When you have just started a new job,
- NEVER tell yourself you are bored.
- NEVER tell yourself you don't have enough work.
- NEVER idle yourself just because you finished your assignments.
There many times, management will not tell you. They expect you to use your "free time" to learn more about the business and processes. In the current env, where we are paid 5 times those in India, China, Indonesia, there is no way management would not want you to pick up more.
That is management-by-silence. That is management not knowing what else you can do, but waiting for you to show them.
Especially when you start a new job, management is trying to define your role. Are you gonna sit around and say, well, I have finished my work, I'm bored now.
Or are you gonna say, I'm gonna consolidate my presence to increasingly make myself indispensable. I will study and record the possibilities where my work can make mistakes. Your colleagues will make presumptions that you do not expect. Now, when your workload is lesser, is the time to ask questions, which would then wake your colleagues up from making assumptions that you would know about those presumptions.
Look around and design in your journal, the process improvements in your workplace. But do not sound too nippy and uppity proposing changes. Do not step on existing toes.
When you keep a journal of business processes, frequently even old hands could promptly forget what they need to do - and then you get to explain to them the say one of the processes and its methods and conflicts. Not appearing to teach them, but more as a lookup person. Then your suggestions slowly creep in.
When your colleagues and management find out you have been journaling their processes, and solving inherent conflicts - you will become part of the indispensable team. Whenever you solve inherent conflicts, always ask your colleagues and management, to avoid stepping on existing toes.
See, you actually have no free time at your office. Management, and your colleagues, are waiting for you to define yourself. Waiting for you to do things they had neglected, forgot, or never thought needed done. You will spend time figuring out what areas management wants you to focus on.
I am (high functioning) autistic, so my situation is a lot worse than yours. I have to form rules like these.
When your headhunting fee is £8000, you can never say you have nothing to do. They will never hesitate to make you redundant, if they are losing £8000 vs you costing them £80000 for not knowing what to do.