Texting for HR
Most of your workforce never opens a company email, and the portal login is a chore. Emissary lets HR text employees one-to-one or by the thousand from inside your HCM, with every message logged, every opt-out honored and nothing sent from a personal phone.
Today 9:41 AM
Hi Marisol, it's Dana in HR. Open enrollment closes Friday at 5pm and you haven't picked a plan yet. Want the 2-minute summary? Reply Y. Text STOP to opt out.
Y please
Sent to your email and here: emsry.io/benefits. Your current plan rolls over if you do nothing. Reply CALL and I'll phone you.
Why HR teams are moving to text
HR teams write clear policies, benefits guides and reminders, then send them through the one channel frontline employees check least. Email was built for people at desks. Most of the workforce isn't at one.
Frontline workers make up about 80% of the global workforce, and most of them have no company inbox, no desk and no reason to open a portal between shifts. A text reaches the phone that is already in their pocket: 98% of U.S. adults own a cellphone.
Microsoft Work Trend Index · Pew Research Center63% of frontline workers say messages from leadership never reach them, and 69% of frontline managers say the same about their own higher-ups. Only 7% of U.S. workers strongly agree that communication at work is accurate, timely and open.
Microsoft Work Trend Index · Gallup42% of frontline workers say they are considering leaving, and among hourly and Gen Z workers the share who expect to leave within six months is 48%. The teams that keep them are the ones that reach them first, in plain language, on time.
Axonify Deskless Report · BCG“The employees who need the message most are the ones email reaches last.”
Use cases
Each one runs from the employee record in your HCM, so the right people get the right message and every reply lands where the team can see it.
Book a demoConfirm start time, parking, dress code and documents by text in the week before the start date, then check in on day two. 22% of job seekers say they have skipped a first day at least once, and 65% of employers report first-day no-shows; only 12% of employees say their company does a good job of onboarding.
Deadline countdowns, a two-line plan summary and a reply keyword that books a call with a benefits specialist. 46% of employees spend under 30 minutes choosing benefits and 89% simply keep last year's plan; 41% call the process extremely confusing.
Broadcast an open shift to qualified, available employees and fill it from the first replies instead of calling down a list.
Short, time-stamped notices with a link to the full policy and a reply keyword to acknowledge, so you have a record of who saw it.
A one-question text gets answered where a survey link in an email doesn't. In Gallup's own panel tests, adding an SMS invitation raised completion rates, and nearly half of SMS recipients responded the same day.
Remind employees about expiring certifications and unfinished modules with a direct link, and let them reply to reschedule.
Weather closures, site incidents, system outages: a text reaches the whole site in minutes, with replies routed to the on-call HR contact.
Automated 30-, 60- and 90-day check-ins from the manager's name, with replies routed to a real person. Since managers account for at least 70% of the variance in team engagement, the check-in works best when it comes from them.
Final-pay timing, benefits continuation, equipment return and a rehire invitation three months later.
Every text is sent from a company number, logged to the employee record, and stops the moment someone replies STOP.
By the numbers
The phone is the one device every employee carries, and it is the one most HR messages never reach.
of U.S. adults own a cellphone; 91% own a smartphone
Pew Research Center, 2026of the global workforce is frontline, most without a desk or a company inbox
Microsoft Work Trend Index, 2022of frontline workers say messages from leadership don't reach them
Microsoft Work Trend Index, 2022of U.S. workers strongly agree workplace communication is accurate, timely and open
Gallupof people invited by text answered a survey the same day
Gallup researchers, AAPOR 2025SMS open rate, as high as — against about 20% for email
FCC Consumer Advisory Committee, 2022Compliance and trust
Texting employees carries the same opt-out and record-keeping duties as texting candidates. Emissary handles them in the product so HR doesn't have to police them.
Works with your HCM
Employee lists, groups and fields come from your HCM; replies and delivery records go back to it. No exports, no second address book.
Also integrates with Oracle Taleo, symplr HealthcareSource, Greenhouse, BrassRing, Jobscore and Visibility.
All 11 integrations →We'll connect to a sandbox, send a real text to your phone and show you where it lands in the employee record.
Already a customer? Employee texting is included in your plan; ask your account team to switch it on.
Greenhouse