Confirm that the instructions actually overlap
Identify the situation the employee is asking about and the scope of each document. Different rules may apply to separate teams, locations or periods without conflicting. Record those distinctions before labelling the material inconsistent. Keep the question and source passages together so the reviewer can compare them. If the employee context is unclear, ask a focused clarification rather than assuming the broadest rule applies. The first task is to describe the apparent conflict accurately.
Collect versions and ownership information
Record the document titles, versions, status and named owners where available. A later upload date alone does not establish that one instruction supersedes another. A summary page may also omit a condition found in the approved policy. Keep both sources accessible to authorised reviewers through the normal workspace. Do not silently remove the less convenient source before the business has assessed it. Missing ownership information is itself a review item that needs an accountable person.
Describe the exact point needing a decision
Write a short comparison of what each passage says and why the difference matters for the question. Avoid a general alert that policies disagree when the conflict concerns one approval step. Do not propose a compromise rule as though it already exists. Separate what the source establishes from any interpretation supplied by staff. The review request should help the policy owner make a specific decision without asking them to reconstruct the whole conversation or search the collection again.
Give the employee a truthful interim response
Use owner-approved wording that explains the available sources do not support one settled answer. Provide any unaffected information that is useful and the appropriate staff review route. Do not imply the business has rejected a request when it has only identified a policy uncertainty. Avoid promising a response time unless the receiving team has accepted it. If an existing approved fallback process applies, point to it accurately without creating an alternative procedure through the assistant response.
Rehearse a fictional approval conflict
In a fictional company, a staff handbook says equipment requests go to a team leader while a departmental guide names an operations manager. The assistant records both passages and refers the question to the designated policy owner. The owner confirms that the departmental guide is outdated and approves its correction. The test checks that the interim answer did not choose a manager itself and that the revised answer points to the approved instruction after the source update.
Verify the resolution reaches the knowledge service
Record the owner decision, affected sources and approved update. Check that the running service uses the intended material and does not continue combining the old and new instructions. Repeat the original question and a related case outside the affected scope. Keep any remaining update or distribution work assigned to an owner. Closing the review means the defined conflict has an authorised resolution and checked source state, not that all internal policies have been reconciled.