The most successful companies understand the importance of training new hires. Those first few weeks are crucial. It can mean the difference between a long-term employee, or a short-lived temp.
But you’d be astonished to learn how companies routinely neglect their new hires. They may be too busy chasing clients or responding to emails to train them. Or they may lack the tools to train them in an adequate manner. The result: poor work and low morale.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Tools like the TextMagic app allow you to streamline your training process. In fact, depending on the age of your employees, they may even prefer to learn through SMS messages.
Ideas for Using TextMagic for Onboarding
1. Auto-Send Onboarding Documents
At the start of any training process, interns and new hires have a lot of required reading. These include employee handbooks, contracts, documentation, and process guidelines, to name a few. It’s not always fun, but it’s almost always the company policy.
The good news is that you can speed up this stage of the process by automating it with the TextMagic texting platform. Throughout the week (or month), send links to reading material to get it out the way. Likewise, you can set reminders if they forget or miss a document. This ensures your team can continue working while your new hire continues learning.
2. Assignment/Task Reminders
Being new anywhere can be an overwhelming feeling. There’s a million things to learn, a dozen names to remember, and meetings to attend. When it gets to be too much, mistakes can (and do) happen.
Because of this, you should give your interns and new hires a helping hand by shooting over a reminder. Gave a project assigned to them that needs reviewing? A friendly SMS notification is all that’s needed to give a quick nudge. Your managers will be thankful for seeing work done on time. Above all, your new hire will appreciate the guidance.
3. Confirm Employee Information
Setting up logins, tax documents, and other credentials takes time. Also, it involves the employee entering the same personal details over and over. That time could be better spent on work or training.
You can also cut down on the waste by asking employees to text any clarifications or corrections. It only takes a few seconds to send a message, and it doesn’t interrupt focus. SMS beats having to step outside and fill out another form any day.
4. Set Up Appointments and Check-Ins
Of course, there will be times when you need to meet in person to check how the employee is doing. You may want them to meet other team members from different departments or offices. But scheduling over a back-and-forth email is a waste of time.
Instead, a single SMS alert can check everyone’s availability. And everyone can respond with their attendance in just a few words and seconds. It even feels more informal and inviting, a lot less pressure than an email or serious call.
5. Quick Hints and Tips
Each industry, field, and department have their own best practices. These tips may involve how to serve customers better or how to use a piece of software better. Regardless of what they include, they can make a world of difference in productivity and efficacy.
With TextMagic, you can also send these tips over frequently. It could be keyboard shortcuts for an app or a mnemonic device to learning a process. Be sure not to overwhelm your recipients because you may send one too many.
6. Onboarding Surveys
If you want to improve your training process, you need to consult those you’re training. While you can have hour-long conversations with each individual, you’d be wasting time. The answer is to do an automated survey.
With the TextMagic app, you can even automate the questions for each message. This encourages more formal but more in-depth written responses. Your new hires may surprise you with their responses!
7. Points of Contact
Once the employee knows what and how to do, they will need to know who to report to or consult. Don’t expect them to know off the top of their heads.
Instead, send over an SMS with important contacts and their details. That way, they can import the data into their phone with ease. Furthermore, if the point of contact changes, you can simply send a new message with their new information.
Best Practices for SMS Onboarding
Keep Messages Short
SMS stands for “short message service” for a reason. It’s designed to read on a phone. Anything longer than your standard email and, well, you may as well use email. Therefore, make sure your messages are short, sweet, and to the point.
Don’t Always Expect a Reply
Auto-sent text messages don’t always need a response, so don’t force one. Similarly, reminders and documents don’t need any other input. Keep it simple!
Send the Right Amount
Imagine getting a text message several times each day. After a while, that would get on anybody’s nerves. It may even force the employee to turn their notifications off. Avoid this by sending regular notifications without going overboard.
Don’t Forget Remote Workers
The benefit of SMS is that it travels across borders. For your remote workers in other countries or states, SMS can entice quick responses. But if they’re in a different time zone, make sure you don’t send it while they’re sleeping.
Get Feedback from Your New Hires
We mentioned asking feedback for the onboarding process, but don’t forget to ask about TextMagic too. Ask your recipients their preferences — frequency, topic, time of the day. The responses will help you send more effective messages.
SMS: Your Newest Training Tool
There you have it. While many companies are still stuck with archaic training tools, SMS changes that. Instead of wasting time and money on expensive software, use text messaging. You’ll find a much faster, cost-effective, and friendlier way of engaging your employees.
Alexa Lemzy
