An AI HR helpdesk that answers from the policy in force for each employee, with the clause quoted
Every employee gets the policy answer for their own country in seconds, with the clause quoted.
See one case, screen by screen ↓“How much leave do I get when my partner has our baby?” has a different answer in Leiden, Atlanta, Mannheim and Osaka. The global standard sets a minimum, the country addendum or works agreement adds to it, statutory leave runs underneath, and last year’s FAQ still says something else. So the question becomes a ticket, and the employee waits while someone in the service centre works out which entity they are in, which version is in force and which document wins.
The questions that matter most are the ones a bot must not answer. A rep who says his manager discouraged sick days during launch week needs Employee Relations, in confidence — not a policy summary. And when two documents disagree, nobody finds out until the same question has been answered three different ways.
Estimated split, in hours, for a question that needs a person — by hand and with the desk.
Six specialist agents work out who is asking, find the policies that apply, answer with the clause quoted and keep the library current; an HR advisor takes every sensitive or unclear case.
Northwind Bio has 41,200 people in 58 countries. Here is Wednesday, October 7, screen by screen, in the working solution: one family-leave question answered, one sensitive question handed to a person, one policy conflict settled.
Priya opens the desk: 712 questions so far from 22 countries, 81% answered with the clause quoted, a median of 9 seconds to an answer and 6 people waiting for a person — each case arrived pre-filled. Below the country map, what needs her: three cases to decide, two places where policies disagree and three questions with no document.
“Mexico vacation days are out of date — answers paused · 4 questions · owner Country HR Mexico.”
Lena types “How much leave do I get when my partner has our baby in February?” The Context Resolver reads six fields from the HR system — Netherlands, Northwind Bio B.V., permanent full-time, Band 9, covered by the Netherlands HR Addendum, since March 2019. The classifier marks it family leave, not sensitive. The Policy Retriever finds that 7 of 1,846 documents apply to her, with 6 clauses in force today.
“Six fields only · never pay or health data.”
The answer comes in three parts: 1 week of birth leave within 4 weeks, paid by Northwind; up to 5 weeks of additional birth leave within 6 months, UWV 70% topped up to 100%; and 6 weeks of Northwind family leave within 12 months. On top, statutory parental leave of 26 times her weekly hours until the child turns eight. Six clauses quoted, all in force today, confidence 0.94.
Every sentence carries a citation. Informational only: the policy and local law prevail.
Lena clicks citation 4. The Netherlands HR Addendum 2026 opens beside the answer at section 4.3, Northwind family leave, with the sentence the answer rests on highlighted — version 2026.1, effective January 1, 2026, owner Annelies de Vries, Country HR.
“The remaining weeks under the Global Family Leave Standard (section 3.2) are granted as Northwind family leave at full salary.”
Switch to Every country and the same question is answered six times, each from its own documents: 12 weeks at full base pay in the US, 12 weeks topped up to 100% of net pay under the German works agreement, 12 weeks at full pay in the UK, enhanced from 2 weeks statutory, up to 4 weeks of paternity leave after the birth in Japan with the first 12 weeks at full salary, and 19 weeks at full salary in Spain, the first 6 compulsory.
Omar asks: “My manager says I can’t take sick days during launch week. Is that allowed?” The classifier marks it sensitive — possible pressure not to take sick leave — and no automated answer is given. Omar is told a person from Employee Relations will contact him, in confidence, within one working day, and case C-3318 is already open with his question attached.
“For reference, the sick leave policy says managers must not discourage employees from taking sick leave they are entitled to, and raising a concern is protected.”
Dana opens C-3318: high priority, 3 h 48 min left on the clock, marked confidential. Omar’s context came pre-filled from the HR system, the two clauses are attached, and the Case Builder has written a draft reply she can edit. She can route it to Employee Relations, send an acknowledgement or reassign it; the case history shows every step the agents took.
“After routing, only Employee Relations can see this case; the employee’s manager is never notified.”
Ana Ruiz in Barcelona asks to work from her parents’ home in Lisbon for four weeks. The Spain Remote Work Addendum says 10 working days a year, the Global Work-from-Anywhere Guideline 20 unless a country addendum sets a lower limit, and FAQ KB-0412 says 15. The desk gives Ana the Spain rule and opens Global Mobility case C-3321. The Knowledge Steward’s finding F-207 — 23 questions affected this month — waits for the policy owner, Inès Moreau.
“The Spain addendum governs for Spain: the global guideline lets a country set a lower limit. The FAQ is older than both and matches neither.”
Priya records the decision: Spain addendum governs, retire FAQ KB-0412. The addendum is marked Governs, the FAQ Retired. The Knowledge Steward never edits a policy — it proposes, and the owner decides.
“The decision is recorded on the audit trail; answers change from the next question.”
In the last 7 days: 4,118 questions, 80% answered with the clause quoted, 90% rated helpful and location-correct in 99.2% of sampled answers. Tickets reaching the HR service centre fell to 3,540 a week against 5,200 before the desk — 1,660 avoided. The country-by-topic grid shows the gaps to fill, such as benefits in Ireland at 41%.
The same morning, seen by five people — what an HR question looked like before, and what it looks like now.
Six specialist agents work out who is asking, find the policies that apply, answer with the clause quoted and keep the library current; an HR advisor takes every sensitive or unclear case.
Reads the asker’s country, legal entity, population, grade band, agreement coverage and service date from the HR system — never salary or health data.
Labels the topic of each question and routes sensitive ones — harassment, retaliation, health detail, immigration, termination, personal pay — straight to a person.
Searches only documents that apply to the asker’s country, entity and population and are in force today, ranked by precedence.
Writes a plain answer only from the retrieved clauses, quotes each one, shows effective dates and a confidence, and detects clauses that disagree.
Opens a pre-filled case — context, question, matching clauses, why it was routed and a draft reply — in the right queue.
Each night finds clauses that disagree, questions with no document and sections that are out of date, and sends each to its policy owner.
Decides every case. The agents propose; a named person decides.
The desk lead can ask what employees asked, where the gaps are and why an answer came out as it did — or tell it what to change.
Which countries have knowledge gaps?
Three open gaps, all found last night: Ireland — fertility cover, 9 questions, no document; the handbook only points to the scheme guide. South Korea — no family leave addendum, 5 questions. Mexico — vacation days out of date since the 2023 reform; answers paused.
Which wedding-leave rule applies in Germany?
The works agreement: two paid working days. An FAQ from March 2024 still says one day; agreements outrank FAQ articles, so the desk follows the agreement and finding F-209 asks Jonas Weber to fix the FAQ.
Treat visa questions as sensitive
Done — Visa and immigration status is now on the always-a-person list. From the next question, anything about visas goes to a person in confidence, with the case pre-filled. The change is on the audit trail.
Is the desk reducing tickets?
Yes. Tickets reaching the service centre fell from 5,200 a week before the desk to 3,540 in the week to Oct 7 — 32% fewer, or 1,660 tickets avoided, against a 30% target. In the same week 3,294 questions were answered with the clause quoted and no case.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
How the desk answers, what always goes to a person and who decides are settings the desk lead owns.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Confidence floor | 0.75 | Raise or lower — below it, a pre-filled case |
| Quote the clause in every answer | On | Required by policy |
| Show effective dates | On | On · Off |
| Answer in the employee’s language | On | On · Off — German, Spanish, Japanese and 11 more languages |
| Always a person | Harassment, retaliation, discrimination, health, termination, personal pay | Add a topic in plain words |
| Which document wins | Local law → agreement → country addendum → global policy → handbook → FAQ | Reorder; local law stays first |
| Employee context read | Six fields, kept 30 days | Salary, health and performance never read |
| Case queues | Employee relations · Leave · Leave Germany · Benefits Ireland · Global mobility · Payroll Japan | An owner per queue: a named advisor or a team |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample company’s data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the live solution · “estimated” = our estimate · “typical” = published figures (2026 employee HR-service survey: 36% wait a day or more; a live HR contact costs about 11× self-service). People, companies and products named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
A service that answers employees’ and managers’ HR questions directly and sends the rest to the HR team as cases. The Cited HR Policy Answer Desk answers only from your own policies, handbooks, agreements and FAQ articles, for the asker’s own country, entity and population, and quotes the clause behind every sentence.
It reads six fields from your HR system — country, legal entity, population, grade band, agreement coverage and service date — and searches only the documents that match and are in force today. When two in-force clauses disagree, it ranks them: local law, collective or works agreement, country addendum or work rules, global policy, handbook, FAQ article.
No. Questions about harassment, retaliation, discrimination, health detail, termination, immigration or someone’s own pay are never answered by an agent. They go to a person in confidence, as a pre-filled case; after routing, only Employee Relations can see an employee relations case.
Six fields only, enough to pick the documents that apply, kept for 30 days. It never reads salary, health data or performance ratings. If it cannot find the employee’s record, it does not answer and hands the question to a person.
Below the confidence floor — 0.75 by default — it does not guess. It opens a case in the right queue with the employee’s context, the question, the clauses it found and a draft reply, so the HR advisor starts from there and the employee does not have to repeat themselves.
Each night the Knowledge Steward looks for clauses that disagree, questions that ended with no document and sections that are out of date, and sends each finding to its policy owner with the evidence. It pauses answers from a section flagged out of date and never edits a policy itself.
Yes. HR advisors edit and send every draft reply, policy owners decide which clause governs when documents disagree, and the desk lead sets the confidence floor, the always-a-person topics and the precedence order. Every agent step and human decision is on the audit trail.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your policy library, country addenda, agreements and case queues — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own policies first.
Every SOP change retrains only the people it touches, all trained before it takes effect.
1-min filmTraining Evidence PackEvery inspector's training question answered with a cited evidence pack in minutes, each gap explained to QA first.
1-min filmPay TransparencyEvery pay-information request answered in days, every pay gap explained with evidence.
1-min filmWe’ll run the HR Answer Desk on your own policy library and a sample of past employee questions.