As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly create a competency framework.

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 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current job descriptions, performance review guidance, values, business priorities and training materials, and remove confidential personal information.
   2. Group the documents by job family and note which roles have different levels of responsibility, decision-making or technical requirements.
   3. Paste the material into the prompt, replacing each bracketed section with your organisation's facts and stating where information is missing.
   4. Ask the chatbot to produce the framework, then copy the competencies, behaviours, proficiency levels and role mapping into a document for discussion.
   5. Compare every competency and example against the actual work done in each role, deleting criteria that cannot be evidenced or that describe personality rather than work behaviour.
   6. Ask managers and employees from each job family to test two or three competencies against real work examples, and record any unclear, duplicated or unfair criteria.
   7. Have your HR lead check the draft against your performance, equality and reasonable-adjustment processes before approving a pilot.
   8. Run the framework in a limited review or development cycle, compare feedback from different groups, amend the wording, and only then publish the final version.

   Prompt

   Create a draft competency framework for [organisation or department] in the UK. The framework will be used for [performance reviews, recruitment, training, career progression or other purpose]. Use the information below and do not invent organisational facts.
   
   Organisation context:
   [Paste business priorities, values, customer or service requirements, and relevant strategy]
   
   Roles covered:
   [List the roles or job families, including differences in responsibility]
   
   Existing material:
   [Paste job descriptions, performance criteria, training requirements, policies and examples of good work]
   
   Create 6 to 10 competencies that are relevant across these roles, plus role-specific competencies where needed. For each competency, provide: a plain-English definition, why it matters, observable behaviours, examples of evidence, and four proficiency levels from developing to advanced. Make the levels progressively more demanding and distinguish behaviour from results that depend on resources or circumstances. Avoid personality labels, stereotypes and criteria that could disadvantage people because of disability, race, sex, age, religion, pregnancy, caring responsibilities or other protected characteristics under UK law. Do not present this as legal advice.
   
   Also provide a mapping table showing which competencies apply to each role, a short list of overlaps or gaps, five questions to test the framework with managers and employees, and a pilot plan for testing it before adoption. Mark assumptions and areas that need a human decision. Keep the wording specific enough to support consistent evidence-based discussions, but do not turn the framework into a scoring system unless the supplied material requires one.

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