Prevent Start Menu hotkey press from stealing focus?

Question

I have assigned sevel ctrl+alt hotkeys to start menu items (as in the location "C:\Users\???\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu").

Some will launch a visible item such as a batch script, others run tasks without a GUI.

Either way, the focus gets shifted from my current app to the taskbar. I then have to manually take steps to switch back to what I was doing.

Is there any known way to use start menu hotkeys where they will just execute their task non-intrusively?

I know that in the case of the batch scripts I can add a NirCMD command to simulate an alt+tab. But this won't help with other tasks. And I don't want the visible alt+tab menu flash.

I have also tried using NirCMD in the shortcuts with its "exec hide" command. This causes the batch script (say) to run invisibly, but still causes the focus to end up on the taskbar.

I just want the focus to stay where it is when I press a hotkey. Any known solutions? Thanks.