AskHR, an HR assistant for Metso

The problem

Metso’s HR information on absences, payroll and benefits existed on the intranet, but employees found it hard to find or interpret. HR teams answered the same questions again and again by email, chat and phone, and the practices, regulations and languages differed from country to country.

What we did

We started with a simple proof of concept, then ran a four-country pilot that put two options side by side: an off-the-shelf product in two countries and an assistant tailored by Solita in the other two. The tailored assistant won on fit with Metso’s technology and on cost of scaling globally. It runs on Microsoft Azure’s AI platform and is connected to Metso’s case management system.

Much of the work wasn’t the model. Intranet content had to be restructured for AI use, and each new country gets a ready set of test questions to check its content before launch, so new markets can be onboarded largely through automation.

Results

After six months in the first 19 countries, more than 40% of the target group had used AskHR, and about 80% of the feedback on answers was positive.

What I learned

“Everyone understood that some things might not work at first.” Agreeing on that up front is what let us test, find problems and fix them as we went, instead of defending a plan.

Read Solita’s case study, or watch the fireside chat with Metso on productizing GenAI.