How do I set up a chatbot that answers from our HR policies?
An HR policy chatbot answers staff questions from your own written policies, so every answer traces back to a document HR approved. Setup takes four steps: write each rule down, publish it in one place, index the text, and let people ask in plain words. PeopleMuster's HashBot works this way inside the policies module.
Most HR questions repeat. How many sick days do I get? What's the work-from-home rule? Somebody in HR types the same reply every week, and the answer shifts a little depending on who picks it up.
Start with the documents, not the bot. A chatbot answers from the text it's given, so a rule that lives in a manager's head won't show up in any reply. Write each rule as its own policy, with a clear title, a one-line summary and a category.
Group your policies the way people ask about them. A workable set of categories is workplace conduct, workforce management, compensation and benefits, talent and performance, and the employee lifecycle. A new joiner looking for the leave rule should find it in one click, with or without the bot.
Publishing is the indexing step. When HR publishes a policy in PeopleMuster, the text is split into chunks and indexed for HashBot. The authoring screen shows how many chunks each policy holds. Change the wording, publish again, and HashBot answers from the new text.
Your team asks in their own words. HashBot sits on the policies page beside the documents, with suggested questions such as "What's the WFH policy?" to get someone started. It runs on the OpenAI integration an admin connects in settings, and that key is stored in your own database and masked once saved.
Keep writing and asking apart. Only HR and admins reach policy authoring, where each policy shows its status, its last editor and when it changed. Everyone else reads the published version and asks HashBot about it.
A stale policy is where most policy bots go wrong. An answer quoted from last year's leave rule sends someone off with the wrong number, and they'll trust it because it came from HR. Put a review date on each policy and republish whatever has changed.
Related questions
What can an HR chatbot answer?
An HR chatbot answers whatever your published policies cover in writing: leave allowances, the work-from-home rule, conduct and benefits. When a question has no written rule behind it, the fix is a new policy, not a better bot. HashBot's suggested questions show the kind of thing people ask first.
Do our policies need a special format for the chatbot?
No. Write each policy as normal text with a title, a summary and a category. PeopleMuster splits the text and indexes it for HashBot when you publish.
Who controls what the chatbot says?
The people who can author policies, usually HR and admins. Each policy shows its last editor and the time of the change, and the activity log keeps the old and new values of every edit.
What does PeopleMuster cost with HashBot included?
PeopleMuster is $3 per person, per month, with every module included, HashBot and the policies module among them. Every new customer gets 14 days free with no card, and there's no setup fee.