If you’ve ever had an HR initiative stall at the exec table, you’re not alone. Whether it’s a new platform, a culture programme, or a performance process, senior leadership buy-in is often the hardest (and most important) win.
But here’s the good news: with the right strategic internal communications, you can turn your SLT from blockers to backers.
Senior leaders don’t ignore HR initiatives out of malice. More often, they:
Don’t understand the strategic value
Are focused on other business priorities
See HR as a cost centre, not a growth driver
Worry about time, disruption, or unclear ROI
It’s your job to close those gaps, and you do that through strategic, intentional, and tailored comms.
Strategic internal communications means more than just keeping people informed. It’s about shifting mindsets, aligning narratives, and making the invisible value of HR feel concrete.
For senior stakeholders, it means:
Speaking in outcomes, not outputs
Connecting initiatives to business priorities (think productivity, retention, compliance, or cost)
Providing clarity, confidence, and ongoing visibility
Don’t start with “we need to improve culture.” Start with:
“We’re seeing early signs of retention risk”
“Our managers are spending 2x longer onboarding without a process”
“This will save 25 hours of HR admin per month”
Make it commercial. Make it real.
No one wants a 40-slide deck. Build a tight, visual case with:
The problem
The solution (your initiative)
The benefits (tied to their KPIs)
The risks of doing nothing
A timeline and ask
Need help writing this? Thesmia.ai has prompts for that.
Prepare for objections like:
“What’s the ROI?”
“We’ve tried this before.”
“We can’t take on more right now.”
Respond with data, examples, and mitigations. Use quotes, pilot data, or external benchmarks to back it up.
Buy-in isn’t a one-time event, it’s a relationship. Plan a comms cadence that includes:
Monthly updates (1-pagers or slides)
Insight snapshots from the initiative
Wins and lessons learned
Briefs they can use in board updates
When senior leaders champion an initiative, it changes the tone. Coach them with:
Talking points
Scripts for videos or all-hands
A quick Loom or Q&A format
Make it easy for them to be visible, not just approving from the sidelines.
At Thesmia, we know how hard this is—so we’ve built prompts specifically for senior leadership buy-in. You can:
✅ Get strategy prompts for your HR tech, programme or process
✅ Draft business cases in 5 slides or less
✅ Build influence plans with comms cadences, stakeholder briefings and exec updates
✅ Create talking points, email copy, Q&As and ROI language
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✅ Use commercial language
✅ Keep it tight and visual
✅ Anticipate pushback
✅ Communicate early and often
✅ Make your leaders part of the story
Winning hearts in the C-suite doesn’t require magic, it just takes strategic internal communications that show the business impact behind the people plan.