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Mobile Employee Communications (SMS & Text): Good, Bad or Indifferent?
Have you had exposure to organizations that use SMS mobile technologies to communicate more directly with their employees (as an alternative or complement to the more traditional Email and Voicemail formats)? What works, what doesn't? Success stories? Good vendors/third parties to partner with?
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Interesting question, Charlie! I don't have any experience using mobile employee communications in large organizations, but I have heard a couple of success stories at conferences that I've been to. One story had to do with an employees who needed to return time sensitive paperwork, and the HR department used text messaging to remind people to bring in what they needed. If I remember correctly, the use of text messaging increased the amount of necessary paperwork that was returned on time.
I've only worked for small organizations and have found text messaging to be an incredibly helpful tool. It's great for when you need a quick answer, or for checking in if someone is running late to a meeting. I've never really used it for a bigger purpose than that.
However, if an organization were to implement mobile employee communications, the one grey area they'd have to be aware of is who is responsible for paying for the texts. Should employers be responsible for reimbursing employees for the costs?
I have worked with contracting companies who use SMS and especially MMS extensively between the office and field management. Field personnel can take photos of problems on-site and send via MMS, facilitating real-time solutions from the team. Office managers can also fulfill requests for information (RFIs) while site meetings are still in progress. There are many other immensely practical uses for SMS and MMS. @Caty: The organizations I am aware of that heavily utilize this tool have unlimited text phone plans.
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Belldon Colme
belldoncolme@gmail.com
i'm hoping to re-energize this question and some answers to it...this is actually something i'm trying to tackle internally right now and would really love some more input.
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