The Policy Navigator that delivers instant, role-based, location-aware answers from your actual employee handbook
Policy Navigator is a context-engineered HR AI assistant built on Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). It delivers instant, role-specific, location-aware policy guidance grounded in your actual employee handbook. Generic AI hallucinates policies and creates compliance risk. Policy Navigator reduces HR workload, protects against legal exposure, and ensures employees act on accurate company rules.
Why Generic AI Fails in HR Policy Guidance
Every organization has them: dense employee handbooks filled with policies on PTO,
remote work, expense reimbursement, performance management, and compliance.
Employees need answers to policy questions constantly, but finding the right
information means wading through hundreds of pages of conditional logic, location-
specific variations, and role-based exceptions. So they guess, ask colleagues, or wait
days for HR to respond. The result? Policy violations, frustrated employees, and
overwhelmed HR teams.
You might think: "Just ask ChatGPT!" But generic AI's are catastrophically bad at answering company policy questions because they lack the operational context needed to provide accurate answers.
Here's what goes wrong:
• Hallucinated policies: Generic AI confidently invents plausible-sounding rules that don't exist in your handbook.
• Wrong jurisdictional rules: It might provide US leave requirements to a UK employee, or ignore GDPR obligations for European workers.
• Missing role-specific nuances: Manager approval thresholds differ from IC thresholds. Executives have different expense limits. Contractors have differentbenefits. Generic AI doesn't know this.
• Outdated information: Policies change. Generic AI is frozen in time, unaware of your latest handbook updates.
The consequences aren't trivial. Employees acting on incorrect AI guidance can violate compliance requirements, create legal exposure, or make costly mistakes with company resources. HR spends time correcting misconceptions instead of focusing on strategic work.
The Solution: A Context-Engineered Policy Intelligence (RAG for HR)
Policy Navigator is a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) system purpose-built forHR policy questions. Unlike generic AI, it's grounded in your organization's actualpolicies, processes, and context.
How It Works: Context Blocks That Power Accurate HR AI
• Your policies are structured into Context Blocks: The system uses theKendall Framework's 10-layer BOM architecture to organize your employee handbook, policies, and procedures into AI-interpretable context.
• Location-aware answers: The Location context block ensures US employees get US-specific guidance while EU employees receive GDPR-compliant answers.
• Role-based precision: The Roles context block differentiates between managers, ICs, executives, and contractors, providing answers tailored to each person's authority and entitlements.
• Rules engine integration: The Rules context block captures conditional logic ("if remote worker in California, then...") so the AI navigates edge cases accurately.
• Consistent terminology: The Glossary context block defines company-specific terms, abbreviations, and concepts to prevent ambiguity.
Business Impact: Reduced Compliance Risk and HR Workload
Policy Navigator transforms how organizations handle policy questions:
• For employees: Instant, accurate answers to policy questions without hunting through handbooks or waiting for HR. Confidence that guidance is correct and applicable to their specific situation.
• For HR teams: Dramatic reduction in repetitive policy questions. More time for strategic initiatives like talent development and culture building.
• For the organization: Reduced compliance risk from employees acting on incorrect information. Faster decision-making across the company. Better policy adherence when guidance is accessible and clear.
The User Story
As an employee, when I need to understand a company policy but can't find a clear answer in the handbook, I need accurate, context-specific policy guidance, so that I can take the right action without waiting for HR or risking a policy violation.
Essential Context Blocks for HR Policy Automation
Policy Navigator requires these Context Blocks from the Kendall Framework:
Why This Matters for Enterprise AI Strategy
HR is ground zero for AI waste. Employees need policy guidance constantly, butgeneric AI assistants create more problems than they solve. They hallucinate rules, ignore jurisdictional differences, and provide confident wrong answers that put companies at legal risk.
Policy Navigator demonstrates the fundamental principle behind all 100 AI Assistants in this series: generic AI fails in enterprise environments because it lacks operational context. Only context-engineered RAG systems can deliver the accuracy, reliability, and specificity that high-stakes business problems demand.
Implementation Roadmap: Deploying HR RAG the Right Way
Building Policy Navigator follows the Kendall Context Sprint methodology:
• Context Sprint with HR: Work with HR leaders to identify the most common policy questions and the conditional logic that makes them complex.
• Structure your policies: Organize your employee handbook into the four essential Context Blocks (Glossary, Rules, Roles, Locations).
• Deploy and test: Start with a pilot group, validate answers against known policy interpretations, and refine context based on edge cases.
• Scale to the organization: Once accuracy is validated, roll out to all employees and integrate with your existing HR systems.
What’s Next in the 100 AI Assistants Series
Policy Navigator is the first of 100 AI Assistants selected for their high stakes, high context dependency, and high variability domains where wrong answers create real consequences. Each assistant in this series demonstrates how context-engineered RAG systems solve problems that generic AI cannot.