Use cases · People
HR work an AI worker can prepare, and where it must stop
Scheduling, onboarding logistics, policy drafts and review-cycle admin, prepared by a worker. Every decision about a person stays with a person.
What the worker does
Polaris gives a people team an AI worker for the administrative half of HR: scheduling interviews across calendars, running the onboarding checklist, drafting policy documents, summarizing applications against written criteria, and chasing a performance review cycle to completion. The worker uses Gmail, Google Calendar, Slack and Google Drive. Hiring, firing, pay and performance decisions are made by humans and are never delegated to a worker.
- Connections used
- Gmail · Google Calendar · Slack · Drive
- Decisions delegated
- None
- Software cost
- $0, no seats
- Work cost
- ~$2 per human-hour delivered
HR is two jobs and only one of them can be handed over
One job is judgment about people: who to hire, what someone is paid, whether a performance concern is real, how to handle a grievance. That job carries legal exposure and moral weight, and it belongs to a named human being every time.
The other job is logistics. Finding a slot that works across four calendars. Making sure the laptop, the accounts and the first-week meetings exist before someone's first Monday. Chasing eleven managers for review forms. Keeping a policy document current and versioned.
The second job is enormous, unglamorous, and the reason the first job gets done badly when a people team is stretched. That is what a worker takes.
The five people-operations jobs covered here
Candidate screening
Structured summaries of applications against the criteria you wrote down, with no score, no ranking and no rejection.
Employee onboarding
The pre-start checklist run to completion so week one is not an apology.
Interview scheduling
The calendar puzzle solved and the invites drafted, including the reschedules.
Policy documentation
Drafts and updates in versioned docs, with the diff visible and a named approver.
Performance review cycles
The cycle chased and the packets assembled. The ratings and the conversations are the manager's.
Written into every HR worker's brief
This split is not advisory. Put it in the SKILL.md so it is visible to everyone who reads the worker's capabilities.
The worker may
- Summarize what a document says
- Check whether stated criteria are evidenced
- Schedule, chase, remind and assemble
- Draft text for a human to approve and send
- Report who has not responded
The worker may not
- Score, rank or shortlist a person
- Reject, hire, promote or set pay
- Assess performance
- Send anything to a candidate or an employee
- Close its own task
What each job needs and what comes back
| Job | Connections | Delivered as |
|---|---|---|
| Candidate screening | Gmail, Google Drive | One structured summary per application, unranked |
| Employee onboarding | Slack, Google Calendar, Gmail | A per-hire checklist with owners and a daily status |
| Interview scheduling | Google Calendar, Gmail | Proposed slots plus drafted invites and confirmations |
| Policy documentation | Docs, Google Drive, web search | A versioned draft with the changes marked |
| Performance review cycles | Google Calendar, Gmail, Docs | Completion tracker plus an assembled packet per person |
HR use cases in detail
Application summaries, not candidate scores
A worker reads every application in the same shape against the criteria you published. It does not rank anyone, and it does not reject anyone.
Onboarding that is finished before the first Monday
Nobody's first day should start with an apology about accounts. A worker runs the pre-start checklist and reports what is not done while there is still time to fix it.
Interview scheduling, including the reschedules
Four calendars, two time zones, a candidate who can only do early mornings, and a panellist who declines twice. This is the job.
Policy documents that stay current and show their changes
A policy nobody has updated in three years is worse than no policy. A worker keeps the drafts moving and the versions visible. A qualified adviser signs them off.
Review cycles that finish, without a worker forming an opinion
The administration of a review cycle is enormous and the judgment inside it is entirely human. A worker takes the first part and touches none of the second.
Questions people ask
+Can an AI worker decide who to interview?
No, and it should not be asked to. It can summarize each application against the criteria you published for the role, in the same shape for every candidate, so a human comparing them is comparing like with like. The shortlist is a human decision with a human's name on it.
+Do employees know when a worker touched their file?
Everything a worker does is a task with a comment thread and a work log entry showing what it read and produced. That record is the honest answer to the question, and it is more of an audit trail than most manual HR admin leaves behind.
+Is a people team big enough to justify this?
The teams that get the most out of it are the ones with no dedicated people team at all, where a founder or an office manager is doing onboarding between other work. Polaris is free for unlimited people, so the cost is only the hours the worker delivers.
+What connections does an HR worker actually need?
Usually Google Calendar and Gmail for scheduling, Slack for chasing, and Google Drive for documents. The catalog is fixed and there is no HR information system in it, so a worker never has direct access to a payroll or HRIS record.
Related
Application summaries, not candidate scores
A worker reads every application in the same shape against the criteria you published. It does not rank anyone, and it does not reject anyone.
Onboarding that is finished before the first Monday
Nobody's first day should start with an apology about accounts. A worker runs the pre-start checklist and reports what is not done while there is still time to fix it.
Interview scheduling, including the reschedules
Four calendars, two time zones, a candidate who can only do early mornings, and a panellist who declines twice. This is the job.
Hire an AI recruiter
Every candidate is scored against the same written rubric, and the rubric is a file your hiring manager wrote and can change.
Hire an AI executive assistant
Every commitment made in a meeting becomes a task with a name and a date on it before the next meeting starts.
Connect Google Calendar to Polaris
Scheduling is the one thing an assistant is asked for first, and it is the one connection still waiting on Google sign-in.
Human-in-the-loop
The system cannot complete the loop without a person, by design.
Polaris for startups
Your next hire takes about sixty seconds and costs nothing in the weeks it has nothing to do.