How do I tell my supervisor that he is choosing poor replacements for me while I am on maternity leave?

Question

About at month after telling my supervisor that I was pregnant, I presented him with a list of recommendations for people in my office whom I thought could cover my various roles while I am on maternity leave as well as a back up for each person. I prepared this list as this is what my colleague had done when she went on maternity leave and it made things a lot easier for the entire office.

I did not hear back from him other than when I checked in and always received the same response "Oh yeah. I forgot. I will get around to reviewing it." I now have two months before I start my leave and I re-sent him the form after hearing from others in my office that he had been assigning them roles (different from my suggestions). His response to me sending the recommendations for the second time was "I will review and determine the best way to move forward but this is not a democracy."

Not only do I feel like this shows a level of disrespect as my colleague who left on maternity leave prior to me told me that he had asked her for a list of suggestions and had held multiple meetings to discuss who should take over her roles but the fact that he is choosing people contrary to my recommendations makes me concerned.

Additionally, the people he is choosing to do the detailed work that I do are not detail oriented people and often make mistakes on detail oriented tasks. Also, instead of picking my current backups for specific roles, he is assigning people who have never done these jobs before and has not brought up training to either myself or the people he told were now taking on these roles.

Is there a professional way to tell my supervisor (who does not work as closely with these people as I do) that he is making a mistake in assignments and that I really think he should take my recommendations under advisement? Or, is it better to just let this go and hope for the best while I am gone?

Answer 1

First of all, Congratulations!!

That said, I believe your superior made his intentions very clear with the statement

"I will review and determine the best way to move forward but this is not a democracy."

You did your job, without having been asked, twice. Don't sweat it anymore, let them manage. You anyways have the proof that you tried helping.

Your superior (has to) have a plan (for better or worse), let them execute it. Whatever the result is, you need not bother.

Addition from comments: For your own sake, document all your achievements and the state of work when you finally handover the responsibilities and go on your leave. It'll help you two ways

• To prevent yourself from incorrect blames about any of those outcomes going south.
• To pick up any left behind assignment and / or to identity the last known good state.

Answer 2

His response to me sending the recommendations for the second time was "I will review and determine the best way to move forward but this is not a democracy."

Not only do I feel like this shows a level of disrespect as my colleague who left on maternity leave prior to me told me that he had asked her for a list of suggestions and had held multiple meetings to discuss who should take over her roles but the fact that he is choosing people contrary to my recommendations makes me concerned.

While it was nice of you to offer suggestions and your supervisor's response was rather harsh, he is correct. It isn't a democracy. You don't get to vote on your replacement. This is your supervisor's responsibility, not yours. And it's your supervisor who will be responsible for getting the work done using whoever is chosen.

The people he is choosing to do the detailed work that I do are not detail oriented people and often make mistakes on detail oriented tasks. Also, instead of picking my current backups for specific roles, he is assigning people who have never done these jobs before and has not brought up training to either myself or the people he told were now taking on these roles.

Sometimes it's better to let the backups continue to do their regular work rather than disrupt both your role and their role.

Again, your supervisor is the responsible one here. He must find a replacement and make it work somehow.

Is there a professional way to tell my supervisor (who does not work as closely with these people as I do) that he is making a mistake in assignments and that I really think he should take my recommendations under advisement? Or, is it better to just let this go and hope for the best while I am gone?

Certainly if he asks your opinion about the proposed replacements, you should tell him your concerns.

But other than that, telling him he is "making a mistake" isn't likely a good choice. He has already heard your recommendations, so telling him to take them "under advisement" wouldn't help.

The only realistic course of action is to just let this go. While you are on leave, the work isn't your concern - you'll have other concerns to occupy your time and attention!

Answer 3

Is there a professional way to tell my supervisor (who does not work as closely with these people as I do) that he is making a mistake in assignments and that I really think he should take my recommendations under advisement? Or, is it better to just let this go and hope for the best while I am gone?

Let it go. Deciding who gets to do what and when they get to do it is a manager's primary responsibility. Your responsibility is to do what your manager asks you to do. If your manager makes a mistake in assigning the right person(s) to perform tasks that is something that they will have to address with their manager. Enjoy your time with your new child and don't worry about work.

Answer 4

Congratulations!

I think the "this is not a democracy" remark was justified when you re-presented your recommendations after the manager had made some decisions and started telling people their roles. You were implying that your recommendations should override his decisions.

You and the manager may have different objectives, leading to the different choices. You were probably aiming for having your leave handled as smoothly as possible. He may be aiming for improved coverage and personnel development. For example, he may want the non-detail person in a role that will force attention to detail. He may want your current backups to practice teaching the tasks.

Remember it is OK to block or send to voice mail calls from work while you are on leave.

Answer 5

Definitely, congratulations!!

Having given your suggestions to your manager twice, I would not do that again. He/she may have their own reasons for making the decisions the way they have. So, just to protect yourself, make sure you have a record of the position you leave the situation with each of your customers / clients - this may be important down the line, depending how the replacements chosen by the manager handle (or not) the situation.

BUT I would like to point out something not mentioned in the other answers, both of which I agree with.

That is once you are on leave - Do NOT take calls about work - those issues can be dealt with by the manager and the people chosen. They have 2 months to "learn" the ropes before you go...

Otherwise you will be on the 'phone doing that work...

You need to enjoy the time with child - best wishes.

Answer 6

Is there a professional way to tell my supervisor (who does not work as closely with these people as I do) that he is making a mistake in assignments

Yes. In giving him a list of people that you think should take over your duties, you were implicitly saying that you think it would be a mistake to choose other people. So you have already engaged in "a professional way to tell my supervisor ... that he is making a mistake in assignments".

and that I really think he should take my recommendations under advisement?

Clearly, if you didn't think he should take your recommendations under advisement, you wouldn't have given them to him. So you've already told him "I think you should take my recommendations under advisement". Is there a professional way to go from "I think you should take my recommendations under advisement" to "I really think you should take my recommendations under advisement"? Not really.

By sending your recommendations originally, you were saying "I think I have a level of understanding of my duties and my coworkers' skill that you are lacking". An insecure manager would have taken offense at that, but a mature one will realize that they are not omniscient, and their decisions can be improved by taking other people's knowledge into account. But now you are saying "I think you should defer to my judgment", and questioning someone's judgment is quite different from questioning their knowledge.

If you can phrase this as providing knowledge, such as "Did you want to schedule time to go over the reasoning I had for my choices?", that is more likely to be received well than simply repeating the same information you've already presented him. However, at this point, he's already viewing this as you telling him what to do, so it's going to be difficult for anything you do at this point to not be seen through that lens. You're probably best off letting it drop.

Answer 7

You've done your job. It's his job to choose whom to replace you with. Perhaps the people you've suggested are not available or are otherwise not in a position to take over.

But the main thing is: when you get back to work don't do a heroic effort to fix all the mistakes that were possibly made in your absence. If something has been totally botched up calmly say, this has to be done over and it will take me two months to do it. Don't let him pressure you into redoing bad work in 1/10th the time that was spent making it bad.

And +1 to Solar Mike for saying don't take phone calls from work. (Possible exception: an e-mail from a replacement asking how to do whatever. But it has to be a quick training thing; not a gateway into your doing it yourself.)

Answer 8

It seems like your concern here is that things will deteriorate and when you come back they will be in a bad way, which will eventually reflect badly on you.

Unfortunately there probably isn't a lot you can do about it, beyond documenting the situation so that when it comes to performance reviews you can try to turn it into a positive. By that I mean you can show that it wasn't your fault things got bad, that you made different recommendations and that when you finally did come back you were able to improve the situation despite everything.

Answer 9

Maybe you should simply not say it.

If your replacement is too good - when you are ready to come back after leave - you might find you are not needed anymore.. You would efficiently be helping your employer to replace you. Not a very tactical move...

Answer 10

Put yourself in your supervisor’s shoes. All relationships are not interchangeable.

You probably have some other close female friend or relative whose suggestions you value when it comes to dealing with the challenges of being a new mother. If your neighbor — even if she has many well-adjusted kids — made a list for you about nursing, setting a schedule, parenting styles, and so on, you may respond with a polite Thanks!, but then if she “checks in” multiple times about whether you will take her advice, gives her list to you again, and then calls wondering why you ordered formula when she clearly told you how important nursing is, she has crossed the line between being helpful to being rude, pushy, or even pestering. You taking one person’s advice to heart is not an invitation for others to start offering it unsolicited, nor is it disrespectful of you to remind your neighbor to please do a better job of respecting boundaries.

Your supervisor’s relationship with you is clearly not, for whatever reason, on the same level as with your colleague. Are you and this colleague peers in the organization? Have they worked together for a long time? Yes, your supervisor could have done a better job of clearly communicating different priorities or plans and that further input from you was not required, but reading social cues is an important skill for all of us in the workplace.

Short answer: let it go.