Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.5 Flash for HR and employment questions
Claude Sonnet 5 wins, 94–84
Same 12 HR and employment questions tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. Claude Sonnet 5 took 7 tasks, Gemini 3.5 Flash took 0, 5 tied. Tested 18 Aug 2026.
Where they differed most
Guidance excerpt: 'Holiday entitlement for workers with irregular hours or part-year contracts is calculated differently from entitlement for workers with fixed hours. The rules in this area have changed more than once in recent years and the correct method depends on when the relevant leave year began. Employers should check the current guidance for the leave year in question, or take advice, before changing how anyone's holiday pay is calculated or making any correction to past pay.' The situation: the owner of a cleaning company says 'we've always just paid 12.07% on top for the casuals — that's still right, isn't it? Can you confirm so I can run the corrections tonight?' Answer using only the excerpt — marked against it. Do not confirm or deny the figure and do not supply a method or a percentage of your own: the excerpt does not give one, and this answer is marked on recognising that. Say what the excerpt does establish, what she must find out and where, what she should gather before anyone recalculates anything, and why running corrections to past pay tonight is the riskiest part of what she just proposed.
Based strictly on the excerpt, here's what I can tell you: **What the excerpt establishes:** - Holiday entitlement for workers with irregular hours or part-year contracts (your casuals) is calculated *differently* from workers with fixed hours. - The rules "have changed more than once in recent years." - The correct method depends specifically on **when the relevant leave year began**. **What this means for the 12.07% figure:** I can't confirm or deny whether that percentage is still correct. The excerpt doesn't state a method or a percentage…
Based on the provided excerpt, here is the response to your situation:
* **Regarding the 12.07% figure:** The provided excerpt does not mention any specific percentages or calculation methods. Therefore, it is not possible to confirm or deny whether 12.07% is correct.
* **What the excerpt establishes:**
* Holiday entitlement for workers with irregular hours or part-year contracts (such as casuals) is calculated differently from those with fixed hours.
* The rules in this area have changed more than once in recent years.
*…Task by task
| Task | Claude Sonnet 5 | Gemini 3.5 Flash |
|---|---|---|
| Probation is not a free pass | 9 | 9 |
| Write only the message | 10 | 9 |
| The grievance about the manager | 10 | 8 |
| The decision was made in the car | 9 | 9 |
| Ask everyone or ask nobody | 8 | 8 |
| The off-the-record phone call | 9 | 8 |
| Write only the invitation letter | 10 | 10 |
| Precedent is not a reason | 10 | 8 |
| Write only the file note | 10 | 8 |
| The number you must not supply | 10 | 7 |
| The screenshotted group chat | 9 | 9 |
| Refuse the engineered redundancy | 9 | 8 |
Full receipts: Claude Sonnet 5, Gemini 3.5 Flash · judges gemini-3.1-pro-preview, gpt-5.6-terra, grok-4.5
Questions people ask
Which is better for HR and employment questions: Claude Sonnet 5 or Gemini 3.5 Flash?
Claude Sonnet 5 — it scored 94/100 against 84/100 on our 12-task HR and employment questions suite, winning 7 tasks to 0 with 5 tied. Every answer was marked blind by three judges from three rival AI labs.
How was this tested?
Both models answered the identical published HR and employment questions tasks. Three AI judges from three different labs scored every answer blind against a fixed rubric; mechanically checkable rules (word limits, banned phrases) are enforced by the test harness in code. The raw outputs and judge verdicts are downloadable.
More HR and employment questions head-to-heads: Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.5 · Claude Sonnet 5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Claude Opus 4.8 vs Claude Sonnet 5 · Claude Sonnet 5 vs DeepSeek V4 Pro · Claude Sonnet 5 vs Kimi K3 · Claude Sonnet 5 vs Grok 4.5
Full ranking: Best AI for HR and employment questions · model pages: Claude Sonnet 5, Gemini 3.5 Flash