved.

You can still train the people you want to train, just have your mat cover shadow you. Set up lots of time for your team to show her their areas of expertise - if they really are ready to exist without you for 6 months they'll be able to do this fairly easily. Being in charge of training them doesn't have to be loads of extra work/showing them everything yourself.

I agree with all of this...it's very normal!

And what is it about finding your mat cover that makes her 'panicky'? If cover wasn't needed, that would suggest that your role wasn't either.

I’d be miffed if I was so easily disposable that they didn’t find a maternity cover for me!

Thanks all, all of that makes sense.
Interestingly I had very different advice from 3 different senior leaders which was to set things up in a way that things can get done while you are away, even though things won't work perfectly. To be honest some of the more difficult bits of my job were meant to be done by manager myself!
But I completely get the point about my role appearing disposable otherwise.

I did write up the job spec and interviewed candidates and actually even recommended her to manager, making the case for giving her a development opportunity. So I definitely have no issues with the person or the idea of a cover.

On reflection I realise what my issue seems to be: the fact that my manager initially told me this person will have a limited scope and we agreed what that would be, in fact she even edited something in the job spec I wrote to make it clear the role is doing specific things only.

However since this year started my manager is talking about expecting this person to take on all my responsibilities which is not what we had discussed, it had been that she takes on some, others take on some l, she herself takes on some and for some things like strategic planning well that's not happening till I get back.

I think I'm worried about things going to pieces while I'm away and messing up the team and the reputation it took so long to build. But equally if I'm honestly a part of me is also worried about things working perfectly while I'm away and me not being needed? This role is a bit like my baby, hence the big feelings! I probably wouldn't care if I wasn't coming back to my role about what happens while I'm away.

But you are all right. It's a good thing to have the cover in place and I just need to sort through my mixed up feelings about taking a break. Thank you.