As of 13 August 2026, AI can create a pay review policy for your UK staff.

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 handbook, employment contracts, pay bands, appraisal process and any existing equality or data-handling policies, then copy only the relevant wording into a working document.
   2. Gather the decisions the policy must reflect, including the review cycle, eligible staff, evidence used, approval route, budget limits, treatment of promotions and how employees can raise a concern.
   3. Paste those details into the prompt, replacing every bracketed slot and removing any employee names, health information or other unnecessary personal data.
   4. Ask the chatbot to produce the policy, implementation checklist and questions for a UK employment solicitor or qualified HR adviser as specified in the prompt.
   5. Compare every operational statement in the draft with your actual payroll, appraisal, approval and communication processes, and change any statement your organisation cannot deliver.
   6. Check the flagged legal areas against current GOV.UK and ACAS guidance, then send the draft and its flagged questions to a qualified HR adviser or UK employment solicitor where the policy affects contracts, equality risks or a serious dispute.
   7. Obtain approval from the accountable employer decision-maker, publish the final policy through your normal staff channel and record its owner, effective date and review date.

   Prompt

   Create a draft pay review policy for a UK employer using the information below.
   
   Employer: [organisation name]
   Business type and size: [description]
   Staff locations: [UK nations and any other locations]
   Review cycle: [for example, annual or twice yearly]
   Review date or month: [date or month]
   Who is eligible: [employee groups, excluding anyone who is not eligible]
   How performance is assessed: [process and evidence]
   How pay decisions are made: [decision-makers, criteria and approval stages]
   Budget or financial constraints: [details, or say none]
   How promotions and role changes are handled: [details]
   How employees are informed: [details]
   Appeal or query process: [details]
   Existing policies or contractual wording: [paste relevant text]
   Known pay structures, bands or allowances: [details]
   
   Write the policy in plain British English with headings and short paragraphs. Cover purpose, scope, principles, timing, eligibility, evidence, decision-making, calibration, equality and consistency checks, communication, effective dates, appeals, confidentiality and record keeping. Make clear whether a pay review guarantees an increase, and do not imply a contractual entitlement unless the supplied information supports that wording. Do not invent figures, benefits, legal requirements, processes or facts. Identify missing decisions as [ACTION REQUIRED]. Distinguish policy commitments from manager guidance. Flag any provision that should be checked against employment contracts, the Equality Act 2010, the National Minimum Wage rules, working time requirements, data protection duties or current UK guidance. Do not give a legal conclusion. At the end, provide a short implementation checklist and a separate list of questions for a UK employment solicitor or qualified HR adviser to answer. Use only the information supplied and clearly label anything that needs confirmation.

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