SMS for Employees: Keep Your Team Engaged

Texting works well anytime you need a message to be seen or need a quick response.

That applies as much to employees as to customers, and you can actually use it to improve employee performance and retention. Here’s how.

1. Gather and Sort Contacts

You’ve got to have phone numbers before you can text.

If you already have employee phone numbers—maybe in your HR files—you’ll need to compile them into a spreadsheet to upload to Text Request. Adding custom fields for details like department, location, or seniority/role will also make it easier to send targeted texts later. 

Choose what makes sense for your org. 

When uploading, we recommend adding these employees to a group called “Employees” or, if creating multiple groups based on custom fields, “Employees—Category Name.” As you hire or lose employees, update your group(s) accordingly.

If you don’t already have their phone numbers, you can prompt employees to text a keyword like INFO to opt in.

2. Share Updates They’ll Love

This is not meant to be a reply-all group chat.

Company updates, event reminders, scheduling requests, motivational messages, and short memos are all good examples of employee updates we’ve seen businesses implement successfully. 

For instance:

• You hire a new leadership team member or hit a company milestone

• There’s a birthday luncheon or a team training

• You need to fill shifts

• You want to share encouragement or progress towards a goal

• There’s a process change or new service offered

• Or you just need to tell people to check their email for more info

Employees typically want leaders to communicate with them. It clarifies what’s happening and helps them feel engaged, which leads to happier, more productive employees. 

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3. Get Feedback that Matters

Good communication is a two-way street.

What’s helping employees get their work done or preventing it? What makes them want to stay or leave? How do they feel about company decisions? Knowing these things will help you better lead, manage, upskill, and retain employees—but you won’t know unless you ask.

For general feedback or a pulse check, you can use our Reviews feature and create a review campaign just for private feedback. 

If you want to use a more structured survey, create one using your favorite survey platform and add the survey link into your messages to employees. This way you quickly get usable data to improve your workplace, and employees feel heard.

That’s a win-win.