1. I thought leaving work would make me bored. It did not
I entered a long break expecting empty days.
Instead, the opposite happened.
Personal plans, travel ideas, moving, address changes, contracts, life administration, and preparation for a new job filled the calendar. Once the huge fixed block called “work” disappeared, I did not become idle. Things I had chosen for myself simply moved to the front.
For a while, there was nothing I could do because I was waiting for instructions from the new organization. Then the guidance arrived, and suddenly the quest log filled with housing, moving, clothing, commuting, registration, medical checks, documents for day one, and documents that could only be submitted later.
I went to sleep and woke up with more quests.
Nice in a game. Slightly annoying in real life.
Oddly, I was not confused.
That was because I had previously been on the other side: I had helped onboard people myself.
2. There was far too much “Oh, I know this”
Bank details. Pension information. Address. Commuting. Medical checks. Clothing. Housing. Moving. Deadlines. Paperwork for the first day. Documents that do not exist yet and therefore have to be submitted later.
The content itself was familiar.
What changed were only the organization-specific forms, addresses, deadlines, and rules.
So even when many instructions arrived at once, I could separate them:
“Do this now.”
“Do this after the address is fixed.”
“Do this after the expense occurs.”
“This cannot exist until after the previous employment ends.”
“Bring this on day one.”
A former onboarding operator was effectively onboarding himself.
And that made the contrast with my earlier experience impossible to miss.
3. In the old model, the person was the manual
When I used to support onboarding, a recurring problem appeared before I could even explain anything to the new employee:
the person doing the explaining did not have all the material.
“Do we have guidance for this case?”
“Can I get the policy?”
“Who has the latest form?”
“Which version is current?”
“What exactly are we supposed to tell this person?”
The operator first searched internally.
If the material could not be found, they asked someone experienced.
If the documents were incomplete, a human being filled the gaps verbally.
Eventually, the operator became a giant external memory device.
From the employee’s perspective, this can look very kind: “The staff member explains everything.”
From an operational perspective, it is dangerous.
What happens when that person is absent? Transfers? Leaves? Forgets? Explains it differently from someone else?
The manual lives inside a person’s head.
That is personalization of work made visible.
4. This time, the manual actually behaves like a manual
The new experience followed a different philosophy.
Instructions arrive.
Read them.
Process what applies to you.
Ask only about exceptions.
Done.
Written that way, it sounds almost insultingly obvious.
But if you once worked in a place where the guide had to search for the guide before guiding anyone, this is impressive.
The manual is actually doing the job of a manual.
Housing information is in the housing guidance.
Commuting information is in the commuting guidance.
Submission requirements are grouped together.
Deadlines and destinations are explicit.
If something does not apply, the document says so.
The HR operator does not need to become a human instruction booklet.
The new employee is also not treated as someone who must have every line read aloud from zero.
That alone changes the workload on both sides.
5. It is not “big companies are superior”; manual explanation breaks at scale
It would be lazy to reduce this to “large companies good, small companies bad.”
Scale provides a better explanation.
If you onboard ten people, one knowledgeable person may still explain things individually.
At hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands, that model becomes fragile.
As headcount grows, organizations need systems where:
- different operators give the same information,
- work does not stop when one person is absent,
- one current version exists,
- employees can check information themselves,
- humans focus on exceptions.
Research on organizations has long examined links among size, formalization, rules, and standardization. Case studies on SMEs have also shown examples where onboarding and HR administration depended on spreadsheets, paper, and manual tracking, with limited employee self-service.
So the better interpretation is not that large organizations are naturally meticulous.
It is that large-scale operations become difficult to sustain without standardization.
In a small organization, “ask that person; they know everything” can work.
Because it works, improving it may never become urgent.
Until that person disappears.
6. Smaller organizations have strengths too, and over-standardization creates a different hell
Standardization is not automatically good.
Smaller organizations can be faster, more flexible with exceptions, easier to navigate personally, and capable of changing a rule immediately.
Large organizations can go too far:
“To submit this request, please first request permission to submit requests.”
Too many documents make it unclear what to read.
Too many systems make it unclear where to start.
Exceptions get forced into normal workflows that do not fit.
That is also unhealthy.
Research on handbooks and organizational learning has likewise suggested that written procedures are useful only when they are simple, accessible, and not buried under excessive documentation.
So the real question is not how many policies exist.
It is whether the right information reaches the right person at the right time without unnecessary search.
7. Is the aptitude test secretly a “Can you read the manual yourself?” exam?
While reading all the material, one ridiculous thought appeared:
“Is this what the hiring aptitude test was really for?”
Of course not.
Aptitude tests are not secret examinations designed to identify people capable of reading internal policies by themselves.
Still, large organizations can more easily assume:
“You are an adult professional. Read the instructions, check the deadline, submit what applies, and ask about unclear exceptions.”
Recruiting, systems, manuals, and support desks then work as one ecosystem:
give self-directed people an environment in which they can actually self-direct.
For a former onboarding operator, this is deeply satisfying.
If something can be understood by reading, HR does not need to perform the same live reading session for every employee.
Humans can spend their time on exceptions and real consultation.
That is a much better use of humans.
8. The task list only looks huge because everything is visible
When all the onboarding messages arrived, my first reaction was simple:
“This is too much.”
But once sorted, almost none of it needed to happen immediately.
You cannot register a new address before the residence is fixed.
You cannot complete a reimbursement form before an expense exists.
You cannot submit a document that will only be issued after leaving the previous employer.
So the actual “do now” list may contain only a few items.
Everything else is waiting.
I tend to want to reduce all actionable tasks to zero before relaxing, which makes visible task lists feel more urgent than they really are.
But dependencies turn the mess into four boxes:
Do now
→ Wait for someone else
→ Do when the condition exists
→ Bring on the day
Task management is not only about doing things.
It is also about proving to yourself that some things are safe not to do today.
9. Why leaving work did not create boredom
I expected a long break to feel empty.
Instead, it filled itself with plans, learning, travel, life administration, moving, and hobbies.
That taught me something.
The problem was not only that I had “too many things to do.”
Paid work had occupied a large fixed block of time before anything else could compete for it.
Remove that block and personally chosen activities appear.
Strangely, being busy with chosen activities does not feel the same.
Some days are for wandering around without doing much.
Some are for planning a trip.
Some are for learning.
Some are for clearing administrative tasks.
I am not idle.
My time simply is not pre-booked by an employer.
That distinction is enormous.
10. Conclusion — Not turning people into instruction manuals is a serious organizational strength
The most striking thing about onboarding was not a benefit, a building, or a perk.
It was that the process did not depend on one person remembering everything.
When a person becomes the manual, being helpful makes them busier.
They answer.
They search.
They explain.
They patch gaps.
Then they repeat the same explanation for the next person.
And “only that person knows” becomes even stronger.
When the manual works as a manual:
employees can proceed independently,
operators handle exceptions,
quality varies less by person,
and handovers become lighter.
It is not glamorous.
But organizational strength often appears in boring places.
Model A: the person is the manual.
Model B: the manual is the manual.
The ideal is not to eliminate people.
It is to let systems handle normal cases and let humans help when judgment is actually needed.
The funniest summary of the whole experience is probably this:
There is a lot to do.
But I know exactly what to do.
That may be what healthy administrative friction looks like.
References and note
- CIPD, Operating efficiently: implementing HR information systems in SMEs (2021).
https://www.cipd.org/en/views-and-insights/thought-leadership/insight/hr-systems-sme/ - CIPD, Operating efficiently: implementing HR information systems in large organisations (2021).
https://www.cipd.org/en/views-and-insights/thought-leadership/insight/hr-systems-large-organisations/ - Classic organizational research has repeatedly treated size, formalization, and standardization as related organizational characteristics.
- Aase (1998), Handbooks as a tool for organizational learning: effective handbooks require simplicity, accessibility, awareness, and avoidance of excessive document volume.
- These sources do not imply that every large organization is standardized or every SME is person-dependent. This essay uses research as background for one anonymized experience, not as a universal law.
