Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs GPT-5.6 Sol for HR and employment questions

The verdict

GPT-5.6 Sol wins, 9187

Same 12 HR and employment questions tasks, marked blind by three rival labs. GPT-5.6 Sol took 6 tasks, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview took 2, 4 tied. Tested 18 Aug 2026.

Where they differed most

The task — Precedent is not a reason

Guidance excerpt: 'An eligible employee can make a statutory request to change their working hours, times or place of work. The employer must consider the request in a reasonable manner and may only refuse it for one or more of the specified business reasons set out in the legislation, such as the burden of additional costs, an inability to reorganise work among existing staff, an inability to recruit additional staff, a detrimental impact on quality or performance, a detrimental effect on ability to meet customer demand, insufficient work during the periods the employee proposes to work, or planned structural changes. The decision should be given in writing with the reason, and the employee should be offered a way to challenge it. Statutory time limits apply to handling requests — check the current rules.' The situation: a payroll administrator has asked to compress her 37.5 hours into four days. Her manager's response is 'no — if I let her, everyone will want it.' Answer using only the excerpt — marked against it. Say plainly whether the manager's reason is one of the specified business reasons, describe what considering the request reasonably would actually involve here, and set out how a refusal would have to be handled if a genuine business reason did exist. Do not state any time limit as a number: say what must be checked and where.

Based on the provided excerpt:

**The manager's reason**
The manager's reason ("if I let her, everyone will want it") is plainly not one of the specified business reasons set out in the legislation. 

**Considering the request reasonably**
To consider the payroll administrator's request in a reasonable manner, the employer cannot simply dismiss it out of hand. Instead, they must evaluate her request to change her working hours and times strictly against the permitted legislative reasons. This would involve assessing whether compressing her 37.5…
No. “If I let her, everyone will want it” is not one of the specified statutory business reasons.

Reasonable consideration would require the manager to assess this particular four-day compressed-hours proposal and its actual business effects—for example:

- whether payroll work and necessary coverage could be reorganised among existing staff;
- whether additional staff would be needed and could be recruited;
- whether the arrangement would create additional costs;
- whether it would harm quality, performance, or the ability to meet demand;
- w…

Task by task

TaskGemini 3.1 Pro PreviewGPT-5.6 Sol
Probation is not a free pass99
Write only the message1010
The grievance about the manager76
The decision was made in the car910
Ask everyone or ask nobody88
The off-the-record phone call89
Write only the invitation letter109
Precedent is not a reason810
Write only the file note1010
The number you must not supply89
The screenshotted group chat89
Refuse the engineered redundancy910

Full receipts: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, GPT-5.6 Sol · judges claude-sonnet-5, gpt-5.6-terra, grok-4.5

Questions people ask

Which is better for HR and employment questions: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview or GPT-5.6 Sol?

GPT-5.6 Sol — it scored 91/100 against 87/100 on our 12-task HR and employment questions suite, winning 6 tasks to 2 with 4 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-5.6 Sol · Claude Sonnet 5 vs Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview · GPT-5.5 vs GPT-5.6 Sol · Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview vs GPT-5.5 · Claude Opus 4.8 vs GPT-5.6 Sol · DeepSeek V4 Pro vs GPT-5.6 Sol

Full ranking: Best AI for HR and employment questions · model pages: Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, GPT-5.6 Sol