HR teams answer the same questions all week. How many PTO days carry over to next year? Can I expense this dinner? When does my health coverage start? The answers sit in a handbook, but employees ask in Slack because that is where they already are.
An AI agent in Slack can answer those questions from your own policy documents, cite the page it used, and point the employee to HR when the documents do not cover the question. This guide covers what to look for and how to set one up with Runbear.
What an HR policy agent in Slack should do
A good HR agent does four things:
- Answers from your documents. It grounds policy answers in the handbook and policy pages you connect.
- Cites the source. Answers point to the document they come from, so the employee can check them.
- Keeps sensitive files out. Everyone who can use the agent can get answers from the documents it has indexed, so connect only the policies every employee may read.
- Says when it does not know. Its instructions tell it to say so when the policy is missing or unclear, instead of guessing, and to name who to ask.
Where the answers come from
Connect the places your policies already live: Notion, Google Drive, Confluence, or SharePoint. Runbear keeps the connected documents indexed, so an updated policy page shows up in answers without retraining. There is no training data to prepare.
Start small. Pick the ten documents people ask about most, such as the employee handbook, the leave policy, the expense policy, and the benefits guide. Leave out drafts and outdated files, because an agent repeats whatever it reads.
Which HR questions to automate first
Start with questions that repeat and whose answers rarely change.
| Type | Example question | Source | Hand off to |
| Policy | "Can I expense a candidate dinner?" | Employee handbook | HR, for exceptions |
| Benefits and leave | "How do I enroll in benefits?" | HR docs | HR, for personal cases |
| Onboarding | "What do I set up on day one?" | Onboarding checklist | Manager or IT |
Leave out anything that needs a judgment call, such as pay disputes or performance issues. Route those to a person from the start.
Set it up in four steps
- Install Runbear in Slack. One install covers the whole workspace. Microsoft Teams works too.
- Create an HR agent. Chat with Runbear to create a named agent, for example @HR. Describe its job in plain English, such as "answer employee questions about leave, expenses, and benefits from the handbook."
- Connect your policy documents. Authorize the sources that hold your handbook and policies.
- Choose where it answers. Add it to a channel such as #ask-people, or let employees mention it by name.
You can set up a first agent in about 10 minutes, with no code.
The same steps give you an IT agent, such as @IT, for questions like "How do I connect to the VPN?" Keep it separate from @HR, so each team owns its own documents and handoffs.
Keep HR answers safe
HR questions touch sensitive documents, so check two things before you roll out.
- Access. When a tool is connected per user, the agent acts with the requester's own account, so it sees only what that person can see. A tool connected with one shared account gives everyone that account's access. Documents you index into the agent's knowledge base are shared by everyone who can use the agent, so keep restricted HR files out of the index.
- Data handling. Runbear is SOC 2 Type II compliant, encrypts data at rest and in transit, and does not use your data to train models.
Handle what the agent cannot answer
No policy document covers everything. In the agent's instructions, tell it to say when the documents do not cover a question instead of guessing, and name the HR contact or channel, so it can tell the employee where to go next.
Treat those questions as a to-do list. Each one points to a gap in your documentation. Fix the document, and the next employee gets the answer. If you turn on response feedback, employees can also rate an answer in Slack with a thumbs-up or thumbs-down.
HR platform assistants vs. HR agents in Slack
With documents alone, Runbear answers employees' HR policy questions in Slack from the handbook and policy documents you connect. An employee's own PTO balance and time-off requests live in your HR system, which HR platform assistants such as Moveworks connect to. Some HR teams already pay for an HR system or a platform like Moveworks that comes with its own assistant. Others mostly want a chatbot that answers policy questions in Slack.
An HR platform assistant is part of a wider HR product. Ask BambooHR answers employees' questions in Slack from BambooHR's HRIS data and the policy documents you upload to BambooHR. Moveworks offers an AI assistant that employees reach in Slack, Teams or a portal. It answers with source citations, covers questions from PTO balances to policy lookups, and lets employees book time off. Leena AI has an AI Colleague that employees can @-mention in a Slack channel. When an answer is specific to one person, the AI Colleague sends it to that employee's direct messages.
With Runbear, you run an HR agent in Slack and Microsoft Teams that starts from your written policies: it answers from the documents you connect and cites the page it used. Without an HR tool connected, the agent answers what the leave policy says, while filing a leave request and getting it approved still happen in your HR system, such as Workday or BambooHR.
To let the agent read live HR data, connect an app as a tool. Runbear's tool catalog includes HiBob, and you can connect other systems that offer an MCP server through a custom integration.
Choose an HR platform assistant when:
- You want employees to submit and track HR requests, such as time off, through the vendor's assistant.
- Your HR system or another vendor you already use includes one.
Choose an HR agent in Slack like Runbear when:
- Most questions are about written policy: leave rules, expenses, benefits enrollment, onboarding steps.
- You want usage-based pricing with no per-seat fee (see the costs below).
What it costs
Runbear charges by usage, not by seat. One subscription covers every employee who asks, and usage is metered in credits based on the model each agent uses. The Team plan is $99 per month with 20,000 credits, and the Business plan is $399 per month with 100,000 credits.
FAQ
Can an AI agent replace the HR inbox? No. It handles repeat policy questions and passes everything else to a person. Keep HR in the loop for exceptions, sensitive cases, and anything the documents do not cover.
Will employees see documents they should not? It depends on how each source is connected. Tools connected per user follow the asker's own permissions. A tool connected with one shared account, and every document you index into the agent, are available to everyone who can use it. Index only what all employees may read, and review the sources before rollout.
Does it work in Microsoft Teams? Yes. Runbear runs in Slack and Microsoft Teams.
How should I test it before launch? Take 20 to 30 real questions from your HR inbox, ask them in a test channel, and check each answer for accuracy and a correct source link. Expand to the whole company once the answers hold up.
