Why nobody reads the handbook

The company handbook runs to sixty-eight pages. New starters get it on day one, scroll to the end and tick a box. Within a month, none can recall a rule except the one about expenses.

A people-operations lead I interviewed decided to rewrite it as a postcard. One side listed five things that always go wrong in the first month. The other listed who to ask, with a phone number, not an email address.

Short documents get used

The postcard was printed on stiff paper and handed over by a colleague, not a screen. Six months later, new hires said it was the one thing they had kept.

Documentation is a form of care, and care is measured by being used. If it is long enough to need a search bar, it is long enough to be skipped.