The recruiting industry is rapidly changing and the recruitment process is even more complex than ever before with all the technological innovations such as recruiting software that are currently being utilized.

However, once you’ve made the hire, how should HR go about keeping employees engaged?

Well, let me ask you this. How often have you seen your employees sending or receiving texts during working hours? Texting has become engrained in our society just like the telephone was when it first became a household necessity. Therefore, doesn’t it make sense to carry SMS texting over to the workplace as an extremely effective tool for keeping your employees engaged?

I think so. That’s why I’ve put together a list of some different ways you can use text messaging to engage your employees.

Employee Onboarding

How you acclimate a new employee will have a lasting effect on their attitude, job performance (or lack thereof) and whether they ultimately stay with you or move on because they don’t feel like they are making a difference or don’t feel as if they are receiving the support they need to succeed.

However, if you use text messaging software as part of your onboarding process, you can provide your new employees with everything they need, such as:

• Required paperwork reminders,
• Training dates and times
• Link to Google Maps for directions to the training center

Additionally, when using texts for employee onboarding, you will be making it easier for your new employee to receive, read, retain and store the information you are providing them. This will give them a more thorough understanding of what’s expected now and as a way to retrieve that information should they need in the future without having to call you for assistance, which saves you and your employee time.

Benefits Administration

Text messaging is a great way to bring awareness to your open enrollment periods and providing the necessary paperwork and notifications for updates about your current and upcoming employee benefits and any changes that need to be highlighted.

Texting provides you with an easy way to send deadline reminders, as well as missing or incomplete paperwork notifications and links to the required forms. And, this method of communication also makes it easier for your employees to ask questions about their benefits and options and it also makes it easier for you to answer them.

Payroll

The dreaded payroll process is one area that results in more questions than anything else HR does. That’s why using text messaging to answer routine questions and address issues is the quickest, most convenient way to get the job done. HR can easily use templates for the most frequently asked questions. They can also use texting to send notification texts such as confirming direct deposits or that the employee’s check has been mailed, etc.

The Bottom Line

While in the past, text messaging was largely frowned upon in a work environment, you should now be rethinking that mindset if you want to engage your employees on their level, especially the Millennials and Generation Z. These generations use texting like the Boomers and GenX’ers used the telephone. So it only makes sense to implement texting whenever and wherever you can.

Text messaging can be used in many different ways to communicate with your employees, and it’s a huge time saver. Especially when phone calls take too long and businesses have a hard time tracking email open and response rates. However, a text message is opened and read about 95 percent of the time, and it’s trackable and measurable, so why wouldn’t you want to use it!

Author Biography

Sophorn Chhay: Sophorn is the marketing guy at Trumpia, the most complete SMS for HR software with mass sms messaging, smart targeting and automation. Watch Trumpia’s 5-Minute Demo on how to execute an effective messaging strategy.