AI HR Assistant for UK SMEs

An AI HR assistant is worth having in a UK company of about 5 to 50 people when there is no HR team. It answers the questions staff already ask the founder, from the documents the company has actually published.

What it should do

Connect it to the staff handbook, the sickness policy, the expense rules and the holiday calendar. Then the useful questions are specific:

• How many days of holiday do I have left?
• How do I report sickness, and when do I need a fit note?
• Who approves an expense over £100?
• Where is the disciplinary policy?
• Can I carry unused holiday into next year?

The answer has to come from your policy library or the person’s leave record. If the document does not say, the assistant should say it does not know. A general answer from the internet is how a small company ends up applying the wrong sick-pay rule.

What it should not do

• Decide whether someone should be dismissed, warned, or put on a performance plan
• Advise on a grievance, a redundancy, or a settlement
• Confirm that a passport or visa proves the right to work
• Change pay, a contract, or a tax code

Those conversations stay with a person. The assistant can show the written procedure. It cannot run it. The longer version of that limit is in will HR be replaced by AI?

How a UK team should switch it on

1. Publish the current handbook, sickness policy and expense rules. Delete or archive the copies that contradict them.
2. Ask each employee to acknowledge the current version, so you know who has seen it.
3. Turn the assistant on for policy search and holiday balance only.
4. Read the questions people ask for a month. If the same question has no good answer, the policy is missing, not the chatbot.

CitoHR includes this assistant on the paid plan, and the product is free for up to five people. See the AI HR assistant use case for the question list, or the chatbot feature for how it sits next to holiday and expenses.