Day 11: Draft an Internal HR Communication
The Concept
HR has a communications problem that most HR teams do not fully recognise as a communications problem. The information HR produces — policy updates, benefit announcements, process changes, compliance reminders — is almost always accurate. It is frequently not read, not understood, or not acted on. The gap between what HR communicates and what employees actually absorb is not a knowledge gap. It is a writing gap.
The default register for HR communications is formal, cautious, and dense. This register exists for understandable reasons. HR deals with topics that have legal implications, where precision matters and ambiguity creates risk. The instinct to protect the organisation through careful language is not wrong — but it produces communications that employees skip, because they read like legal notices rather than useful information from a colleague. The consequence is not just low engagement with the communication itself. It is a low-trust relationship between the HR function and the employees it serves.
The Cost of Information That Does Not Land
When an HR communication fails to reach its audience, the cost is practical. Employees who did not read the annual leave policy update book leave at the wrong time. Employees who did not understand the new expenses process submit claims incorrectly and create rework. Employees who did not know about the Employee Assistance Programme do not use it. The gap between communication sent and communication understood translates directly into operational friction, individual harm, and unnecessary HR workload in the form of queries, corrections, and follow-up.
The cost compounds when the communication is about something sensitive — a restructure, a policy change that employees dislike, or a benefit reduction. In those situations, the quality of the communication does not just affect comprehension. It affects trust. A poorly worded announcement about a difficult change is not neutral. It reads as either evasive or careless, and neither interpretation helps the relationship between the organisation and its people.
How AI Adapts Tone for Different Audiences
One of the genuinely useful things AI can do with internal communications is hold the information constant while adjusting the register for the audience. The same policy update needs to be communicated differently to a general employee population, to managers who need to brief their teams, and to a senior leadership group who need to understand the rationale. The facts are the same. The framing, the level of detail, the assumed prior knowledge, and the appropriate tone are all different.
AI can produce multiple versions of the same communication quickly, which makes it possible to do something most HR teams do not have time for: actually tailoring the message to the audience rather than sending a one-size-fits-all announcement. A manager briefing note can include the management context and the team-level actions required, without those details cluttering the all-employee message. A leadership version can include the strategic rationale that frontline employees do not need.
The Difference Between Informing and Engaging
Informing means making information available. Engaging means making people want to act on it. Most HR communications are designed to inform. Very few are designed to engage. The distinction is not about being informal or entertaining — it is about understanding what the reader needs from the communication and giving them that, rather than giving them what HR needs to have communicated.
A communication about a new wellbeing benefit, for example, needs to answer the questions an employee is actually asking: what is it, is it relevant to me, what do I need to do, and is it confidential? A communication that leads with the organisation's wellbeing strategy and the three-year people plan before answering those questions has prioritised the organisation's narrative over the employee's immediate need. AI, prompted with the right context, structures communications around the reader's questions rather than the organisation's talking points — and that shift, consistently applied, changes the relationship between HR and the people it communicates with.
Prompt of the day
Copy this into your AI tool and replace any bracketed placeholders.
Prompt
You are an internal communications specialist who works closely with HR teams. I need to write an employee communication about an HR topic, and I want it to be clear, readable, and appropriately toned — not a policy document dressed up as an email. Here is the context for this communication: - Type of communication: [e.g. company-wide email announcement / team-level newsletter article / manager briefing note / Slack or Teams message] - Topic or subject: [e.g. changes to the annual leave carry-over policy effective January / launch of a new Employee Assistance Programme / update to the expenses approval process] - Key information employees need to understand: [e.g. from January, unused leave above 5 days cannot be carried over; employees should use leave before 31 December or request an exception in writing by 15 December] - Any actions employees or managers need to take, and by when: [e.g. managers should review their team's leave balances by 30 November and prompt anyone with significant untaken leave to book time off] - Tone required: [e.g. warm but clear / straightforward and factual / reassuring — employees have raised concerns about this change] - Audience: [e.g. all employees / managers only / employees in the UK office] - Anything to avoid or handle carefully: [e.g. do not frame this as punitive — the intent is to encourage people to actually take their leave] Please write: 1. A subject line (for email) or headline (for other formats) that is specific and tells the reader exactly what this is about 2. The communication itself, written at a reading level that works for a general employee population — no jargon, no legalese, short sentences, active voice 3. A clear call to action that tells people exactly what they need to do, if anything, and by when 4. A brief note at the end on tone: explain the choices you made and flag anything I should review before sending
Your 15-minute task
Pick one HR communication you need to write this week — or one that you have been putting off because it feels hard to get the tone right. Fill in the context fields with the specific details of that communication and run the prompt. When you receive the draft, read it aloud. If any sentence makes you stumble or sounds like it came from a policy document rather than a person, that is the sentence to rewrite. The read-aloud test is the fastest quality check for internal communications.
Expected win
A complete draft communication — email, announcement, or briefing note — that is ready to review and send, written in plain language with a clear subject line, a logical structure, and a specific call to action.
Power user tip
After drafting the main communication, follow up with: 'Write a short FAQ (five questions and answers) that addresses the questions employees are most likely to ask after reading this communication. Keep each answer to two or three sentences and write in the same tone as the main message.' Sending the FAQ alongside the main communication — or publishing it in a follow-up channel — reduces the volume of individual queries to HR and demonstrates that you have anticipated concerns rather than waiting to be asked.