Bramble & Co.
Three hundred people, one people team of four.
Bramble & Co. advises owner-managed businesses on tax, audit and the awkward years in between. Four people look after everyone else: contracts, payroll, benefits, the handbook and the hard conversations. The desk below takes the repetitive half of that off them.
- OfficesBristol and Leeds, two anchor days a week
- People teamFour, plus a payroll partner on call
- Leave year1 January to 31 December, 27 days plus 8 public holidays
- Pay dayThe 26th, or the working day before
Every plan, and what it costs you a month
Contributions come out of gross pay by salary sacrifice, so the real cost is lower than the figure shown. Bram quotes from exactly this table — not from a guess at what a firm this size "usually" offers.
| Plan | What it covers | You pay / month | The firm pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Health EssentialsBR-HEA-E | Consultations, diagnostics, in-patient and day-patient treatment, a 24-hour nurse line.Everyone enrolled from month one, no excess. | £0 | £64 |
| Health PlusBR-HEA-P | Essentials extended to a partner or a family, plus outpatient mental-health cover with no session cap.£42 adds a partner, £78 covers a family. | £42–£78 | £64 |
| Dental & OpticalBR-DEN | Two check-ups and a hygienist visit, £450 of treatment, an eye test and £120 towards screen glasses.Claims back within 10 working days. | £9 | £11 |
| PensionBR-PEN | Salary sacrifice. You put in 5% and the firm adds 6%; go to 8% and the firm matches it.Percentages of salary, changeable any month before the 12th. | 5–8% | 6–8% |
| Income protection & lifeBR-INC | 75% of salary after 13 weeks unable to work, until you return or retire, plus life cover of 4x salary.No medical questions under 45. | £0 | £38 |
| Wellbeing allowanceBR-WEL | A gym, a class, a therapist, a bike service, running shoes — claimed as an expense.Unused months do not roll over. | £0 | £40 |
| Learning fundBR-LRN | £1,200 a year for a course, a conference or a qualification, with 5 study days and the exam days on top.Agreed with your manager before booking; resets in January. | £0 | £100 |
| Cycle to workBR-CYC | A bike and kit up to £2,500 by salary sacrifice over 12 or 24 months.Open all year, not only in October. | Varies | Scheme fees |
October clinics
Open enrolment runs 1–21 October; a partner from the provider sits in the Leeds room for three of those afternoons.
£350 for a home desk
A chair, a desk or a monitor every three years, claimed as an expense with a receipt.
The learning fund
£1,200 a year, five study days, and the exam days do not come out of your holiday.
Asking for a week should take one message.
Tell Bram the dates and it opens a short form in the chat — type of leave, first day, last day, a line for your approver — one tap to send, instead of a back-and-forth about what it needs to know.
What the handbook says
- 27 days plus 8 public holidays, accruing 2.25 days a month.
- Up to 5 days carry over, and lapse on 31 March.
- An approver answers within 2 working days; over 10 days in a row needs 4 weeks' notice.
- Sickness is self-certified for 7 days; a fit note from day 8 goes to the people team, not your team.
- 2 volunteering days and 5 study days a year, on top of annual leave.
Two anchor days
Tuesday and Thursday in Bristol or Leeds; client work always comes first.
20 days abroad
Work from another country for up to 20 working days a year, with three weeks' notice for the tax check.
Parental leave
26 weeks at full pay for the primary carer, 8 for the second, and a phased four-day first month back.
The dates that decide when money moves
Salaries land on the 26th, or the last working day before it. Anything that changes a payslip — an expense claim, a benefit choice, a new bank account — has to be with payroll by the 12th to make that run. Bram works these out live rather than reading a fixed list.
What it looks like beside the work
Bramble & Co.'s Microsoft Teams app is still being set up, so the pane below is not a recording and not a mock-up: it is the exact live assistant, dressed the way the conversation will look in a Teams chat the moment that app is connected.
Everything in this pane runs on Bram's real brain, the same handbook, the same benefit table and the same leave tools as the sections above — only the wrapper changes. Ask about carry-over, request a week off, or ask for a person, right here.
This becomes a real Teams chat soonThe "Open in Teams" button at the top does the same thing until the app is connected — it brings you here. No app handle or deep link is invented in the meantime.
What changes once the app is connected
Same brain, same handbook, same tools as the pane above — reached the way a Microsoft Teams app actually works.
An admin installs it once
The firm's IT administrator approves the app for the organisation and pins it to the chat rail. Nobody else installs anything, and the desk never messages first.
The conversation arrives as an event
A message to the app is delivered to its endpoint, verified, and becomes a visitor turn with the same tool floor as this web chat — no platform tools ever reach an employee.
Who is asking travels with it
The signed-in work identity is carried through, so a leave balance answers for that person and nobody else, exactly as the sign-in below does here.
Everything above, and why it works
Nine things this page genuinely does, each with the exact doc for adding it to your own site.
The chat, from one script tag
The bubble in the corner — and the pane above — is the live product on a workspace of its own. One line of HTML put it there.
Grounded in the handbook
The leave rules, the plan costs and the payroll dates on this page were published to the workspace as text. Answers quote them; anything outside gets an honest "I don't know".
It can work the page
This site publishes its own actions — read the plan table, work out a pay date, search a policy, open the leave form. Ask for one and watch it happen.
It reaches the systems behind the page
Bramble & Co. runs a small MCP server of its own, connected to the workspace. The benefit table, the payroll calendar and the leave book come from there over HTTPS — the same answer whether or not this tab is open.
How to add this to your site →It knows who's asking
Sign in as the demo employee below and Bram can pull up that person's own balance, carry-over and booked days — for them and nobody else.
It asks with a form
When the desk needs details — dates, a leave type, a note for the approver — an action card appears inside the message with fields and one button, rather than a list of things to type.
A person can take over
Anything personal or contested belongs with a human. Ask for one and the thread lands in the people team's inbox mid-conversation — the same hand-off works in a Teams chat once it is connected.
Useful before anyone signs in
Signed out, the handbook, the plan costs and the pay dates all still answer — to a person and to any agent. Only somebody's own record waits for proof of who is asking.
Readable without a browser
An agent that never renders this page can still work with it: a plain-text brief, a tool manifest, and the live schema behind every leave request.
The six layers, checked →Two checkers grade any address, this page included: one scores how ready a site is for AI agents, the other lists the tools a page publishes.
Sign in and Bram already knows your balance
A throwaway demo employee is provided — no password, no real person, no real record.
Demo employee: Priya Nair, id E-20417, Advisory in Bristol — 27 days plus 4 carried over, 12.5 taken, a week booked in October. A throwaway public demo identity, not a real person.
Shorter than finding the PDF
"I asked what my carry-over was on the way to a client and had the answer before the train left. It used to be an email and a two-day wait."
"Adding my partner to the health plan took one message in October. It told me the cost, the deadline and what happens if I miss it."
"When I asked something I'd rather not put in writing, it stopped and offered me a person. That is exactly the right answer."
The five that fill the people team's inbox
- How many days carry into next year?
- Up to 5, and they must be taken by 31 March or they lapse. Ask Bram and it will tell you what is left on yours once you are signed in.
- When can I change my benefits?
- Open enrolment is 1–21 October, effective 1 November. New joiners have 30 days, and a life event — a birth, a marriage, a partner losing cover — allows a change within 60 days.
- I lost a receipt. Can I still claim?
- Under £10, yes. Over that, tell the people team what happened rather than guessing — it is usually fine, and the £30 overnight meal allowance never needs receipts.
- Can I work from another country for a month?
- Up to 20 working days a year, in a country on the approved list, with three weeks' notice so tax and insurance can be checked. Longer than that needs a conversation.
- Something personal has come up. Who do I talk to?
- A person, every time. Ask Bram for a people partner and the conversation moves to a named one the same day, in confidence.