White paper
Designing AI-led conversations for HR
A field guide for People teams. Turn one HR question into a focused pilot with conversation prompts, a review method and templates you can put to work.
- A 30-day pilot
- Agree the decision, rehearse the conversation, gather input, review the evidence and decide whether to continue.
- Worked examples
- See how to follow up on a store handover and keep employee and manager observations separate in a review.
- Three reusable templates
- Adapt the pilot brief, participant invitation and end-of-pilot review to your workflow.
In practice
How the work comes together
Days 1 to 5. Scope
Name the owner and decision. Agree the participants, baseline and boundaries for the pilot.
Days 6 to 10. Rehearse
Run practice conversations with typical, contradictory and out-of-scope answers. Check accessibility and traceability.
Days 11 to 20. Gather
Invite participants through the agreed channels and check which groups are represented.
Days 21 to 30. Review and decide
Check findings, capture corrections, choose whether to continue and tell participants what happens next.
Start with a decision the team can make
A campaign is easier to design when the decision comes first. Write down what a named owner needs to decide, what evidence is missing and which people can speak from experience. A review pilot might help a manager and employee agree on one development priority. A team campaign might help an operations lead decide which handover change to test.
Ask for a recent example
Start with the last time the participant saw the issue in a defined period. Follow up on what they observed, what happened next and what was different on a better occasion. If an employee describes their contribution and a manager describes the effect they saw, preserve both accounts in the review brief. Give each person a chance to clarify what was recorded.
Review findings with the evidence at hand
Check coverage across the roles, locations or shifts you intended to hear from. Review the accounts behind the main themes and look for differences that change the conclusion. Record which themes are supported, which are hypotheses and who can test the next step.
Plan for privacy, access and escalation
Document what the pilot collects, who reviews it, what participants are told and how long the material is kept. Try the experience on the devices and with the input options people need. Provide a route for sensitive or urgent issues. If the intended use changes, have the relevant specialists assess the new scope before proceeding.
Decide before launch what will count as a result
In a fictional two-site pilot, an operations owner needs to choose one handover improvement. Before inviting anyone, the owner sets three checks: the intended shifts are represented, each claim used in the decision can be checked against an original account, and the reviewer can reconcile a contradictory case. Track the staff time spent on invitations, review, corrections and the decision. Compare the total with the existing process over a similar scope.
At the review, 10 of 16 invitees took part. Nine of the 10 came from day shifts, so the owner records a gap in evening coverage. Four of five proposed claims can be checked and the fifth is held for clarification. The owner approves a small change for the day team and asks for evening-shift follow-ups before extending it. These numbers illustrate a decision process. Set your own thresholds in advance, including circumstances that require a pause.
Frequently asked questions
Questions that come up
Who is the guide for?
People leaders, HR business partners and operations teams designing a focused conversation campaign for performance review preparation, team development or knowledge sharing.
What should the team measure?
Choose measures before launch. The guide covers participation across intended groups, the quality of examples, usefulness to the decision owner, total effort and participant experience.
Can I read the guide without booking a demo?
Yes. The full ten-page PDF is available to download directly.
Talk to Lontra HR
Bring one real HR question.
See how a first campaign could work for your team.