Really worried about the capacity of my new line manager.

[Lidre]

I retired from a fairly senior post and have taken on some very PT admin work that uses some of the technical knowledge from my previous roles.

It's suiting me just perfectly. My current boss is doing the job I retired from (in another organisation). She is a brilliant woman, better than I ever was, but respects my knowledge and experience and often "picks my brain", which I enjoy.

She is about to retire and they've restructured the role (which is huge) so the new person won't have responsibility for my area of work.

They've put me as a line report for a woman currently doing very similar work to me, but full time.

I'm not worried for me, I'll do the job until I don't enjoy it any more and then I'll stop, but I am very worried she'll be well out of her depth. It's an important regulatory function, which is often treated as "admin" but the consequences are huge when it goes wrong. There will now be no management inbetween senior admin and CEO.

She's been leaning very heavily on me for technical aspects of the work, which is OK, but I only do a very few hours and she won't have any other day to day support - previous manager is very supportive.

I sometimes struggle with "knowing my place" in this new more junior role, would you say anything to anyone?

It’s totally unreasonable to worry that someone “will be” out of their depth, when they haven’t yet had a chance to prove themselves. By all means speak up if and when she messes something up. But not before that.

My last boss was, and still is, seriously out of his depth. After a number of months, I had a chat with his line manager about a number of issues. It didn't go well. Eventually I retired early. By all accounts, he's got worse because he is incredibly lazy and relies on the department to do his job while he fannies about.
I wouldn't say anything if I were you. Just make sure your back is covered

I'm more worried about her than me.

She's perfectly pleasant and definitely not lazy, but (I don't think) she has anything close to the technical knowledge required to keep the organisation "safe".

Please stop giving older workers a bad name, op!

What?

Your bad attitude is why it's so hard for everyone else to convince younger managers to take a gamble on us. They think we will all be annoying, patronising know it alls.

Which planet are you from? 😆

Some odd replies here OP. I think you've raised a very valid concern. I've seen similar restructures arranged by management who dont really understand the dept/ work and anyone in the know can see problems coming a mile off.

You're in a privileged position where you aren't trying to balance politics because (and correct me if I'm wrong) You're not looking to be there long term or particularly progress. Therefore my question would be are your concerns more for the welfare of the company or the individual and how much time/ effort are you willing to put into it. Or, are you more looking to safeguard yourself in case something does go wrong, you're not thrown under the bus? Perfectly reasonable.

I don't think at this stage you can go above her to flag concerns that it's too big and she may not cope even if it's meant as a kindness and you have valid reasons. I think either, keep your head down, document your own work meticulously and keep email trails so you are covered if something goes wrong, flagging concerns to her in writing if required.

If she's leaning on you and you have the relationship you could say to her, sincerely, the way they've restructured is unfair and potentially dangerous, I would be unhappy if they'd done it to me and support her in raising concerns about the workload to her line manager.

Oh come on. I have been nothing but supportive of this young woman, and I haven't said anything to anyone about my concerns, but I've been the person who has to pick up the pieces when it goes wrong and it's no fun.

It won't matter to me, so I could just sit back and wait. I'm wondering if I should step in to help.

Other people can read your post.

What other people?

Is there a particular qualification that someone holding this role should have? You could drop it into conversation carefully? Effective training could benefit the postholder and the wider company. You mentioned that there is a regulatory component to the role- perhaps there's been a news story where a company has been left exposed.

The post holder doesn't usually have qualifications and the trustees would ultimately be responsible for any failure, but usually there's a senior manager, usually board level, protecting trustees by supporting and checking the work of this post holder, and that level of management has been removed in the new structure.

The post is assessed as quite junior because it doesn't actually hold any of the responsibility.

I was wondering if the role was data protection orientated due to your description but perhaps not.

If you're in a chairty setting then charity commission guidance may be of help? Its normally quite good at explaining Trustee duties and areas that they need to satisfy themselves of?

Rather than make it personal about the individual; perhaps think about the systems and processes needed to manage this technical area. While the post is changing; are these underlying systems changing too?

You are missing the point entirely. The OP is not concerned about the person's age, but their potential lack of technical expertise required by the role they will be taking on.

I'm wondering if I should step in to help.

No, don't do that. Just wait it out. If you do step in, chances are your input will be resented anyway, and when it invariably goes tits-up, you will get the blame.

Stay well out of it.

Can you point her to the relevant training? And raise it with line managers/ trustees too - not in a personal way, just in a ‘my experience shows me that you’ve missed an important detail’ way. Show them what they can do to fix it (eg send her on x training course/ being in x compliance step) and make sure it is noted officially.

after that, you have to let it go, as it is no longer your responsibility to take this kind of thing on. (Actually, from my experience I think this is an overlooked problem when you try to reduce stress/ workload: you can see the problems but you don’t have the autonomy to fix them. I actually think it’s a really challenging transition to make so I would also say be prepared to feel uncomfortable)