# Talk to HR — Full Behaviour Specification

This document describes the complete observable behaviour of Talk to HR from a user's perspective. It covers what users can do, how the system responds, and how every feature works.

---

## 1. System Overview

Talk to HR is an HR assistant integrated into messaging platforms (Slack, Discord, Microsoft Teams). It IS the HR system of record — employees, managers, and HR admins interact with it through natural language conversations and it directly records, updates, and actions HR data. There is no separate system to go to. Users can:

- Query their own HR data (leave balance, policies, profile information)
- Request actions (book leave, update information)
- Get guidance on HR matters (policies, procedures, sensitive issues)
- Sync leave, sickness, and other calendar events to Google Calendar

Managers and HR administrators have additional capabilities to access team data and perform administrative functions.

### Core Principles

1. **Privacy First**: Employee data is only shared with authorised individuals
2. **Access Control in Code**: Permissions are enforced in tool implementations, never relying on the LLM
3. **Platform Agnostic**: Agent workflows work identically across all messaging platforms
4. **Encryption by Default**: All sensitive data is encrypted at rest

---

## 2. User Interaction Model

### 2.1 When Messages Are Processed

| Trigger | Behaviour |
|---------|-----------|
| Direct message (DM) to bot | Always processed |
| @mention of bot | Always processed |
| Message in configured HR channel | Always processed |
| Reply to bot's message | Always processed |
| Message in thread where bot recently participated | Always processed |
| Emoji reaction on a message (Slack only) | Treated as a text message in that thread |
| All other messages | Ignored |

### 2.2 Message Types Users Can Send

- **Questions**: "How much leave do I have left?", "What's our parental leave policy?"
- **Requests**: "I'd like to book 3 days holiday next week", "Please update my emergency contact"
- **Approvals/Decisions**: "I approve John's leave request", "Deny the request"
- **Information**: "Just to note, I completed the training yesterday"
- **Task Responses**: Replies to surveys, feedback requests, or multi-step conversations

### 2.3 Response Style

The agent responds with:
- **Concise answers**: 1-2 sentence lead, elaboration offered if appropriate
- **Decisive action**: Takes action immediately when authorised (no unnecessary confirmation)
- **Progress indicators**: Shows what it's doing (e.g., "Looking up employee information...")
- **Professional tone**: Friendly but business-appropriate

---

## 3. Capabilities

### 3.1 Profile & Data Management

- **Save information**: Record HR data to employee profiles (with attribution tracking who wrote what)
- **Query profiles**: Search an employee's HR history and profile data
- **Search employees**: Managers and HR admins can search across employee profiles

### 3.2 Leave Management

- **Check leave balance**: View remaining holiday, carryover, and per-type balances
- **Book leave**: Submit leave requests with automatic balance checking and manager notification
- **Leave types**: Annual, sickness, compassionate, maternity, paternity, bereavement, unpaid, and custom company-defined types
- **Leave approval/rejection**: Managers approve or reject leave with automatic employee notification
- **Calendar sync**: Leave events automatically sync to Google Calendar when connected

### 3.3 Policy Management

- **Look up policies**: Any employee can query company policies
- **Create/amend policies**: HR admins can create policies with effective dates
- **Version history**: Full audit trail with support for historical lookups ("What was the policy in March 2024?")
- **Delta amendments**: Amend specific provisions without rewriting entire policies
- **Void/retire policies**: Remove policies that were added in error or are no longer needed

### 3.4 Employee Contracts

- **Individual terms**: Employees can have individual contract terms that override company policy
- **Contract amendments**: HR admins can amend contracts with effective dates
- **Contract document upload**: Save uploaded contract documents (PDF, etc.) as formal contract records
- **Precedence**: Contract terms override company policy where both apply
- **Access control**: Employees see their own contracts, managers see direct reports', HR sees all

### 3.5 Payroll

- **Monthly payroll preparation**: Calculates gross pay with pro-rating for mid-month starters/leavers
- **Salary changes**: Pro-rates when salary changes mid-month
- **Leave payout**: Automatically calculates outstanding annual leave payout for departing employees
- **Expense reimbursement**: Approved expenses included in payroll
- **Pension**: Employee and employer contribution tracking
- **Preview mode**: Dry-run payroll for individual employees or the whole team
- **Submit/revert**: Lock payroll after submission, revert if corrections needed
- **CSV export**: Full payroll breakdown delivered as a downloadable spreadsheet

### 3.6 Expense Claims

- **Submit expenses**: Employees attach receipts and provide expense details
- **Manager approval**: Expenses routed to manager for approval/rejection
- **Company receipts**: Separate tracking for company card purchases (not reimbursable)
- **Payroll integration**: Approved expenses automatically included in monthly payroll
- **Accounting sync**: Approved expenses can be automatically posted to connected accounting systems (e.g., Xero)

### 3.7 Task System

Tasks are multi-step workflows the agent manages autonomously:

- **Surveys**: "Ask the engineering team about WFH preferences"
- **Approvals**: "Get manager approval for Dave's leave request"
- **Information gathering**: "Collect emergency contacts from new joiners"
- **Follow-ups**: "Check in with Sarah about her performance review"

#### Task Features

- **Deadlines**: Tasks can have deadlines; partial results are delivered if not all responses arrive in time
- **Scheduled actions**: Reminders and check-ins at specific times
- **Recurring tasks**: Weekly, monthly, or custom schedules (e.g., "every Monday at 9am, ask my team for priorities")
- **Dynamic targeting**: Recurring tasks automatically include new team members
- **Sub-tasks**: Complex workflows can be broken into coordinated sub-tasks
- **Safety limits**: Maximum 50 actions, 30-day age limit, automatic killing if limits exceeded

#### Task Access Control

Tasks inherit their owner's permissions:
- **Employees**: Can target self, upward manager chain, and HR
- **Managers**: Can target self, all reports (downline), and HR
- **HR Admins**: Can target anyone

### 3.8 Messaging

- **Send messages to individuals**: Direct messages to any employee (within access permissions)
- **Broadcast to HR team**: Send to all HR administrators at once
- **File attachments**: CSV, markdown, or PDF files can be attached to messages
- **Message approval**: Messages containing cross-person data can require approval before sending

### 3.9 Organisation Management

- **Change manager**: HR admins can update reporting relationships
- **Org chart**: View and query the organisation structure

### 3.10 Expert Guidance

- **HR guidance search**: Search a knowledge base for guidance on sensitive HR topics
- **Expert consultation**: Submit questions when no existing guidance is available

### 3.11 HR Process Skills

Structured guidance for formal HR processes:

| Process | Availability | Description |
|---------|-------------|-------------|
| Onboarding | All countries | New hire setup, first day/week planning, probation |
| Offboarding | All countries | Exit process, knowledge transfer, equipment return, final pay |
| Performance Review | All countries | Review cycles, self-assessment, feedback collection |
| Probation Review | All countries | End-of-probation assessment, extension or confirmation |
| Disciplinary Procedure | UK | ACAS code of practice, investigation, hearings, appeals |
| Grievance Procedure | UK | Formal grievance per ACAS code of practice |
| Redundancy Process | UK | Consultation, selection criteria, notice periods, statutory pay |
| Absence Management | UK | Sickness triggers, occupational health referrals, fit notes |
| Flexible Working Request | UK | Statutory right to request, decision process, appeal |
| Maternity & Paternity | UK | Statutory entitlements, notification requirements, KIT days |

Each process can be linked to a company policy for company-specific rules.

### 3.12 HR Cases

HR administrators can track formal HR procedures with structured case records:

- **Case types**: Grievance, disciplinary, redundancy, absence management, flexible working, maternity/paternity, other
- **Case references**: Human-readable (e.g., GRV-2026-001)
- **Event log**: Chronological encrypted record of meetings, decisions, correspondence
- **Status lifecycle**: Intake, active, paused, closed
- **HR-only access**: Only HR administrators can open, view, or add events to cases

### 3.13 Proactive Agent

A periodic review agent that:
- Reviews company activity (open tasks, pending approvals, stale tasks)
- Identifies issues needing HR attention
- Sends proactive notifications to HR admins when action is needed
- Read-only — cannot modify data, only observe and notify

---

## 4. Access Control

### 4.1 Role-Based Access

| Role | Can Read | Can Write | Can Search | Restricted Data |
|------|----------|-----------|------------|-----------------|
| **Employee** | Own profile only | Own profile only | No | No |
| **Manager** | Own + full downline (all reports, skip-level) | Own + downline | Direct reports only | No |
| **HR Admin** | All profiles | All profiles | All employees | Yes |

### 4.2 Restricted Data

Some profile data is marked as "restricted" (disciplinary, medical, grievances):
- Only HR admins can read restricted data
- Employees cannot read their own restricted data
- Managers cannot read their reports' restricted data
- Anyone with write access can write to restricted profiles

### 4.3 Example Behaviours

**When an employee asks about a colleague:**
```
User: "What's John's salary?"
Agent: "You don't have permission to read John's profile. Only John, their
       manager, or HR can access this information."
```

**When a manager asks about their report:**
```
User (Carol, manager): "Show me Alice's recent leave requests"
Agent: [Returns Alice's leave data — Alice is Carol's direct report]
```

**When a manager asks about someone not in their team:**
```
User (Carol, manager): "What do we have on Bob from Marketing?"
Agent: "You don't have permission to read Bob's profile."
```

---

## 5. Messaging Platforms

### 5.1 Supported Platforms

| Platform | Connection Method | Key Features |
|----------|------------------|--------------|
| **Slack** | OAuth | Email lookup, reactions, threading |
| **Discord** | OAuth + Bot | Guild-based, thread channels |
| **Microsoft Teams** | Azure Bot Framework | Graph API integration |

All platforms provide identical agent functionality with platform-specific adaptations for formatting and features.

### 5.2 Platform Capabilities

| Feature | Slack | Discord | Teams |
|---------|-------|---------|-------|
| Send messages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Threading | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Reactions | Yes | Yes | No |
| User email lookup | Yes | No | Yes |
| Direct messages | Yes | Yes | Yes |

---

## 6. Employee Profiles

### 6.1 Profile Creation

Profiles are created automatically when:
- An employee is imported from the connected platform
- An employee sends their first message to the bot
- An HR admin adds them via the dashboard

### 6.2 Welcome Messages

When employees are imported, they receive a welcome DM:
- **Regular employees**: Introduction to capabilities (leave management, policies, profile updates, HR guidance, calendar sync)
- **HR administrators**: All of the above plus admin capabilities (full employee access, payroll, policy management, task orchestration, team-wide messaging)

### 6.3 Profile Data

Profiles contain:
- **Identity**: Handle (@name), display name
- **Organisation**: Manager relationship, team membership
- **HR Data**: Leave records, employment history, notes from conversations
- **Restricted Data**: Disciplinary, medical, grievance information (HR only)

All profile data is encrypted at rest.

---

## 7. Leave Management

### 7.1 Leave Types

The system supports policy-defined leave types:
- **Well-known types**: Annual, sickness, compassionate, maternity, paternity, bereavement, unpaid
- **Custom types**: Companies can define custom types in policy (e.g., birthday, volunteer day, study leave)

### 7.2 Leave Balance Calculation

**For capped types** (types with a defined allowance, e.g., annual, birthday):
```
Remaining = Entitled + Carryover Remaining - Taken - Pending
```

Where:
- **Entitled**: Allowance from policy, adjusted for part-time/FTE and start date where applicable
- **Carryover Remaining**: Unexpired carried-over days minus used carryover
- **Taken**: Leave marked as taken or approved with end date in past
- **Pending**: Future approved leave plus requested leave

**For uncapped types** (e.g., sickness): Only taken and pending days are tracked.

### 7.3 Working Pattern Requirement

A working pattern (days and hours per day) is required before leave can be calculated or booked. If not on file, the agent asks the employee to provide it.

### 7.4 Leave Request Process

1. Agent checks the employee's working pattern
2. Agent checks leave balance for the requested type
3. If sufficient balance: Request is submitted and manager is notified
4. If insufficient balance (non-statutory type): Employee is asked if they want excess days as unpaid leave
5. If insufficient balance (statutory type like sickness/maternity): Request is allowed with pay implications noted
6. If leave type not in policy: Employee is told available types

### 7.5 Leave Approval

Managers and HR admins approve or reject leave:
- Decision is recorded to the employee's profile
- Employee is notified via DM with remaining balance
- Multi-person approvals processed individually

### 7.6 Carryover

- Days can be carried over from previous years with optional expiry dates
- Expired carryover is excluded from balance calculations
- The system tracks carryover usage automatically

### 7.7 Calendar Sync

When Google Calendar is connected:
- All existing eligible leave is synced on connection
- Ongoing changes (new bookings, approvals, cancellations) sync automatically
- Calendar events show leave status, duration, and paid/unpaid status

### 7.8 Example Interactions

**Checking leave balance:**
```
User: "How much holiday do I have left?"
Agent: "You have 12 days of annual leave remaining, plus 8 bank holidays."
```

**With carryover:**
```
User: "How much holiday do I have left?"
Agent: "You have 15 days remaining (12 from this year's allowance plus 3
       carried over from last year). Note: your carryover days expire on
       31st March."
```

**Booking leave:**
```
User: "Book 3 days off next week"
Agent: "I've sent your leave request to Carol for approval. You're asking
       for Mon-Wed next week (3 days). You'll have 9 days remaining if approved."
```

**Insufficient balance:**
```
User: "I'd like to book 10 days off next month"
Agent: "You only have 5 days of annual leave remaining. Would you like to
       take the extra 5 days as unpaid leave instead?"
```

---

## 8. Policy Management

### 8.1 Policy Structure

Policies have:
- **Name/title**: Human-readable identifier
- **Content**: The policy text (markdown supported)
- **Effective date**: When the policy comes into effect
- **Amendment type**: Original, amendment, replacement, void

### 8.2 Versioning

- Full version history preserved
- Historical lookups supported ("What was the policy on X date?")
- Delta amendments: Amend specific provisions without rewriting the entire policy
- Amendment chains presented chronologically, with later entries superseding earlier ones
- Void policies are soft-deleted (still queryable historically)
- Deleting a policy offers two modes: retire (set end date to today) or void (mark as never applied)

### 8.3 Example Interactions

**Policy lookup:**
```
User: "What's our maternity leave policy?"
Agent: "Our maternity policy provides 6 months paid leave at 90% of salary
       for the first 6 weeks, then statutory rate..."
```

**Policy amendment (HR admin only):**
```
HR Admin: "Update the holiday policy to 28 days instead of 25"
Agent: "What effective date should I use?"
HR Admin: "1st January next year"
Agent: "Done. The updated holiday policy (28 days annual leave) will be
       effective from 1st January 2027."
```

**Historical lookup:**
```
User: "What was the WFH policy in March 2024?"
Agent: [Retrieves policy as of that date]
```

---

## 9. Task System

### 9.1 What Tasks Are

Tasks are multi-step workflows the agent manages autonomously:

- **Surveys**: "Ask the engineering team about WFH preferences"
- **Approvals**: "Get manager approval for Dave's leave request"
- **Information gathering**: "Collect emergency contacts from new joiners"
- **Follow-ups**: "Check in with Sarah about her performance review"

### 9.2 Task Lifecycle

```
pending → in_progress → completed
                ↓
            cancelled
                ↓
              killed
```

### 9.3 Task Safety Limits

| Limit | Value |
|-------|-------|
| Maximum actions per task | 50 |
| Maximum age | 30 days |
| Maximum consecutive errors | 5 |
| Maximum reminders per person | 3 |

When limits are exceeded, the task is automatically killed and the owner is notified.

### 9.4 Deadlines

Tasks can have deadlines:
- Within 24 hours: Agent prioritises completion
- Within 4 hours: Final reminders sent
- Deadline passed: Auto-completes with partial results and notes who didn't respond

### 9.5 Scheduled Actions

Tasks can schedule future actions:
- **Reminders**: Send to participants who haven't responded
- **Messages**: Send specific messages at specific times
- **Check-ins**: Wake up the agent to evaluate status

### 9.6 Recurring Tasks

Tasks can repeat on a schedule:

| Pattern | Example |
|---------|---------|
| Daily | "every day at 9am" |
| Weekly | "every Monday at 9am" |
| Monthly | "on the 1st at 10am" |
| Custom cron | Any valid cron expression |

Features:
- Dynamic targeting: New team members are automatically included
- Overlapping prevention: If the previous instance is still running, the next is skipped
- Pause/resume/cancel: Full schedule lifecycle management

### 9.7 Sub-Tasks

Complex tasks can be broken into coordinated sub-tasks:
- One level of nesting only
- Sub-tasks have independent lifecycles
- Parent task can check sub-task status and wait for completion

### 9.8 Example Interactions

**Creating a survey:**
```
HR Admin: "Send a feedback survey to the engineering team"
Agent: "I've created the survey task. I'll message each team member and
       collect their responses. I'll send you a summary when complete."
```

**Recurring task:**
```
Manager: "Every Monday at 9am, ask my team for their weekly priorities"
Agent: "I've set up a recurring task. Every Monday at 9:00, I'll ask your
       direct reports for their priorities and send you a summary."
```

**Task with deadline:**
```
HR Admin: "Send a feedback survey to engineering, deadline Friday 5pm"
Agent: "I've created the survey with a deadline of Friday 17:00.
       I'll send you a summary by then, even if not everyone has responded."
```

---

## 10. Message Approval

### 10.1 Approval Modes

Companies can configure message approval behaviour:

| Mode | Behaviour |
|------|-----------|
| Auto-approve all | Messages sent immediately |
| Review cross-person data | Messages mentioning other employees require approval |

### 10.2 Cross-Person Data Detection

Messages are flagged for approval if they contain:
- Names of employees other than sender/recipient/task owner
- Pronouns referring to others ("he said", "she mentioned")
- Team references ("your team", "colleagues")
- Aggregated feedback ("several people mentioned")
- Vague references ("we've heard", "concerns raised")

### 10.3 Approval Flow

1. Message is queued (not sent)
2. Task owner or HR admin receives a DM with the message preview
3. Reviewer approves (thumbs up) or rejects (thumbs down)
4. If approved: message is sent. If rejected: message is not sent.

---

## 11. Billing & Subscriptions

### 11.1 Pricing

| Tier | Employees | Cost |
|------|-----------|------|
| **Free** | 1-5 | $0/month |
| **Paid** | 6+ | $5/employee/month (beyond free limit) |

### 11.2 Free Seats

Total free seats = Base (5) + Referral credits

**Referral Credits:**
- Refer a company that converts to paid: +1 free seat
- Be referred and convert to paid yourself: +1 free seat

### 11.3 Billing Details

- **Pro-rating**: Partial months charged proportionally based on active days
- **Concurrent counting**: Billing based on daily concurrent employee count, not cumulative
- **Grace period**: 14 days after payment failure before downgrade to free tier
- **Downgrade behaviour**: Employees beyond free limit are disabled

---

## 12. Admin Dashboard

### 12.1 Available Pages

| Page | Purpose |
|------|---------|
| **Overview** | Setup progress, statistics, quick actions |
| **Connect** | Platform integration (Slack, Discord, Teams) |
| **Team** | Org chart, employee management, HR admin assignment |
| **Policies** | Policy creation, editing, versioning |
| **Settings** | Message approval mode configuration |
| **Playground** | Test conversations (for trying the system before connecting a platform) |
| **Audit Log** | Conversation history, task event logs |
| **Employee Profiles** | Individual employee data with structured views |
| **Usage** | Employee counts, billing projection |
| **Billing** | Subscription management, payment methods |

### 12.2 Setup Flow

1. **Login**: Enter email, receive 6-digit code, verify (no password needed)
2. **Company Creation**: Enter company name, select country, configure payroll day (optional), enter referral code (optional)
3. **Setup Checklist**: Connect messaging platform, import team members, assign HR admin, upload policies

### 12.3 Authentication

- Email-only, magic code authentication (no passwords)
- 6-digit verification codes, valid for 10 minutes
- 30-day session duration
- Rate limited: 3 code requests/minute, 5 verifications/15 minutes

### 12.4 Key Admin Capabilities

**Team Management:**
- Import employees from connected platform
- Set manager-report relationships
- Assign/remove HR administrator roles
- View organisation chart
- Every company must have at least one HR admin at all times

**Policy Management:**
- Create policies with effective dates
- Edit policies (creates new versions)
- Schedule future policy changes
- Archive/void policies
- Link policies to HR process skills

**Employee Profiles:**
- View structured data: leave, pay, job, personal
- Array previews for leave records, carryover, deductions, pay history, working patterns, emergency contacts
- Stale data indicator with automatic refresh
- Full profile event log

---

## 13. Scheduled Notifications

### 13.1 Daily HR Admin Welcome Message

HR admins receive a daily welcome message at 9am GMT on weekdays:
- Personalised greeting with date
- Activity summary from the previous workday (new team members, profile updates, completed tasks, policy changes)
- Historical fun fact
- Skipped on quiet days (sent weekly as a check-in if no activity for 7 days)
- Monday messages cover Friday and the weekend

### 13.2 Manager Leave Notifications

**Monday weekly summary:**
- All direct reports with leave booked for the current week
- Names, dates, and return dates

**Tuesday-Sunday daily notifications:**
- Only sent when a direct report's leave starts that day
- Not sent if no one's leave starts today

---

## 14. Privacy & GDPR

### 14.1 Data Subject Rights

- **Right of Access (Article 15)**: Employees can request export of all their data (conversations, profile data, audit logs)
- **Right to be Forgotten (Article 17)**: Employees can request deletion (hard delete or anonymisation)

### 14.2 Data Retention

| Data Type | Default Retention |
|-----------|-------------------|
| Conversation data | 2 years |

Companies can configure custom retention periods.

### 14.3 Access Logging

All data access is logged:
- Who accessed, what was accessed, which employee's data, when, from where

### 14.4 PII Protection

Before data is sent to the AI, PII is redacted:
- Email addresses, phone numbers, national insurance numbers, credit card numbers, physical addresses

Original unredacted data is stored encrypted in the audit log.

### 14.5 Encryption

- AES-256-GCM encryption with unique IV per record
- Two-tier key system (master key + company-specific keys)
- All conversations, profile data, task logs, and pending approvals are encrypted at rest

---

## 15. Payroll

Talk to HR prepares monthly payroll changes — gross pay figures, additions, and deductions to give to your payroll provider or accountant.

### 15.1 Configuration

| Setting | Description |
|---------|-------------|
| **Country** | Jurisdiction (currently UK only) |
| **Payroll Day** | Day of month for automatic payroll (1-28, optional) |

### 15.2 Monthly Process

1. System validates all employees have required data (salary, start date)
2. Missing data identified and HR admin notified
3. Payroll calculated with pro-rating for partial months
4. Results delivered as CSV spreadsheet
5. HR admin submits (locks) payroll or reverts for corrections

### 15.3 Calculations

- **Pro-rating**: Mid-month starters/leavers get proportional salary based on working days
- **Leave payout**: Departing employees get outstanding annual leave paid out automatically
- **Pension**: Employee and employer contributions tracked
- **Expenses**: Approved expense reimbursements included as separate column
- **Employee filtering**: Preview payroll for specific employees
- **Dry-run mode**: Full calculation without saving results

### 15.4 Payroll CSV Columns

Employee Name, NI Number, Tax Code, Base Salary, Additions, Leave Payout, Expenses (Approved), Pre-Gross Deductions, Gross Pay, Income Tax, Employee NI, Employer NI, Employee Pension, Employer Pension, Student Loan, Postgrad Loan, Other Deductions, Net Pay, Employer Cost

### 15.5 Limitations

- UK only (currently)
- Monthly payroll only (no weekly)
- Does not submit to HMRC (RTI)
- Does not generate bank payment files (BACS)
- Does not generate P60/P45 documents

Companies typically export results to their accounting/banking systems for payment processing.

---

## 16. Employee Contracts

### 16.1 Structure

Contracts have:
- Employee, title, content (markdown), effective date, amendment type

### 16.2 Versioning

Same as policies: full version history, historical lookups, delta amendments, void/retire.

### 16.3 Contract vs Policy Precedence

When both a company policy and an individual contract address the same topic, the contract terms override.

### 16.4 Access Control

| Role | Read | Write |
|------|------|-------|
| Employee | Own contracts only | No |
| Manager | Own + downline | No |
| HR Admin | All | Yes |

### 16.5 Example Interactions

**Contract overrides policy:**
```
User (Alice): "How much annual leave am I entitled to?"
Agent: "Company policy provides 25 days annual leave, but your contract
       specifies 28 days. Your contractual entitlement is 28 days per year."
```

**No contract exists:**
```
User (Bob): "What's my notice period?"
Agent: "Per company policy, your notice period is 1 month."
```

---

## 17. Expense Claims

### 17.1 Submission

Employees submit expense claims by providing receipt and details. The agent:
1. Saves the receipt to the employee's profile
2. Records expense details (amount, description, date, category)
3. Sends to manager for approval

### 17.2 Approval

Managers approve or reject expenses for direct reports. HR admins can approve any expenses.

### 17.3 Company Receipts

Receipts for company card/petty cash purchases are tracked separately and not included in reimbursement or payroll.

### 17.4 Payroll Integration

Approved expenses are included in the monthly payroll as a separate "Expenses (Approved)" column. Only expenses approved during the pay period are included.

### 17.5 Accounting Sync

When a company has a connected accounting provider (e.g., Xero), approved expenses are automatically posted as bills.

### 17.6 Access Control

| Action | Employee | Manager | HR Admin |
|--------|----------|---------|----------|
| Submit own expense | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Submit company receipt | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Approve expenses | No | Direct reports | Any |
| View own expenses | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| View others' expenses | No | Downline | Any |

---

## 18. HR Process Skills

### 18.1 Overview

Structured guidance bundles for formal HR processes. Each skill provides step-by-step procedural guidance (including legal requirements where applicable).

### 18.2 Available Processes

| Process | Countries | Description |
|---------|-----------|-------------|
| Onboarding | All | New hire setup, first day/week planning, probation |
| Offboarding | All | Exit process, knowledge transfer, equipment return, final pay |
| Performance Review | All | Review cycles, self-assessment, feedback, calibration |
| Probation Review | All | End-of-probation assessment, extension or confirmation |
| Disciplinary (UK) | UK | ACAS code of practice, investigation, hearings, appeals |
| Grievance (UK) | UK | Formal grievance per ACAS code of practice |
| Redundancy (UK) | UK | Consultation, selection criteria, notice, statutory pay |
| Absence Management (UK) | UK | Sickness triggers, occupational health, fit notes |
| Flexible Working (UK) | UK | Statutory right to request, decision process, appeal |
| Maternity & Paternity (UK) | UK | Statutory entitlements, notifications, KIT days |

### 18.3 Policy Integration

Each HR process can have a company policy linked to it. The skill provides the procedural framework; the company policy provides company-specific rules and thresholds.

---

## 19. HR Cases

### 19.1 Overview

Structured case tracking for formal HR procedures.

### 19.2 Case Types

| Type | Reference Format | Description |
|------|-----------------|-------------|
| Grievance | GRV-2026-001 | Formal grievance proceedings |
| Disciplinary | DIS-2026-001 | Disciplinary investigations and hearings |
| Redundancy | RED-2026-001 | Redundancy consultations |
| Absence Management | ABS-2026-001 | Long-term absence cases |
| Flexible Working | FLX-2026-001 | Flexible working requests |
| Maternity/Paternity | MAT-2026-001 | Case tracking |
| Other | CAS-2026-001 | General HR cases |

### 19.3 Features

- Human-readable auto-incrementing references
- Encrypted chronological event log (meetings, decisions, correspondence)
- Status lifecycle: intake, active, paused, closed
- Links to involved employees and related tasks
- HR-only access (enforced in code)

---

## 20. File Attachments

The agent can attach files to messages for structured data delivery.

### 20.1 Supported Formats

| Format | Use Cases |
|--------|-----------|
| CSV | Tabular data (leave reports, team lists, survey results) |
| Markdown | Formatted reports, summaries |
| PDF | Formal documents (contracts, letters, official reports) |

### 20.2 When Attachments Are Used

- Data is tabular and benefits from spreadsheet format
- Content is lengthy
- User explicitly requests a file/export
- A formal, printable document is needed

### 20.3 Platform Support

| Platform | Support |
|----------|---------|
| Slack | Full support (uploaded via Files API) |
| Discord | Not yet implemented |
| Teams | Not yet implemented |

Maximum file size: 1MB

---

## Safety Guarantees

The system will **never**:
- Share employee data without proper authorisation
- Rely on the AI to enforce access control (it's enforced in code)
- Send messages containing cross-person data without approval (if configured)
- Store unencrypted sensitive data
- Delete data without explicit request

The system will **always**:
- Check permissions before returning any data
- Encrypt sensitive data at rest
- Log all data access for compliance
- Escalate sensitive matters to HR
- Preserve audit trails for GDPR compliance

---

## FAQ

**Q: Is Talk to HR a chatbot bolted onto another system?**
A: No. Talk to HR IS the HR system. It's the system of record — there's no separate portal or database that employees need to access. Everything happens through conversation.

**Q: What happens if I already have an HR system?**
A: Talk to HR replaces your existing HRIS. Employee data, leave records, policies, and contracts all live within Talk to HR.

**Q: Can employees see each other's data?**
A: No. Access control is strictly enforced in code. Employees can only see their own data. Managers can see their direct reports' data. Only HR admins have full access.

**Q: Is it secure?**
A: Yes. All sensitive data is encrypted at rest with AES-256-GCM. PII is redacted before being sent to the AI. All access is logged for compliance. The system is GDPR compliant.

**Q: What messaging platforms are supported?**
A: Slack, Discord, and Microsoft Teams. The agent works identically across all platforms.

**Q: How much does it cost?**
A: Free for up to 5 employees. After that, $5 per employee per month, pro-rated daily.

**Q: Does it handle payroll?**
A: It prepares monthly payroll changes (gross pay, deductions, expenses) that you give to your payroll provider. It doesn't submit to HMRC or generate bank payment files directly.

**Q: Can it handle UK employment law processes?**
A: Yes. It includes structured guidance for UK-specific processes: disciplinary (ACAS code), grievance, redundancy, absence management, flexible working, and maternity/paternity.

**Q: How do I get started?**
A: Visit https://justtalktohr.com, try the interactive playground immediately (no sign-up required), or set up your company in under 5 minutes.

**Q: What if I need to try it before connecting my team?**
A: The playground lets you try the full system with a fictional test company. You can interact as different roles (employee, manager, HR admin) to see how everything works.