1. The Challenge
Growing headcount meant People-Ops was drowning in repetitive tasks:
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Inbox overload – leave balances, payslip requests, benefit enrolments.
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Compliance pressure – new legislation demanded real-time policy updates and audit trails.
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Manual hand-offs – data had to be re-keyed across HRIS, payroll, and LMS systems.
Employees expected consumer-grade speed; the HR team needed automation that understood company-specific policies, not generic FAQs.
2. Solution Overview
| Layer | What We Delivered | Business Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| HR-Tuned Language Model | Fine-tuned GPT-4 variant on company policies, employment contracts, and regional labour codes. | Answers reflect the exact PTO, overtime, and compliance rules in force. |
| Retrieval-Augmented Pipeline | Vector search across policy docs; citations appended to every response. | Verifiable, audit-ready answers. |
| Workflow Automation | Secure API hooks into HRIS, payroll, and ticketing. | Self-service for leave requests, address changes, W-4 updates. |
| Risk & Compliance Guardrails | PII masking, role-based redaction, activity logging. | Aligns with GDPR and SOC 2 controls. |
Employees interact via Teams, Slack, or web portal, no new app to download.
3. Implementation Timeline
| Phase | Duration | Key Outputs |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery & Corpus Build | 3 wks | Policy inventory, data-retention mapping |
| Model Fine-Tuning & RAG | 5 wks | v1 model (F1 +14 %), citation engine |
| Bot & Workflow Connectors | 4 wks | HRIS, payroll, SSO integration |
| Pilot | 3 wks | 500 employees, 93 % CSAT |
| Roll-out & Training | 3 wks | Org-wide launch, knowledge sessions |
Zero downtime, existing HR channels simply gained a new “Ask HR” button.
4.Impact
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70 % fewer manual tickets – HR specialists reclaimed ~30 hours per week for strategic programs.
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Faster onboarding – new-hire paperwork auto-populated, cutting day-one admin time by half.
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Compliance confidence – each answer carries a timestamped source link, simplifying audits.
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Employee satisfaction up 0.8 pts – survey respondents cited “instant answers” and “24 × 7 help.”
“Routine questions no longer clog our queue. We focus on culture initiatives while the assistant handles the basics.”
— HR Operations Lead
5. Why It Worked
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Policy-aware training – the model speaks your handbook, not generic internet text.
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Citations first – source links build trust and shorten escalation loops.
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End-to-end automation – the bot not only answers but also submits forms, updates profiles, and opens compliance tasks.
Ready to give your HR team their time back?
Book a free 30-minute discovery session with us, we’ll map opportunities, data-governance needs, and ROI so you can automate confidently.
