Any well-functioning human resource department will tell you that communication is the backbone of their organization. From recruiting and training new employees to managing open enrollment, being able to properly communicate with employees allows your business to run smoothly and efficiently. Text messaging for HR is an emerging trend that has been shown to improve HR department communication; with nearly 70% of employees supporting texting for interoffice communication.
Stay on top of the technological trends of our era by implementing the fastest and most widely used communications channel into your HR communication. Follow this complete guide to understand the ins and outs of text messaging for employee communication.
Text Messaging for HR Guide – Table of Contents
- A Primer On SMS and Text Keywords
- Benefits of Using Text Messages For Your HR Department
- Text Keywords To Recruit Qualified Candidates
- Text Messaging For Improved Recruitment
- SMS Texting To Boost Employee Training
- Bulk Text Messaging To Optimize Open Enrollment
- Streamline HR Processes With Texting
- SMS Messages For Effective Employee Communication
- SMS Surveys to Improve Marketing and Company Culture
- Save Time by Text Automating Employee Shift Scheduling
- Using SMS For Emergency Situations and Improved Safety
1. A Primer On SMS and Text Keywords
What is SMS messaging?
SMS stands for Short Message service, which is a fancy term for text messaging. SMS messaging allows you to send messages with up to 160 characters to another device. Essentially, it’s a quick and convenient way of sending a short message to someone else via a mobile device.
What is a text keyword?
A text keyword is a single word selected by a business that customers text to a shortened phone number, referred to as a short code. By texting the keyword to a short code, customers volunteer to join a text messaging distribution list and become a part of interactive SMS campaigns.
2. Benefits of Using Text Messages For Your HR Department
Here are the tremendous benefits seen in recruitment, employee communications, and corporate benefits when SMS is implemented into a human resource department.
SMS for Recruiting
- Speeds up the recruitment process
- Enables personalized communication with prospects
- Ensure all messages are seen through SMS, as nearly 75% of emails are sent to spam
- Provides a discrete form of communication for the 70% of people that Glassdoor reports are already employed but looking for a job
SMS for Employee Communications
- Increases read and response rates
- Most immediate form of communication for last minute meetings and announcements
SMS for Corporate Benefits
- Ensure everyone has essential information for informed decisions in a timely manner
- Decrease confusion through reminders and simple messaging
3. Text Keywords To Recruit Qualified Candidates
Why use text keywords to recruit? Well, 70% of job seekers use mobile devices to consider their next career move and 23% of all keyword searches from mobile devices contain the word “job”.
Here’s how to utilize text keywords to get qualified candidates:
- Create text Keywords for Job Openings: Attract qualified applicants to your job openings by sharing keywords that describe each position. Allow applicants to text in your text keywords to be added to your contact database and receive text notifications of future job openings. Example: Use the text keyword “ACCOUNTANT” to segment your accounting prospects and match your job opening with experienced candidates.
- Get The Word Out: Share SMS keywords across multiple channels, such as social media, company website, company collateral, and job search sites to reach the most candidates possible.
- Invite Candidates To Text In For More Information: Increase the value of your keywords by letting prospects know they will receive additional information and enter the application process once they text in. Depending on which keyword they opted in to, individuals will receive specific information and application directions through convenient SMS text messages.
- Ask Questions and Schedule Interviews Via Text: Through a quick text conversation, you can ask questions to determine if a candidate has the required expertise, aptitude, or interest to make scheduling an interview worthwhile. If a prospect meets the requirements, you can then coordinate an interview through text. An advanced text messaging software, like Trumpia, will send automatic text reminders to reduce interview no-shows.
- Maintain Contact Through Texting: Just because a candidate didn’t fit the position, that doesn’t mean you should cut ties. Their contact information could be a future opportunity. Give these candidates a second chance by scheduling monthly or quarterly texts with current open positions. These periodic reminders will ensure that your organization always stays fresh in their minds.
4. Text Messaging For Improved Recruitment
An important aspect of any business is recruiting the most qualified candidates. Studies show that 70% of candidates would like to apply for open positions on their mobile devices. Give your candidates what they want by implementing SMS to take your recruitment process to the next level.
- Save Time with Automated Text Messages: Time-consuming tasks, such as coordinating interview times, providing paperwork, and sending notifications of deadlines can all be streamlined through text.
- Keep Applicants Informed By Texting News and Information: Sharing news and information with prospects will keep them eager to work with you. Send them relevant information based on the keyword they texted to keep applicants excited for everything your company has to offer.
- Engage Applicants Through Two-Way SMS Communication: The recruitment process often comes with questions, concerns, and scheduling conflicts that need to be resolved. These issues are quickly managed through two-way text messaging, where you can utilize both landline texting and long codes with Trumpia Connect.
5. SMS Texting To Boost Employee Training
Training and onboarding employees to the best of your abilities will produce a workforce that is productive and efficient. To provide your employees with the ultimate training experience, share study materials, policy changes, and surveys via SMS to maximize the effectiveness of your training program.
Save Time by Sending Study Materials through SMS
A large portion of the training process involves learning about the company, competitors, and daily responsibilities. Save crucial time during that first training day by sending them study material to get them up to speed. By preparing your onboarding employees with essential information, you’ll be able to take full advantage of the initial days of training.
Determine Proficiency Through SMS Surveys and Quizzes
It’s essential to provide your new hires with the most effective training possible. If a training program didn’t produce promising results, send an SMS survey to get employee feedback on ways to improve the training process.
One of the most crucial aspects of training is determining if new employees grasped their duties, company culture, or industry during training. Send them a quick text survey to determine their proficiency. Using reporting features, you can quickly analyze answers to identify which employees mastered the content and which ones need additional training.
Share Essential Policy Changes Via Mobile Links
Any thriving business will tell you that updating company policies is an essential part of maximizing employee productivity and satisfaction. Ensure your entire workforce has read your policy changes by sending text notifications with links to the new policies. The average click through rate for links in SMS messages stands at 19% which is much higher than the click through rate for traditional emails at 3.2%.
6. Bulk Text Messaging To Optimize Open Enrollment
Possessing effective human resource communication tools will ultimately bring success to your open enrollment plans. Avoid the staggeringly low read rate of 20% for emails by instead using text messaging, which has 90% read rate within 3 minutes of delivery.
- Increase Awareness of Open Enrollment with Text Keywords: Quickly and cost-effectively share your open enrollment details by using text keywords, allowing employees to receive bulk text alerts that are read 98% of the time.
- Minimize Costs: Traditional methods of sharing open enrollment dates and deadlines are proven to be expensive and time-consuming compared to bulk messaging.
- Utilize Bulk Texts to Send Periodic Mass Reminders of Open Enrollment: By alerting employees prior to enrollment season through a mass text message, you will give them substantial time to evaluate their current plans and ask any questions before the open enrollment deadline.
- Share Mobile Links to Open Enrollment Benefits in Group Texts: Send out links to your open enrollment plans to your employees through text. This will allow them to discover each plan fully while alleviating a majority of the questions needed to be answered by your HR department and ensure they pick the optimal plan. And keep in mind that employees that are satisfied with their benefits are 4x more likely to be satisfied with their work.
- Automate Open Enrollment FAQs: Occasionally, employees will be left with additional questions, such as “When does enrollment start and end?”. An SMS service can easily answer these questions by enabling you to create automated answers for each frequently asked question.
- Personalized Mass Messages to Motivate Employees to Enroll: Some employees may simply lack the motivation to sign off on a new plan. To help spark their interest towards open enrollment, send personalized text messages to encourage them to fill out their paperwork. This personalization can range from something simple, like their name, to more complex content, like the types of plans they qualify for.
- Streamline Scheduling Your HR Meetings: Time is wasted by HR departments when they try to schedule open enrollment meetings through email or over the phone. In fact, an average of 336 hours are dedicated to open enrollment each year, but only one hour is spent actually selecting their benefits. Streamline communications and staff meeting scheduling by establishing personal two-way communication through bulk messaging.
- Collect Feedback to Improve Future Open Enrollment Periods: There is always an opportunity to collect feedback from employees about previous open enrollments to improve the overall process. Utilizing bulk SMS surveys that employees can take on-the-go, you can collect more feedback than traditional surveys with a system that automatically records answers.
7. Streamline HR Processes With Texting
It’s a known fact human resource processes can be tedious and time-consuming. To shorten these processes and give your HR department a powerful aid, utilize SMS to enhance your human resource internal communications strategy.
- Last Minute Announcements: Save time informing employees of important updates or policy changes through SMS, and you can be sure your messages are seen if you use an omni-channel solution that combines voice, text and email.
- Payroll: Send text reminders for employees to fill out timesheets and notify them of direct deposits. Employees are able to text their disputes or discrepancies into HR.
- Motivation: Overall, high morale and motivators will produce the most productive work environment. Share motivational quotes, company mission goals, and recent company wins through text messages. Employees can also be recognized for their exceptional work, birthdays, or work anniversaries.
- Critical Alerts: A startling fact shows that 72% of the workforce would not feel safe in their workplace if disaster struck. To ease their worries, implement an emergency text alert system that employees can communicate with at any time, anywhere. Send alerts, share step-by-step contingency plans, and provide immediate status updates to ensure the safety of your workforce.
- Interactive Presentations: Transform your boring HR presentations into an exciting and interactive experience with Text-To-Screen. This allows employees to instantly display their text on a large screen for everyone to see. Employees can text questions, suggestions, and gain valuable feedback in real time.
- Online Portal Security: Maximize security to your online portals by using a one-time code that’s either texted or emailed when suspicious activity occurs.
- Important Reminders: As the average person touches their phone 2,617 times a day, you’re able to notify them of important Send text reminders for important office events, meetings, and important deadlines to guarantee your workforce doesn’t miss a beat.
- Company Events: Boost attendance at events by sending invitations via text. You can track who has viewed the invitation and who has RSVP’d. Links to directions, event agendas, pictures, or videos can be used to make the invitation more captivating. As the event gets closer, you can send friendly reminders to increase attendance.
8. SMS Messages For Effective Employee Communication
Clear and Simple Text Messaging
Having a clear and concise message will ensure that your message or call-to-action resonates with your audience. The great thing about text is that they are short character messages, making them easy to read and understand. Utilizing text messaging to share information means that you don’t overload the message with unnecessary content.
Custom Data Collection for Relevant Messages
What good is sending information to employees if the information isn’t even useful to them? With custom data collection fields, you’ll be able to collect influential information from employees, such as current position or preferred benefits, to share specific materials that are useful to each employee and ensure they receive the most relevant messages.
Effective Delivery of Essential Information
Ensuring employees are able to comprehend the information you share relies mainly on how you deliver your messages. When it comes to timing and emphasizing essential information, almost no other platform can compete with SMS. The simplicity of texting allows readers to absorb essential information faster than any other communications channel, as texts are read on average in 5 seconds.
Be Accessible Anytime, Anywhere
66% of Americans check their phones 160 times a day. Nearly your entire workforce can be reached through text, as texting has the highest and fastest response rates of any communication platform. In fact, texting’s 98% read rate crushes the 22% overall read rate of emails. A text messaging service enables you to reach a vast majority of your workforce quickly, while on-the-go, with minimal risk of being missed.
9. SMS Surveys to Improve Marketing and Company Culture
Text Surveys for Marketing
Marketers find text surveys exceptionally useful for collecting customer information and preferences. Lengthy survey methods, such as online surveys, often go unfinished. That’s why marketers are turning to text surveys for getting customers to volunteer their information, as text surveys garner up to a 50% response rate. Practically everyone has a phone nowadays, so sending SMS surveys guarantees you reach any target audience.
SMS Surveys to Streamline Feedback Communication
Organizations can learn all sorts of useful information by utilizing surveys on a mobile phone – a tool pretty much everyone is comfortable with and often has within arm’s reach. Maximize the quality of your communication between HR and employees by implementing SMS surveys quick and easy employee feedback collection.
With an advanced mass texting service that has response-based automation, you’re able to take the grunt work out of surveys by giving employees automatic answers to their results. For instance, if an employee answers “No” to the question, “Do you like our current training process?”, then the system will automatically ask, “What didn’t you like?”
Ways to use Text Surveys to Improve Company Culture
- Anonymous Employee Surveys: Companies can encourage their staff to anonymously share their ideas on conditions that needs to be improved, new products to try, or ways to cut costs. Specific text keywords can be used to help automatically track results based on specific departments.
- Employee Recognition: Boost morale and drive productivity by allowing employees to acknowledge fellow co-workers for exceptional work. This is a great way to promote your “Employee of the Month” programs, as responses are collected, analyzed, and then broadcasted by the mass texting software to keep people motivated to win.
- Event Preparation and Reminders: Unlike email surveys, text surveys will maximize registration and attendance to your work-related events because they are read far more. By getting an accurate headcount, you can avoid wasting your budget on too much food or facilities.
- Ensure that Your Employees Are Heard: Text surveys and polls give shy employees the opportunity to speak their minds. Text polls can ask which logo to use or what sales pitch they like most, allowing employees to discreetly vote for their favorite from the convenience of their phone. Employees aren’t influenced by seeing their colleagues’ answers, so you’ll collect the most valuable feedback during your meetings.
- Determine Relevant Job Postings: Proactive human resource departments can send regular text updates of certain positions or locations within the company. HR departments can use text surveys to determine an employee’s interests, skills, and experience to better match openings.
- Rewards for Survey Participation: Leverage incentives to encourage employees to participate. Prizes, such as a company-wide party or individual cash rewards, can be sent to employees that completed the survey through a mobile coupon.
10. Save Time By Text Automating Employee Shift Scheduling
Managing employee schedules, especially for larger organizations, can be a difficult task to tackle. An employee might cancel their shift at the last minute and getting a hold of alternative employees can be extremely difficult. SMS is the ultimate human resource communication strategy that can help you coordinate and schedule employees on the go.
Most people would turn to phone calls for their last minute scheduling because they believe they can get a faster response. But on the contrary, texting is actually 10x faster than phone calls. This means SMS allows you to reach your entire staff almost instantly, which makes finding replacement staff during an emergency situation lightning fast and exceptionally easy.
11. Using SMS For Emergency Alerts and Improved Safety
Human resource departments play a pivotal role in the preparation and implementation of various organizational disaster plans. While HR may not focus on the actual creation of the disaster contingency plans, they are in charge of distributing these plans to all staff members. Whether it’s sharing emergency information, notification of critical events, or providing consistent communication during emergencies, utilizing SMS for emergency situations can maximize employee safety. For more information, see how Omni Hotels & Resorts used Trumpia’s SMS software to keep employees safe and alerted during the Dallas police shooting.
It’s clear as day that businesses should be using SMS – the future of HR communication. Help your human resource department to operate at its full potential by utilizing SMS to streamline communications, maximize corporate benefits, and optimize the recruitment and training process.
To learn more about using text messaging for HR and recruiting, call or text 1-888-707-3030. Our experts at Trumpia can guide you on how to use our texting software in your practice.