As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create a coaching plan for an employee.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current role description, objectives, relevant workplace policy and any existing performance notes, and remove unrelated personal information.
   2. Gather dated, factual examples of the work or behaviour that needs development, the expected standard, the employee's strengths and any support already offered.
   3. Ask the employee what they think is affecting performance and record agreed constraints or training needs without presenting assumptions as facts.
   4. Paste the role, evidence, expectations, support, timescales and policy details into the prompt, then ask the chatbot to produce the coaching plan.
   5. Compare every objective and proposed action with the role requirements, your evidence and the current workplace process, and delete anything the source material does not support.
   6. Ask a colleague or HR contact to check the plan for consistency, confidentiality, reasonable support and any risk that it could be treated as an undisclosed disciplinary process.
   7. Discuss the checked draft with the employee, amend agreed actions and dates, then send the final plan and schedule the review meetings.

   Prompt

   Create a practical coaching plan for an employee in the UK. Use only the information supplied below and mark any missing information as a question rather than guessing. This is a development plan, not a disciplinary decision or legal opinion.
   
   Employee role: [role and level]
   Relevant responsibilities: [responsibilities]
   Development goal: [specific outcome]
   Observed behaviour or performance gap: [dated, factual examples]
   Expected standard: [role requirement, target or agreed objective]
   Strengths to build on: [strengths]
   Possible causes or constraints already discussed: [causes or constraints]
   Support available: [training, shadowing, mentoring, resources]
   Time available: [time]
   Review period: [period]
   Relevant workplace policies or process: [policy or process]
   
   Produce:
   1. A short, neutral summary of the development need, separating facts from assumptions.
   2. Two to four measurable coaching objectives linked to the expected standard.
   3. For each objective, specific actions for the manager and employee, support needed, evidence of progress, owner and target date.
   4. A simple review schedule with questions for each meeting.
   5. Risks, reasonable alternatives and information that must be checked with HR before using the plan.
   6. A short opening script for discussing the plan respectfully with the employee.
   
   Do not diagnose the employee, invent performance evidence, recommend unlawful treatment, label the plan as disciplinary, or make a final judgement about capability. Keep the tone direct, supportive and suitable for sharing with the employee.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.