Background
Complexity generates many questions for which employees expect correct answers, which prevents HR teams from applying their expertise where it truly matters. On the Global Payroll Complexity Index, which ranks countries worldwide according to the complexity of their payroll systems, Belgium is in third place. The rising demand for hybrid work options adds to this further. In this context, expectations for HR staff are high. “Complexity brings questions for HR professionals. Employees can often find answers in the policies and procedures communicated by their employer. Yet, they prefer to consult their HR colleagues directly. As a result, HR staff can’t focus enough on areas where they can genuinely create added value and where they derive job satisfaction. That’s why we are exploring what role AI can play in such environments, in collaboration with CROPLAND, an Antwerp based expert in AI solutions,” says Frank De Weser. “We specialise in three areas,” explains Geert Vromman. “We assist companies with AI and data strategies, we handle data engineering tasks, and we develop machine learning models to serve as their backbone. Nowadays, powerful cloud technology is readily available, so we have expanded our service offering to also include the integration of cloud technology components into tailored solutions. This is exactly what we are currently doing with Syntegro.”
Challenge
Payroll employees at Syntegro’s clients are overwhelmed with repetitive but highly person dependent questions, about leave, company cars, remote work and more, arriving through email, WhatsApp, text messages and phone calls. In practice, one HR department processes around 20,000 such questions annually. More than 10% of a payroll employee’s time goes to answering these standard questions, time that cannot be spent where it truly adds value.
Solution
CROPLAND and Syntegro developed an AI chatbot that quickly and accurately answers common HR questions, reducing the workload of HR teams. “With the chatbot, we primarily want to provide answers to simple questions without the intervention of an HR employee,” explains Geert. “Think of questions like: ‘I have a crack in my company car windshield, what should I do?’ or ‘How many days can I work from home, and how do I request remote work?'” The chatbot is built on a RAG (retrieval augmented generation) architecture, drawing exclusively on the client’s own internal documents to avoid inaccurate answers, combined with identification of the person asking (role, status, seniority) so the answer is tailored to them. Document quality proved a critical success factor: existing HR documentation needs to be clear and consistent for the chatbot to work reliably. It is crucial that the chatbot’s answers are accurate. If a question is too complex, the chatbot redirects it to an HR employee, or to email or phone during office hours if no answer can be found. The rollout happened in phases: payroll employees tested the chatbot themselves first, and only once there was sufficient confidence did it go live for all employees.
Benefits
Results
During a pilot implementation, 400 employees used the assistant, with 65% of them reached within 4 months of launch. This resulted in a 40% reduction in HR tickets. Based on the time saved on standard questions, this translates to a saving of more than €80,000 per year for every 1,000 employees.
