Best Software For Texting Employees

Eighty percent of Americans—nearly 300 million people—use text messaging, and many employers have found text messaging to be the best form of communication for their blue-collar workers. The issue is, no one wants to use their personal cell phone to text employees, and not everyone gets a work phone.

Luckily, there is software to solve that problem. But what do you need to look for in communication software? Depends on what you're trying to accomplish. We’ve compared a few different platforms (iCIMS, JazzHR, BreezyHR, ClearCompany, Simple Texting, EZTexting & Team Engine) to see who offers employee messaging, automated text messages, surveys, and candidate communication, and why those features are important.

Use Cases for Texting with Employees

From scheduling interviews and fixing missed clock-outs to collecting receipts and sending open enrollment reminders, SMS can solve a myriad of everyday challenges. Below are some of the top ways businesses are using text messaging to strengthen their operations and better support their teams.

Hiring & Sourcing

Automatically Pre-Screen Applicants
Save time by collecting key information from applicants via automated text messages. Applicants can reply with their qualifications or certifications, helping HR quickly filter the candidate pool.

Schedule Interviews
Coordinating times to meet can be a hassle. Texting allows you to quickly confirm availability and lock in interview slots without playing phone tag.

Send Interview Reminders to Candidates
Reduce costly no-shows by sending automatic interview reminders via text. Include directions, parking info, or any last-minute changes.

Generate Employee Referrals from New Hires
New employees are most excited and willing to refer in the first 30, 60 or 90 days of employment. Automated texts can provide a quick link for them to refer friends or family.

Generate More Employee Referrals
Text reminders or referral links make it easy for employees to recommend others for open positions, expanding your candidate pipeline.

Retention

Automate Supervisor Check-Ins
Scheduling automated “How’s it going?” texts for employees fosters open communication and identifies small issues before they grow.

Improve Your Employee Experience
Texting is immediate, personal, and convenient—three factors that contribute to a positive employee experience and workplace culture.

Onboarding

Improve Your Onboarding Experience
Use text messaging to guide new hires through the onboarding process. Send regular updates, reminders for paperwork, and quick tips to help them feel welcome from day one.

Increase 30-Day Retention
Keep new hires engaged and prevent early turnover by checking in often via text. Quick messages can uncover issues before they escalate.

Operations

Improve Attendance at Mandatory Meetings
Boost attendance by sending date, time, and location reminders. You can also send urgent updates if meeting details change.

Drive Technology Adoption
Rolling out new tools in the workplace? Text employees with quick how-to tips, login details, and links to training videos.

Prevent Employee Licenses & Certifications from Expiring
Automated text reminders can prompt employees to renew professional licenses or certifications before deadlines hit.

Ensure Supplies and Equipment Are Always Stocked
Field teams can text supervisors when stock is running low. Supervisors can quickly arrange for replenishment before it impacts operations.

Address Customer Complaints or Requests Immediately
Get a text alert about an issue in the field and resolve it fast. Communicating problems in real time helps maintain customer satisfaction.

Recognize and Praise Individuals or Teams
A quick “great job” text or shout-out to the team can go a long way in boosting morale and motivation.

Learn About Employee Callouts as Soon as Possible
When employees can’t make a shift, a text is faster than calling. Managers can be notified right away and find replacements promptly.

Communicate with Employees in a Different Language
Leverage translation tools to communicate instantly with multilingual teams, ensuring important messages are clearly understood.

Dispatch Workers for Snow Events
For snow plow drivers or emergency crews, texting is perfect for quickly dispatching teams and relaying critical location details.

Keep Employees Safe on the Job
In hazardous conditions, quick texts help share safety alerts, severe weather updates, or evacuation details to keep teams informed and out of harm’s way.

Validate Skill Training in the Field
For field-based roles, employees can text photos or videos as proof of completed training or newly acquired skills.

Prevent Workers From Heat Exhaustion
Periodic reminders via text to stay hydrated and schedule breaks can help reduce heat-related illnesses, especially in hot climates.

Finance & Payroll

Fix a Missed Clock-In or Clock-Out
Send automated reminders when someone forgets to clock in or out. This helps maintain accurate timekeeping records and reduces payroll errors.

Get Employees to Turn in Receipts
Prompt employees to snap a photo of receipts and text them in for reimbursement—no more lost papers or late submissions.

Check Available PTO for Employees
When workers want a quick update on vacation hours or sick leave, send automated text replies with up-to-date PTO balances.

Collect or Distribute Tax Documents
Time-sensitive documents like W-2s and 1099s can be requested or sent via text. With a secure platform, you’ll ensure confidentiality and compliance.

Send Time Cards for Approval Before Processing
Cut out back-and-forth emails by texting time cards to employees and supervisors for quick review and sign-off on the go.

HR & Corporate

Send or Receive a Lot of Information at Once
Sometimes you need to share large amounts of data—like updates on a project or changes to schedules—quickly and clearly. Text messaging lets you send concise, digestible updates en masse.

Educate Employees on Benefits for Open Enrollment
Text is a great way to notify staff of upcoming enrollment deadlines, share resources, and answer questions about benefits and coverage.

Complete Open Enrollment On Time
Short reminders about paperwork, due dates, and links to online forms help ensure all employees finalize their benefits selections before the cutoff.

Recognizing New Hires, Promotions & Exiting Employees
Celebrate milestones or address departures through a quick text, keeping the entire organization in the loop on internal changes.

Keep a Central Record of Important Employee Texts
When you text through a communication platform, you can store messages centrally for easy reference, ensuring no vital information is lost.

Send File Attachments to Employees
Sometimes words aren’t enough. Attach images, PDFs, or videos to provide visual instructions or guidelines.

Keep a Central Record of Text Message Resignations
Text resignations happen—software that logs these messages automatically ensures proper documentation and compliance.

Employee Text Messaging

When your workforce is on the move, it can be hard to get everyone together to discuss changes in schedules, projects,  or other workplace issues. Yet, most problems that arise are matters that need to be addressed urgently. Being able to send your employees a text message is essential, but not every software offers that.

iCIMS

iCIMS offers TextHR, an employee communication messaging platform. TextHR allows you to send text messages through their software to have 1-on-1 or group messages with your employees. TextHR is part of the advanced communication suite.

SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting is an SMS messaging platform that is typically used for marketing, but can also be used for employee messaging. With SimpleTexting you can choose to use your business number, or implement a new number. Their platform allows for you to message employees 1-on-1 or to create group messages. You can also set up text templates. SimpleTexting works by purchasing credits, one text message is one credit, and one multimedia message (an image or video) is three credits.

EZTexting

EZTexting is an SMS messaging platform that is also typically used for marketing, but because of their credit pricing plan EZTexting can be used for employee messaging. EZTexting allows for 1-on-1 messaging and group messages.

Team Engine

Team Engine offers 1-on-1 and group employee text messaging as a standard feature of the platform. You can connect with just a single employee to ask specific questions such as missing clock-out times, uniform size, or incident reports. You can also create groups with assigned supervisors so field managers have access to team messaging at no additional cost.

You can also send out announcements to the entire company or groups without worrying about individuals replying to the entire group. All replies are only sent back to you, not the entire group message; so, you never need to stress about embarrassing or unprofessional group messages again.

All Team Engine subscriptions also include AI-powered translation tools that utilize the latest in large language model (LLM) technology to translate not just words, but also tone and dialect. Accessible anywhere you message an applicant or employee in the software, this feature offers accurate and immediate one-click translating capabilities for both incoming and outgoing text messages and emails. You can even attach a voice message to your text message when you need to convey a lot of information but don't want to type it all out.

Employee Surveys

It’s important to give your employees a voice. You can’t wait around for annual reviews to get feedback, or expect employees to come to you with unsolicited advice for improvement. It can be difficult to hunt everyone down just to ask them a question, but by texting out a single-question survey, you can quickly get the responses you need.

Team Engine

We searched high and low for another hiring, recruitment, or team management software that offers employee surveys to compare to Team Engine, and we were sorely disappointed. Surveys are essential to ensure your employees are happy in their position, to give you the input necessary to improve the work environment, and to react quickly when needed. With Team Engine, you can send out onboarding surveys, employee surveys, exit surveys, and everything in between, straight to your employees’ cell phones. You can also send surveys in multiple languages to accommodate language preferences for your diverse, multi-lingual workforce.

Check out this blog post to see how one customer in the green industry used our employee survey feature to poll snow plow drivers for availability.

Candidate Communication

If emailing your current employees isn’t working, emailing your applicants definitely isn’t working. Something to look for in a communication software is the ability to send text messages to candidates. Applicants provide their cell phone numbers in their applications, but most people don’t pick up calls from unknown numbers anymore. But, when they get texts from a company they applied to, they’ll reply. So which platforms are offering texting with candidates?

ClearCompany

ClearCompany provides ClearText. It’s built into their ATS to allow you to text candidates off of the software. With ClearText, you select a candidate and connect 1-on-1 via text messages. Those messages are then saved to the candidate’s profile.  

SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting offers candidate communication as well. If you purchase their credits to use for business messaging, you can send out text messages to both your employees and candidates. As long as you have the credits to use, you can utilize the messaging however you would like.

iCIMS

iCIMS purchased TextRecruit, so they’ve built an advanced communication suite. You can text candidates 1-on-1 through your recruiting process. The communication suite is a separate purchase from the recruitment marketing suite and hiring suite.

JazzHR

JazzHR offers candidate texting as an option for hiring managers. Candidate texting isn’t part of the software package, but can be purchased at an additional price, with a few different package options. With JazzHR, you can communicate with candidates 1-on-1, and you can also set up template messages for repetitive communications.

BreezyHR

BreezyHR also offers candidate texting. Like the other platforms, BreezyHR allows you to message candidates 1-on-1 through the software. Candidate texting is a paid feature, so you purchase it as an add-on to the basic BreezyHR package.

Team Engine

Team Engine is a blue-collar team management platform, so of course, the focus is on communication. Candidate texting helps recruiters & HR managers connect with candidates more efficiently. Your account is assigned a dedicated local number from which you can send messages through the software right to candidates’ phones. Team Engine's AI-powered translation tools apply to candidate communication as well.

Automated Text Messages

Some software have offers the ability to send automated text messages, so when you’re busy working (or not working in the evening and on weekends) the software can keep the conversation going for you.

iCIMS

iCIMS offers ARI, an AI recruiting assistant. The assistant allows you to automate messages, which means ARI can text candidates while you are working on another project. ARI learns from the messages sent through the iCIMS platform to anticipate questions. ARI is also part of the advanced communication suite.

BreezyHR

BreezyHR has automated messages for different actions. You can create a template for when someone applies, or for when you move them to the next stage like accepting an application or interviewing. This means the message will automatically send out when you move the applicant to another stage.

Team Engine

Team Engine provides automated candidate texting as part of the standard subscription. You can set up templates to send a message after someone applies, usually to acknowledge receipt of the application and to ask them why they're interested in working for the company.

Team Engine uses these first few messages to monitor the candidate's responsiveness, which is one of several metrics used to screen candidates. You can also set up these messages to collect any additional information that you need from the applicant, such as their driver's license number or required certifications. Templates can also be sent out when you move a candidate to a new stage in the hiring process, such as from Reviewing to Interviewing. Once there, Team Engine automatically sends interview reminders via text to make sure there aren't any no-shows.

When implementing software for texting candidates and employees, you want to make sure they offer everything you need. If you’re looking for an all-encompassing team management platform, then Team Engine is right for you. We’ve worked hard to build an intelligent suite of hiring and communication tools. If you’d like to see how simple and effective texting for employees can be, try Team Engine risk free.