HR policy assistant and onboarding

• Staff and managers ask questions in plain English, in workplace chat or on the intranet, and get an answer drawn only from the current approved policy, with the policy name, version and section quoted.
• Answers depend on who is asking: the right policy for their contract, country and role, enforced by their permissions, not by the wording of the question.
• Grievances, disciplinary matters, health, harassment, discrimination, whistleblowing and anything about a person's own case go straight to a named person, with a warm handoff and no AI interpretation.
• Onboarding runs as a tracked workflow: the agent chases each task, tells the new starter what to do next, and flags anything at risk of missing day one.
• Right to work checks follow the Home Office's prescribed methods. The agent sends the right instructions and chases; a trained person confirms the result and records it before the start date.
• Policy owners see which questions the assistant couldn't answer, so gaps and unclear wording are fixed at the source.

• BISTEmployment Rights Act 1996: written statement of particulars
  →

  Employees and workers must get a written statement of the main terms on or before their first day. The agent assembles it from the approved template and the data in your HR system. A person in HR checks and issues it, and the AI never drafts terms from scratch.

• BISTEmployment Rights Act 2025, brought in by stages
  →

  Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, with measures commencing through 2026 and 2027 on the government's published timeline. Each policy in the assistant's index has an owner and an effective date, so the old answer stops the day the new rule starts, and an adviser checks the new answer before it goes live.

• Home OfficeEmployer's guide to right to work checks (1 October 2026) and the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006
  →

  Checks must use a prescribed method: the Home Office online service with a share code, a manual document check, or a check through a digital verification service provider registered for right to work on the government's register. Using a provider doesn't move responsibility. The employer must still confirm the person matches the photo and details, and keep records for the employment plus two years. The AI never decides whether someone has the right to work.

• AcasCode of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures
  →

  Tribunals take the Code into account, and awards can be adjusted for unreasonable failure to follow it. The assistant can explain where to find the procedure, but it never advises on an individual case, and any message that sounds like a grievance goes to a person. Acas consulted on a fully revised Code from July to September 2026, including on AI in these processes.

• EHRCEquality Act 2010: reasonable adjustments and harassment
  →

  A question about a disability, an adjustment, menopause or pregnancy is about a person, not just a policy, so it goes to a trained adviser. Since 30 October 2026 employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, including by third parties. The assistant makes reporting easy and never weighs up whether something counts as harassment.

• ICOUK GDPR, the Data Protection Act 2018 and employment records
  →

  HR conversations contain health, family and other special category data. That means a DPIA, access controls so people see only their own data, short retention for chat logs, UK processing, and a contract that stops providers training on your data. The assistant takes no decisions about anyone, so the automated decision rules aren't engaged, and the design keeps it that way.

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• A named owner and an effective date for every policy in the index, with change control.
• A list of topics that always go to a person, agreed with employee relations and your recognised unions or staff forum, and tested every month.
• A weekly sample of answers checked by an HR adviser, with wrong answers fixed in the policy or the index, not just patched in a prompt.
• A trained, named group of right to work checkers, with cover for peak starts and a block on starting work until the check is confirmed.
• A change calendar for the Employment Rights Act 2025, so each policy is rewritten and re-tested before its commencement date.
• Staff told plainly what the assistant is, what it can't do, and how to reach a person at any point.

1. 3 weeks

   Discovery

   Sort the top 200 questions by topic, audit the policy library for owners and versions, map onboarding steps and right to work methods, and agree the always-to-a-person topics.

2. Gate · must be true to passPolicy library cleaned up, handoff topics agreed with employee relations, DPIA started, baseline measured.

3. 8 weeks

   Pilot

   Policy assistant for HR advisers first, then one business area. Onboarding agent for one region's starters, alongside the current process.

4. Gate · must be true to passAnswer accuracy above target on the weekly sample, every sensitive test case handed off, right to work completion at 100%.

5. 4–6 weeks

   Production

   Open to all staff and managers, and all new starters, with monitoring, support and a rollback plan.

6. Gate · must be true to passMonitoring, adviser training, staff comms and rollback plan in place.

7. Ongoing

   Scale

   Add leavers and internal moves, manager guidance, and the next Employment Rights Act changes as they commence.

8. Gate · must be true to passEach new policy area passes the same answer-check gate.

R ResponsibleA AccountableC ConsultedI Informed· not involved

Where I'd fit

1. 1

   Goes wrong

   The assistant indexes the whole intranet, so it quotes a 2019 policy and a draft nobody approved.

   How the design avoids it

   Index only the approved library, with an owner and effective date on every document, and no source means no answer.

2. 2

   Goes wrong

   Someone describes a grievance or a health problem and gets a policy summary back.

   How the design avoids it

   Topic routing that hands off first and answers second, tested monthly with real examples written by employee relations.

3. 3

   Goes wrong

   A manager asks about a named employee and sees their absence record.

   How the design avoids it

   Permissions enforced by the platform on every lookup, and managers' answers drawn from guidance, not people's files.

4. 4

   Goes wrong

   A new starter begins work because the agent chased everything except the right to work check.

   How the design avoids it

   A workflow rule that blocks the start date until a trained person confirms the check.

5. 5

   Goes wrong

   The law changes and the old answer keeps going out.

   How the design avoids it

   A change calendar, effective dates in the index, and test questions re-run before each commencement date.

1. 1 January 2027
   Employment Rights Act 2025: the unfair dismissal qualifying period falls to six months, compensation caps are removed, and employers must tell workers of their right to join a trade union.

   Update probation, dismissal and onboarding policies before the date, and add the trade union statement to the onboarding pack and its checklist.

2. March 2027
   Employment Rights Act 2025: new protections against fire and rehire.

   Put contract changes on the always-to-a-person list now. The assistant should never explain how terms can be changed.

3. April 2027
   Employment Rights Act 2025: bereavement leave, including for pregnancy loss, and mandatory equality and menopause action plans for private and voluntary sector employers.

   Draft the leave policy early, and make sure questions about bereavement and pregnancy loss are answered kindly and offered a person straight away.

4. October 2027
   Employment Rights Act 2025: changes to flexible working requests.

   Keep the assistant to explaining how to apply. Decisions on requests stay with managers and HR.

5. Awaited
   A revised Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, consulted on from July to September 2026, including on the use of AI in those processes.

   Keep the assistant out of individual cases, so the new Code changes a policy document, not the system design.