Breaking "Only She Can Do It" Into Tasks You Can Hand Over

The short answer

"Everything stops when he is off" does not go away just because you hire one more person. The work is not yet in a shape a newcomer can take. The first job is to split what the veteran carries into the parts that need judgement and the parts that follow a routine, and then cut the routine parts into small pieces with a clear start and a clear finish.

The judgement can stay with the veteran for now. Simply moving the routine elsewhere frees up their time, and that free time is what lets them start teaching the judgement.

Why work ends up with one person

On a short-staffed floor, the urgent job goes to whoever gets it done fastest and most reliably. Give it to the veteran and today's shipment leaves on time, today's paperwork meets its deadline. Judged one day at a time, that is the right call.

The trouble is that it happens every day. The veteran's work keeps growing as one bundle of set-up, judgement, hands-on work and clean-up. Because it feels like one continuous flow to them, even they find it hard to say which parts could be handed over. Often nobody sees how much is in the bundle until a resignation, a leave of absence or a transfer is already announced.

Staff shortages and key-person risk feed each other

When work piles up on the veteran, there is no time left to teach. New people spend their weeks on odd jobs at the edges and never see the whole job. In a workplace where you cannot see what there is to learn, it is also hard to see a reason to stay.

If people do not stay, the work drifts back to the veteran. Their overtime grows, and if they burn out and leave, the whole line stops at once. Unless you reshape the work into something that can be handed over, alongside your hiring efforts, it is hard to break out of that loop.

Cut the work into pieces you can hand over

1. Write down the veteran's day

List what the veteran does in a day, in time order. It works better when someone else writes it down while asking questions, rather than leaving it to the veteran. Small steps such as "prepare", "check" and "let the office know" each get their own line.

2. Mark each line as judgement or routine

For every line, ask whether it is done the same way each time, or decided on the spot by reading the situation. Routine lines are the candidates for handing over. For judgement lines, write down only what the veteran looks at to decide, and what they decided.

3. Fix a start and a finish

Make each piece small enough that you can say three things about it: what needs to be in place to start, what "done" looks like, and who checks that it is done and how. If it goes to someone on short hours, size it so it finishes within their shift. A piece that stops halfway creates a new handover, and that handover becomes one more thing only one person understands.

For how to write the procedure itself and where to keep the files, see Five First Steps Away From "Only She Knows How".

What this looks like in practice

Take a warehouse where one veteran handles outbound shipping every morning. Written down, the flow might be: check the orders, prepare the picking sheets, decide what to substitute when stock runs short, pick, pack, print and attach the shipping labels, and log the shipment.

Deciding on substitutions is judgement, so it stays with the veteran. Picking and packing can be described as "start when the picking sheet is out, finish when the box is on the outbound shelf", so a new hire can take them. Printing and attaching labels is a piece someone working only mornings can own.

The same idea applies on a production line. In a changeover, getting the jigs and materials to their places is routine. Fine-tuning the settings and passing or failing the trial piece is judgement, and stays with the veteran.

In an office where one person handles order entry, invoicing and customer enquiries, split out order entry first, then the enquiries that always get the same answer. Anything that needs a decision, such as a discount or a delivery date, stays put.

Cautions when splitting work

Cut the pieces too fine and every handover needs its own explanation and check, which leaves the veteran with more to do, not less. As a rule of thumb, a piece should take longer to do than it takes to explain.

Also make sure you can tell afterwards who did each piece and when. Laid next to attendance records, that shows who was on which task in which hours, and whether the work has quietly drifted back to the veteran.

For telling which of those pieces need not be done in-house at all, see how to spot work your full-time staff need not be doing.

Summary

Work concentrates on the veteran because, under a staff shortage, each day's decision to give it to them was reasonable on its own. Alongside hiring, write down the veteran's day, separate judgement from routine, and hand over the routine first, in pieces with a clear start and finish. Once the veteran has time again, they can teach the judgement, and the next person has room to grow.

Splitting up work and setting up records for attendance and handovers are things APOUL's consultation service covers, with requests accepted from 1 November 2026. For questions that need a labour-law judgement, please speak to a certified social insurance and labour consultant (sharoushi).