When an HR agent drafts a policy update from Workday employee data, the draft, the reasoning, and the human approval belong in Dock. Workday stays the source of truth for the worker record. Dock becomes the system of record for what the agent interpreted, what an HR business partner approved, and what was published to Lattice. The result: a policy update with a name attached to every decision, ready for audit.
Workday HRIS and Lattice stay the system of record for the raw data: worker profiles, job changes, headcount, performance cycles. Dock is the system of record for what the AGENT INTERPRETS from that data. Each Dock row carries a pointer back to the platform record (workday_worker_id, lattice_cycle_id), the agent identity that drafted, the HR reviewer who approved, the decision text, and the timestamp. The agent re-fetches Workday and Lattice through fresh API reads whenever it needs current state, so stale snapshots never become policy.
The Dock surface: a policy review table
| policy_id | workday_worker_id | trigger | agent_draft | drafted_by | hr_reviewer | status | published_to |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| POL-2026-041 | wd_7714 | Manager span > 12 reports | Reorg memo: split team under wd_7714 into two pods, update reporting lines effective 2026-06-15 | agent:hr-policy-bot | Priya Shah | approved | Lattice 2026-05-29 |
| POL-2026-042 | wd_4420 | Promotion to People Manager | Manager onboarding plan + updated comp band reference | agent:hr-policy-bot | Marcus Lee | pending review | n/a |
| POL-2026-043 | wd_8855 | Leave return after 14 weeks | Reintegration plan, 30-60-90 milestones, Lattice goals refresh | agent:hr-policy-bot | Priya Shah | approved | Lattice 2026-05-30 |
Each row is the agent's interpretation, not the Workday record. The Workday record is one fresh API call away.
The workflow
The HR policy agent runs nightly. It pulls Workday worker events from the last 24 hours, identifies triggers that require a policy response (span-of-control thresholds, promotions, leave returns), and drafts the corresponding memo. The draft lands in a new Dock row with status: pending review and a link to the source Workday record. Priya, the HR business partner, opens the row, reads the draft, edits two sentences, and clicks approve. Approval is the consent gate. Only after approval does Dock call the Lattice API and post the update to the relevant goal or review cycle. The published_to column writes the Lattice timestamp back. If Priya rejects, the row stays in Dock with her reasoning and never touches Lattice.
Why this matters
Policy updates that originate from agents need a named human decision behind them. SHRM's HR practice guidance positions employee handbook and policy review as a recurring obligation that organizations document and update as conditions change (SHRM). When the drafter is an agent, the documentation has to include who the agent was and who approved its output. Dock makes that the default row shape.
Workday describes its platform as enabling "human-AI collaboration" across HR functions (Workday). Collaboration assumes a place where the agent's draft and the human's edit live side by side. Workday is not that place. Dock is.
The audit story is the same story for agent audit and compliance across every function: the platform holds the record, Dock holds the interpretation. When auditors ask why a manager's span was restructured in May, the answer is one Dock row, one workday_worker_id, one named reviewer.
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FAQ
Does Dock replace Workday for HR teams? No. Workday remains the system of record for employee data. Dock holds the agent-drafted interpretations, the HR review, and the published-back trail. See Dock for HR.
How does the agent prove it was the drafter? Through agent identity. Every row stamps the agent's identifier, so the audit trail distinguishes agent drafts from human drafts permanently.
What happens when the agent's credentials rotate? Identity persists across credential rotation. The lifecycle is covered in agent identity lifecycle, and the principle generalizes to hiring workflows where the same agent runs across quarters.
Can the agent publish to Lattice without HR review? Not by default. The approval column is a hard gate. The agent drafts, the reviewer approves, and only then does Dock call the Lattice API.
