Employees get policy, PTO and benefits answers in minutes, HR keeps the hard cases
A done-for-you HR and policy helpdesk is an AI agent that answers employee questions in Slack, Teams, email or your HR portal using your own handbook, benefits guides and HRIS data. It answers routine questions about leave balances, pay dates, benefits and policies, with a link to the source. It hands anything sensitive, such as complaints, medical leave or pay disputes, to a named HR person with the context attached. BufferSol builds, connects and runs it for you.
- Live in 3 to 6 weeks
- Works with Workday, BambooHR and more
- People approve what matters
Is this you?
HR teams of one to twenty people supporting hundreds or thousands of employees, often across several states or countries, who answer the same policy and benefits questions every day.
- The HR inbox is mostly questions already answered in the handbook.
- Open enrollment turns HR into a call center for a month.
- Employees ask managers instead of HR, and get different answers.
- You can't say which questions come up most or how long replies take.
- Questions bounce between HR, payroll, the broker and the benefits carrier.
Today vs done for you
The current way, and the new way
What your team does by hand today, and what the automation does instead, step by step.
How it works today
- An employee emails HR or messages a manager asking how much PTO they have or whether a dependent can be added mid-year.
- An HR generalist searches the handbook PDF, checks the HRIS, and sometimes calls the broker.
- The reply goes out by email; the same question arrives from three other people that week.
- Sensitive questions arrive in the same inbox as simple ones and wait in line.
- No one tracks volume, topics or response times, so the workload stays invisible.
What it quietly costs you
- · Skilled HR hours spent retyping answers that already exist in writing.
- · Different answers from different managers, which creates fairness and legal risk.
- · Urgent or sensitive issues wait behind routine questions.
How it works done for you
- BufferSol loads your handbook, policies, benefits summaries, holiday calendars and payroll schedule into a private index, tagged by country, state, entity and employee group.
- An employee asks a question in Slack, Teams, email or the HR portal. The agent identifies who is asking and which policies apply to their location and employment type.
- For personal data such as leave balances or pay dates, it reads only that employee's record from Workday, BambooHR or ADP and answers privately.
- It replies in plain language with a link to the exact policy section. If the documents don't cover the question, it says so and opens a case instead of guessing.
- Questions about harassment, discrimination, medical leave, accommodations, pay disputes or termination are never answered by the agent. They go straight to a named HR person as a private case with the conversation attached.
- Every question, answer, source and handoff is logged, and HR reviews a weekly sample and a topic report to fix gaps in the documents.
Your people
What changes for your team
| Role | Today | Done for you |
|---|---|---|
| HR generalist | Answers the same PTO, payday and benefits questions all day from a shared inbox. | Handles the cases that need a person and keeps the policy library current. |
| Benefits administrator | Becomes the help desk during open enrollment, researching each question one by one. | Reviews the agent's open enrollment answers once, then deals with carrier issues and exceptions. |
| People manager | Gets asked HR questions by their team and answers from memory. | Points the team to the helpdesk and spends that time on coaching. |
The numbers
What it's worth to you
Estimate the time and cost you get back with your own numbers. We baseline the real figures in week 1 and track these KPIs from day one.
Example inputs · change them to yours
The automated share covers routine policy, leave, payday and benefits questions; sensitive and complex cases stay with HR.
Staff time back
68 hours a month
About 0.4 full-time people freed for higher-value work
Capacity reclaimed a month
$2,835
A year
$34,020
An estimate from your inputs only. In week 1 we measure your real baseline, so results are tracked against your own numbers.
Questions answered without HR
Share of conversations resolved with a sourced answer and no handoff, checked against employee thumbs-up and follow-up questions.
Time to answer
Median time from question to answer, compared with the HR inbox baseline taken before launch.
Answer accuracy
HR scores a weekly random sample of answers against the policy; any wrong answer triggers a document or prompt fix.
Sensitive case handoff time
Minutes from a sensitive question to a named HR owner picking up the case.
Top unanswered topics
Questions the documents could not answer, grouped weekly so HR can fill gaps.
47%
Works with the tools you already use
- Workday
- BambooHR
- ADP Workforce Now
- HiBob
- SharePoint
- Google Drive
- Slack
- Microsoft Teams
- Zendesk
- ServiceNow HR Service Delivery
Guardrails built in
- Sensitive topics (harassment, discrimination, medical and family leave, accommodations, pay disputes, termination) always go to a person and are never answered by the agent.
- Answers come only from documents HR has approved; if the documents are silent, the agent says it doesn't know and opens a case.
- Personal records are read only for the employee asking, with access checked against your identity provider every time.
- Conversations are stored in your tenant with retention rules HR sets, and HR can review or delete any thread.
- Every answer shows its source, so employees and HR can check it.
Why it hurts today
What teams say about this work
Common complaints from operators, reviewers and industry research.
Nearly half of HR leaders say they spend four or more hours a day answering repetitive employee questions.
Benefits teams end up acting as the help desk, researching each coverage, enrollment and HSA question by hand and replying to employees one email at a time.
Shared mailboxes hide trends and response times, and questions get passed between payroll, carriers, administrators, brokers and HR when nobody clearly owns them.
Done for you
Live in 3 to 6 weeks
We do the build, the integrations and the rollout. Your team gives us access, reviews the pilot and approves go-live.
- 1
Week 1
Discovery and access
We map the workflow with your team, agree the outcomes and KPIs, measure today's baseline and get secure access to your tools.
- 2
Weeks 2–3
Build and connect
We build the agents and connect your systems, with your rules, approval steps, permissions and logging.
- 3
Weeks 3–5
Test and pilot
We test on your real history, then run a pilot on live work while your team reviews what the agent does.
- 4
Weeks 4–6
Go live and hand over
We roll out in stages, train your team, hand over dashboards and runbooks, and keep improving it with you.
Executive Ask: ask your business anything
One plain-English assistant connected to every system you run: CRM, helpdesk, ERP and accounting, HR, inbox and docs. Leaders get sourced answers in seconds and can trigger actions with approval. It respects everyone's existing permissions and logs every answer.
See Executive AskAsk it, for example
- What were employees asking HR about most this month, and did anything spike?
- How many sensitive cases were opened this quarter, and how fast did HR pick them up?
- Which policies generate the most confused questions, so we can rewrite them?
What happens when the agent doesn't know the answer?
It says so. The agent only answers from documents HR has approved and from the asking employee's own HRIS record. If those sources don't cover the question, it tells the employee it is passing the question to HR, opens a case with the full conversation, and logs the gap so HR can add the missing policy or FAQ entry.
How do you keep sensitive matters away from the bot?
We define a list of sensitive topics with your HR lead, such as harassment, discrimination, medical leave, accommodations, pay disputes and termination. When a question touches any of them, the agent does not attempt an answer. It acknowledges the message, tells the employee who will follow up, and opens a private case visible only to the named HR owners.
Can it handle different policies for different states and countries?
Yes. Each document is tagged with the entities, locations and employee groups it covers. The agent checks who is asking through your HRIS before it answers, so a California employee gets California leave rules and a UK employee gets UK holiday rules. If a policy has no version for that location, it routes the question to HR.
How long does it take to go live?
Most HR helpdesks go live in 3 to 6 weeks. We gather and tag your documents, connect the HRIS and your chat tools, and agree the sensitive-topic list. HR then tests the agent with real past questions until the answers are right. We launch to one group first, review a sample of conversations, and then open it to everyone.
What does it cost?
We quote after a short scoping call. The price depends on headcount, how many locations and policy sets you have, which HRIS and chat tools we connect, and whether you want case management in a tool like Zendesk or ServiceNow. You get a fixed-scope written quote before we start building, with no surprise charges added later.
Pairs well with
IT & Internal Ops
Internal Knowledge Assistant
Staff ask in plain English and get the answer from your own docs, with the source
See the outcomeHR & Recruiting
Employee Onboarding
New hires signed, equipped and logged in before their first morning
See the outcomeHR & Recruiting
Timesheet & Payroll Validation
Catch missing punches and payroll errors before the run, not after payday
See the outcomeSources
- The Questions HR Never Has to Answer Again, isolved
- Is Your Benefits Team Becoming the Help Desk?, HCM Tech Advisory
Get HR & Policy Helpdesk done for you
Tell us about your volumes and tools. A senior engineer replies within one business day with scope, timeline and cost.
Live in 3 to 6 weeks · Priced after a short call · Company emails only