Here’s how HR can have more effective conversations

In the world of work, the demands for HR professionals to drive the agenda in progressive practices heavily rely on their ability to engage leaders and stakeholders.

There are severe implications when those conversations go astray, leading to:

• Diminished confidence from management for buy-in new initiatives
• Negation of open culture and staff morale
• Weakened relationship between staff and their leaders
• Reduced adoption rate of any instituted policies
• Lowered long-term overall organization productivity

HR engaging in effective conversations with stakeholders is an ongoing need and should be supported by top management.

Often, HR professionals are perceived as skilled communicators and negotiators. This perception is frequently subjective until desired conversation outcomes are achieved.

No one will care, no matter how impressive or revolutionary your idea and its potential, unless you can convey it clearly, compellingly, backed by data and with a dose of emotional intelligence.

You don’t need to be a TED-talk-level speaker or master linguist to engage your stakeholders for productive conversation.

Whether you are an HR C-suite level executive, manager, business partner, or professional, the following techniques can help you to improve your communication effectively.

Know your audience and the conversation goal

It’s good to be aware of your audience’s role and what would likely be their needs and potential influence in the organization. This has a huge impact on the outcome of the conversation.

Structure the objective of the message in a logical sequence. Deconstruct HR terminology into simple and plain language that your stakeholders can understand it easily. Frame the message’s key points in your audience’s language.

Drive the empowerment message

In any conversation, it is imperative to begin by capturing your audience’s attention. One approach is to make a declaration statement on the conversation goal, why your audience should care and what would be the eventual takeaways.

In other words, the declaration statement defines what can be expected. And, it speeds up engagement.

Reinforce your message

Reiterate your main point at least three times during the conversation. Through repetition, get buy-in for the conversation objective. Secondly: evidence. Providing data-backed information eliminates doubt.

But be warned: Overloading on factual evidence can turn human connection off.

Question and clarify

Ask the right questions at the right juncture. This is important to seek clarification on complex issues. Give sufficient air time for the audience to respond, and don’t ask questions for the sake of asking questions.

On the other hand, asking something that requires multiple interlinked responses may also result in turn-off. The whole idea is to help your audience understand the agenda.

Pace your conversation

Minds may start wandering if they cannot connect to your agenda. One common technique is to mirror your audience during the conversation.

Watch for body language, pace and tone and mirror those energy levels. Provide verbal punctuation by summarizing, every 5-10 minutes.

Talk with empathy

Empathy is crucial to communicating the HR agenda; it’s about understanding how the audience feels, what they are experiencing and where they take the perspective from, regardless of their role in the organization.

When listening, see the problem through their viewpoint and visualise how it makes them feel. This can also help to de-escalate any conflict.

Closure and call for action

Often, people have the compulsion to end a conversation abruptly to get on with their daily ritual or arbitrarily assign follow-ups amongst the stakeholders. This is irresponsible, unprofessional and wasteful for all involved.

That being said, acknowledging your stakeholders’ participation and decisions made; making them feel part of the conversation is important when considering next steps.

The takeaway

All this can help HR professionals become more adept in engaging organization stakeholders.

Nevertheless, you must select what works for you in today’s ambiguous and complex workplace while serving organization needs in the best way possible.

The International Festival of HR is back! Discover amazing speakers at UNLEASH America on 26-27 April 2023.