Onboard an HR reviewer by teaching them which HR work an agent may prepare and which it must never decide. The checklist sets confidentiality and red lines first, then shadowing on held letters and data requests, reviewer training and exam, a practicum covering contract changes and sensitive cases, a drill, and sign-off with defined approval rights.
What will an HR reviewer see from the agent?
An HR agent answers policy questions from employees, drafts offer letters and contract variations, records absence, prepares onboarding packs and handles requests for employment references. Answering questions and recording absence are depth 2 or 3. Sending an offer or a contract change is held, because once received it creates expectations that are hard to undo.
The data is the main hazard. HR records include health information, which is special-category data under GDPR, along with pay, performance and family details. An agent that drafts a reply to a request for a reference, or an employee's address, from someone outside the business must have it held until a person verifies the requester. And some decisions should never sit with an agent at all: disciplinary and grievance outcomes, dismissals, and rejecting a candidate. A reviewer who treats an agent's draft summary of a grievance as the finding has let the agent decide.
How should HR use the checklist?
The head of HR operations owns it. Run it in order. A new reviewer may not approve outbound letters until item 13. File the completed checklist with the reviewer's training record; employment disputes often turn on who decided what, and when. The general meaning of onboarding applies; this version adds the confidentiality layer. The overall training order is in the guide to training teams for AI agents.
The checklist
Before day one 1. Read-only workspace access, limited to the reviewer's employee population. 2. Confidentiality agreement and data protection briefing completed. 3. Agent capabilities read: policy answers (2), absence recording (3), offer and contract drafts (2, held), reference replies (held), onboarding packs (2). 4. Red lines signed: never send an offer or contract change unread; never release employee data to an external requester without verification; never treat an agent summary as the outcome of a disciplinary, grievance or candidate decision.
Week 1 5. Shadow a certified reviewer for two days. 6. See an external data request verified and refused. 7. See a contract variation corrected before sending.
Weeks 1 to 5 8. Shared foundation complete, test passed. 9. Reviewer modules complete, written exam passed.
Weeks 6 and 7 10. Practicum: two weeks of real held items, each confirmed by a buddy. 11. Coverage: an offer, a contract change, a reference request, and an employee message disclosing a health condition. 12. Incident drill completed.
Sign-off 13. Assessor sign-off; no missed red line. Approval rights recorded by letter type; renewal date set.
Worked example
An illustrative retailer with 3,000 staff brings Sample Reviewer U into its HR operations team. The agent drafts contract variations for changes in hours and holds every one.
In shadowing, Sample Reviewer U sees her buddy refuse a reference request emailed by a "letting agent" asking for an employee's salary; the address did not match the agency's known domain, and the employee had given no consent. She also sees a draft variation that reduced hours but kept the old holiday entitlement, which the buddy corrected.
Her practicum covers 65 held items. She corrects an offer letter whose start date conflicted with the candidate's notice period, holds a reference request until the employee confirms consent, and routes an employee's message mentioning a new diagnosis to the occupational health contact rather than letting the agent's standard reply go out. The drill follows how to run an AI agent incident drill for the HR team. She is signed off in week 7, with approval rights for variations and references but not for offers above a set grade during her first quarter.
Where the Academy fits
Pryme Intelligence Academy covers items 8, 9 and 13. Lessons and module tests are set in the learner's own industry and role, so an HR reviewer meets HR cases. Foundations is free; Operator certification is valid 12 months and renewed with an update module and a short quiz. The method for teaching HR review day to day is in how to train the HR team to review AI agent decisions.
Questions people ask
Can the HR agent screen job applications?
It can organise them and summarise them against stated criteria, but rejecting a candidate should stay with a person. Treat any rejection as held, and train reviewers to read the application, not only the summary.
Is HR review similar to fraud review?
Both deal with verifying who is asking for what. The reviewer onboarding checklist for the fraud team goes deeper on impersonation and pressure.
What about HR reviewers in lending businesses?
Their HR work is the same, but they may also handle staff loans or salary advances. Those follow money rules closer to the reviewer onboarding checklist for the lending team.