So you’ve got an HR initiative that you think will improve business outcomes. How do you actually get it over the line?

Getting a new business initiative approved can feel like pulling teeth. HR practitioners often hit a wall in the form of budget restraints, unrelenting leadership or a workplace culture averse to change.

In the current economic environment, this can turn into a Catch-22. In times of skills shortages, technological disruption and shifting regulatory landscapes, large-scale people initiatives are often necessary for survival, but these same issues are driving many executives to tighten their purse strings.

As a result, HR practitioners without the necessary influencing skills risk letting their best strategies remain forever as ideas on a page.

To avoid this, HR practitioners can develop the skills to speak executives’ language, cultivate advocates and develop a deep understanding of a business’s needs and pain points.

A research-backed approach to executive buy-in

When pitching for executive buy-in, an approach that combines human skills with business acumen is key. 

In an article for Harvard Business Review, professors Susan J. Ashford and James R. Detert provide a detailed breakdown of how to gain executive buy-in based on their research. 

In their research, Ashford and Detert identified the tactics of a successful “issue seller” (their name for a person seeking buy-in).

“Issue sellers who accomplish their goals, we found, look for the best ways, venues, and times to voice their ideas and concerns – using rhetorical skill, political sensitivity, and interpersonal connections to move the right leaders to action,” they write.

They break this down into seven key tactics:

1. Tailoring your pitch – this was the key success factor. They say it’s critical to become familiar with your executive’s “unique blend of goals, values and knowledge” and use these insights to customise your pitch according to who you’re speaking with.

2. Strategically frame the issue – this is the stage most HR professionals would be familiar with: building a business case. Not surprisingly, the researchers found this was more effective than moral framing (e.g. trying to convince people to ‘do the right thing’).

3. Manage your emotions – passion, they said, was proven to help in achieving buy-in, but passion can easily spill into anger and this inevitably works against issue sellers. Emotional regulation is key.

4. Choose your timing wisely – pitch ideas when there’s a groundswell from employees, when a business’ priorities are shifting (we’re in such a time right now) or when a new leader is at the helm.

5. Don’t do it alone – the researchers found having a group of people involved in seeking buy-in made it happen a lot faster, as each individual brought their own experience, relationships and social pull.

6. Tailor your approach– understand how various executives like to receive information. Do they prefer formal presentations to a casual coffee catch-up, for example? Or, does anecdotal data sourced from employees have more impact than referring to external statistics?

7. Have a solution – it seems obvious, but don’t suggest changing a process without providing what the researchers call “thoughtful fixes”. Come prepared with a well-researched solution, but be willing to make changes and seek feedback from others to ensure diversity of thought.

Read the full HBR article for further explanation, advice and examples backing up the tactics.

HR influence in action

Gaining executive buy-in requires HR to strike the right balance between human skills such as emotional intelligence with technical skills such as business acumen, says Shirley Vella CPHR, Executive Director of HR at SPV Consulting.

Based on her experiences getting HR strategies over the line, Vella offers three key tips for HR practitioners hoping to boost their influence among the executive team.

1. Speak executives’ language

For HR practitioners, the engagement, wellbeing and/or capabilities of the workforce tend to be the number-one goals of any new initiative. So, when pitching to executives, it’s often HR’s first instinct to lead with workforce benefits. 

However, it’s important for HR to put themselves in executives’ shoes and demonstrate that costs and business context have been prioritised in the strategy, says Vella.

“In my experience, executives really want to do good things for the employees, but, at the end of the day, the business needs to be sustained,” she says. 

“You need to understand your audience. If they’re looking at the bottom line, then you talk about the bottom line. Look at the ROI and what’s in it for the business.”

To get this right, it’s essential for HR to upskill themselves in the fundamentals of finance, she says, such as the right way to do a cost-benefit analysis or return on investment forecast.

“HR is fundamentally about people, but it also requires a strong focus on the profitability of the business. So you need to have that business acumen.”

“In my experience, executives really want to do good things for the staff, but, at the end of the day, the business needs to be sustained.” – Shirley Vella, Executive Director of Human Resources, SPV Consulting

Vella recalls an instance where she put these skills into practice to get executives at a previous organisation on board with a new HR information system (HRIS). 

“The company had never done it before. And they [looked at] the subscription fees and implementation fees first and asked, ‘What’s good about it?’

“The first thing I did was [demonstrate] the ROI of having the system – for example, [pointing out that] leave management and performance management could all be done through the system, so it’s saving a lot of HR time [to be reinvested into more high-value work]. Also, regulatory compliance is all set up in the system, so, for example, if an employee had an expired or invalid license, the system comes up with an alert, which reduces the risk to them. So we’re using those points and converting them into dollar signs.”

2. Divide and conquer

When cultivating the ability to influence executives, it’s important for HR to remember that each executive will have their own unique language and priorities.

“When you’re trying to get executive buy-in, use a divide and conquer [model],” says Vella. “Try to map your stakeholders first.”

For example, when she pitched the HRIS mentioned above to her company’s executive team, she first made a list of the leadership team members and determined who was the most computer-savvy and systems-focused, and approached them first to demonstrate the benefits.

“If you get their buy-in first, then they will become your advocates, and they will spread the word.”

Once initial advocates are onboard, leverage their support to influence other executives, she says. Many executives will be more convinced of an initiative’s benefits if they hear about them from more than one source, and this can create a positive knock-on effect that lends momentum to your proposal.

3. Start small

As well as building advocates within the executive team, Vella says that the greatest advocates for launching or sustaining HR initiatives are often the employees participating in them. 

Similarly to executives, employees are often more swayed by word of mouth than by formal presentations from the HR team.

For this reason, Vella suggests launching every important initiative through a pilot program in an area of the organisation where it’s likely to have the most impact.

“Whoever you pilot with will become your advocates too,” she says.

She offers the example of a lunch and learn initiative she recently launched in her current role.

“Everyone was fairly sceptical at first,” she says. “First of all, I [convinced] the executives to buy in, but they couldn’t force staff to go. So the next step was [convincing] the frontline managers, who are always busy. I personally went to them and said, ‘Come for five minutes, and if you don’t like it, you can leave.’

“Some of them who never wanted to join [in the first place] just came in to have a look, and  ended up  staying for the entire hour. The positive feedback was enormous and, slowly, they started to talk about [rolling] this out to other teams as well.”

By using these strategies to cultivate advocates among both the executive team and the broader workforce, HR can ensure their ideas translate into meaningful change.

A version of this article was originally published in June 2020, and has been updated with fresh insights from Shirley Vella CPHR.

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