Blasts for employers
A site that won't open. A start pushed back. A different entrance, an updated schedule, a system that's down for the morning. Your company already knows who each change concerns. DirectToEmployees lets the person who knows send one notice to exactly those people, before they find out the hard way.
Starts with the email addresses you already have, with nothing for employees to install. Setting up a Hub is free, credits are prepaid and never expire, and there is no subscription and no connector to your HR or scheduling systems.
Eastgate Depot is closed this morning: the yard hasn't been cleared after the overnight ice. Don't report to Eastgate. The next update comes here by 9.
ToEastgate DepotThe north entrance and lot are closed for resurfacing this week. Use the south entrance and park in the overflow lot.
ToCentral OfficeThe ticketing system is unavailable until about 10 a.m. Log calls on the paper form in the shared folder, and we'll post here when it's back.
ToCustomer SupportWhy it matters
Not every change is urgent, and not every employee works at a site. But when something changes about someone's working day, hearing it late has a real cost: a wasted drive, an hour of waiting, a morning of work nobody can do.
The night crew knows the yard is iced over. The day crew finds out at the gate, because the notice went to an inbox nobody opens before a 6 a.m. start.
A delivery slipped, so tonight's shift starts two hours later. The change is in the scheduling system, and half the shift doesn't think to look before leaving home.
A remote support team spends the first hour of the day retrying a tool that's down for maintenance, because the notice was one line in a company-wide newsletter.
The change was known, and so were the people it affected. What was missing was one notice to exactly those people.
The assignment
Every workday change belongs to part of the company: a site, a shift, a crew, a department, a group of managers. Your company keeps that assignment in its own systems and in the heads of the people who run the work. In DirectToEmployees you keep the audiences you actually send to, and every notice goes to exactly one of them.
One notice, one audience
Tonight's start at Eastgate moves from 10 p.m. to midnight while the dock repair finishes. Your updated start time is in the scheduling system.
ToEastgate Night ShiftAudiences a company keeps
One notice, one audience. Your company keeps the assignment; DirectToEmployees carries the notice.
A site closes, a start moves, an entrance changes, a system goes down.
The site, the shift, the crew or the team. The audience already exists, because your company created it and put the right people in it.
What changed, what to do, and where the authoritative schedule or instruction lives.
To the people in that audience, by email or on Blasts, and to nobody else.
A combination is its own audience
If you regularly need to reach the night shift at Eastgate, Eastgate Night Shift is an audience you create and fill. DirectToEmployees doesn't work out Eastgate plus Night Shift at the moment you send.
Eastgate Depot and Night Shift, combined at send time
Eastgate Night Shift, kept as its own audience
Only your company knows who belongs in these, so employees never pick them. Someone at the company puts people in them, and moves people when an assignment changes; nothing moves on its own.
A new company Hub starts with Company Events, which employees turn on or off themselves. You can add other optional interests the same way, such as Extra Shifts for people who want to hear when more shifts open up.
A department, team or manager column in a spreadsheet never fills an audience by itself. Filing one audience inside another keeps a long list tidy, and a notice still reaches only the audience you pick.
Workday notices
Each of these was written by someone who knew what changed, and sent to one audience.
North Yard is closed today because of a power failure. Don't report to North Yard. We'll send the next instruction here by 10.
ToNorth YardTonight's shift starts at midnight instead of 10 p.m. while the floor finishes drying. Your updated start time is in the scheduling system.
ToRiverside Night ShiftField crews finish at 3 today ahead of the storm. Return vehicles to the yard by 3:30, and check tomorrow's assignments in the scheduling system tonight.
ToField ServicesTomorrow, Eastgate crews report to North Yard at the usual time while the Eastgate floor is resealed.
ToEastgate DepotThe north entrance and lot are closed for resurfacing this week. Use the south entrance and park in the overflow lot.
ToCentral OfficeNext week's night schedule has changed. Check your own shifts in the scheduling system before Monday.
ToNight ShiftThe forklift lane by bay 4 is closed after a spill. Use the east lane until your lead reopens it.
ToNorth YardThe ticketing system is unavailable until about 10 a.m. Log calls on the paper form, and we'll post here when it's back.
ToCustomer SupportAnd the regular notices
These go to the audience they concern, often All Employees. The task itself, like enrolling or completing training, stays in the system your company uses for it.
DirectToEmployees is not an emergency notification system or a security alert tool, and it replaces none of the procedures or notices your company is required to keep.
Who sends
Notices come from the people who run the workday, each signing in as themselves and granted the audiences they should reach.
In the Hub these are ordinary roles: owners and admins reach every audience, a Site or Department Lead sends only to the audiences they are granted, and a viewer reads along without sending. There is no built-in HR or safety role.
Delivery
Nobody has to install anything for your first notice to arrive.
Import the employees who agreed to receive your notices, and each of them receives by email from your first send, with nothing installed.
An employee who uses Blasts can connect with your company on a device they choose. When that connection uses the same email address your company has for them, their notices move there on their own.
Employees should connect on Blasts with the email address your company has for them, so the connection matches the person already receiving your notices. A connection with a different address is a separate person, and it doesn't carry the audiences the first address is in.
Typing in one address sends that person an invitation. It doesn't add them as a subscriber.
A work address or a personal address can both work, where your company has the employee's agreement to reach them there. Neither is required.
There is no SMS here and no required app, and nothing decides for an employee how they receive.
Your systems
DirectToEmployees doesn't connect to, read or replace the systems that hold employment facts. A person at your company reads them, or simply knows, and sends the notice.
| Your systems keep the record | DirectToEmployees carries the notice | |
|---|---|---|
| System | Keeps | DirectToEmployees |
| Your HRIS | Who is employed, in which job and department, and their dates | Holds only the recipients and audiences your company keeps in the Hub |
| Your scheduling system | The schedule, shifts, swaps and time off | Says the schedule changed and where to check it |
| Payroll | Pay, deductions and pay dates | Can remind people of a cutoff date, never what they are paid |
| Your benefits system | Eligibility and elections | Reminds the audience that the enrollment window closes Friday |
| Timekeeping | Hours and attendance | Never sees them |
| Training and certification | Assignments, completions and expiry dates | Announces a training date to the audience it concerns |
The people who receive your notices, as an email address and a name, the audiences your company keeps, and the notices you sent. That is the whole list.
There is no HRIS, payroll, scheduling, workforce-management, timeclock, benefits, learning, directory, Teams or Slack connector. DirectToEmployees doesn't know an employee's schedule, site, department, status or dates.
Privacy
Telling someone their site is closed doesn't require knowing anything else about them, so DirectToEmployees is built to hold as little as possible. The preferences page doesn't even ask employees for a birthday or an anniversary.
A communication-only file
Three columns, prepared for this channel. Leave everything else in the systems that already hold it.
A company import keeps three things: the email address, the name, and an audiences column naming audiences you already created. Every other column in the file is dropped before anything is saved, and the import preview shows those columns as not stored.
That is a narrow import rule, not a scan for sensitive information. Prepare a communication-only file rather than uploading a full HR export.
What the Hub doesn't need
Receiving by email needs nothing installed. Connecting on Blasts is the employee's own choice, on a device they choose. Your company sees that a person is connected, never their location, their device or their notification settings.
Respect employee time: send outside working hours only when a change genuinely affects the next work period.
This describes how the channel is built and meant to be used. It is not a legal or regulatory compliance claim.
Hub Pro
Journeys and Event Campaigns are part of Hub Pro, which unlocks at $500 in cumulative Blast Credit purchases. Everything above works without them.
Starts when a person is added to New Team Members
Five notes that start when someone at your company adds a person to your New Team Members audience. Never from a hire date or a start date: the Hub can't see either.
It's a welcome, not HR onboarding, and finishing it records nothing about anyone's employment.
Built around one shutdown date
Six notices around one date, sent to the audience for the affected site. Move the date and every unsent notice moves with it.
Your scheduling system stays the authority on each person's assignment. DirectToEmployees doesn't know who reported, and this isn't an emergency workflow.
What it costs
One typed Blast to one person is one credit. Credits are prepaid and never expire, there is no subscription, and credits can come from any legitimate source. Sending to the site, shift or team a change concerns uses fewer credits than sending every notice to everyone.
One typed Blast to one person is one credit, whatever the notice says.
People still receiving by email use one email credit per email instead. Every new Hub includes 50.
Nothing bills monthly and credits never expire, so a quiet month costs nothing.
Journeys and Event Campaigns unlock at $500 in cumulative Blast Credit purchases. Everything else is included from the first notice.
Illustrative example, not real data
Every number here is invented to show the arithmetic: the company, its audiences and its month of notices don't exist, and none of it comes from Northmill Services or any other organization. What is real is the method: each notice costs one credit for each person in the audience it goes to.
if the same 11 notices had each gone to all 600 employees
| Notice | People × sends | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Eastgate Depot closed, then the all-clear | 90 × 2 | 180 |
| Night Shift delayed start | 120 × 1 | 120 |
| North Yard entrance change | 150 × 1 | 150 |
| Field Services safety instruction | 140 × 1 | 140 |
| Central Office system outage, then restored | 80 × 2 | 160 |
| Company Events: the summer picnic | 220 × 1 | 220 |
| Benefits window closing, to All Employees | 600 × 2 | 1,200 |
| Monthly leadership update, to All Employees | 600 × 1 | 600 |
| 2,770 credits, each notice sent to the audience it concerns | 2,770 | |
Counted as typed Blasts, the $50 Starter package covers about 9 months at that invented pace.
Recipients are people. Not all of them need to be on Blasts: someone receiving by email is a recipient too, and uses an email credit instead of a Blasts credit. Your own numbers depend on your own audiences.
Getting started
The setup that matters isn't technical. It's deciding which audiences your company sends to and who may send to each.
Sign in, walk through onboarding and set your timezone. Setting up is free; sending uses prepaid credits.
One per site, shift, crew or department you actually notify, plus any combination you send to often, set to company assigns.
Email, name and an audiences column, for the employees who agreed to receive your notices. Nothing else.
Everyone on the file can receive by email from your first notice. Share your enrollment code for anyone who wants Blasts.
Invite operations, site and department leads, HR and anyone else who sends, each granted their own audiences.
Send something low-stakes first, so the first notice people get isn't a closure.
Implementation guide
How to decide what belongs in the channel, create the audiences your company works in, prepare a communication-only import, start by email and set the norms for workday notices. It's a page, not a download, and it's open to read now.
No form and no sign-up: the guide is a page, and nothing here asks for your name or email address.
Direct answers
DirectToEmployees is the employer front door to the Blasts Hub, for the notices that change someone's working day: a site that won't open, a delayed start, a different entrance or reporting location, an updated schedule, a system that's down. Your company keeps the audiences it actually sends to, like a site, a shift or a team, and a person who knows what changed sends one notice to the one audience it concerns. Employees receive by email from the first notice, with nothing to install, and on Blasts if they choose to connect with the same email address. It is a notice channel, not an HR system, a scheduling tool or an employee record, and it connects to none of them.
No. It's a notice channel. It holds the people who receive your notices, the audiences your company keeps and the notices you sent. Employment records, schedules, pay, benefits and time stay in the systems your company already uses, and DirectToEmployees connects to none of them.
No, and none is planned here. People reach the Hub through a CSV import, the inbound webhook or Zapier on request, and a person at your company decides which audience a notice goes to. DirectToEmployees doesn't know an employee's schedule, site, department or status.
No. An employee on your opted-in list receives by email from your first notice, with nothing installed. Connecting on Blasts is the employee's own choice, on a device they choose.
Import the employees who agreed to receive your notices, with an email address, a name and the audiences they belong to. Each of them receives by email from your first send. Anyone who uses Blasts can also connect with your company using your enrollment code.
When the connection uses the same email address your company has for them, their notices move to Blasts on their own. If they connect with a different address, that's a separate person in the Hub: the audiences the first address is in don't move to it, and the first address keeps receiving by email. The implementation guide covers how to handle it.
Yes, where your company has the employee's agreement to reach them there. A work address works the same way. Neither is required, and nothing here is a reason to collect addresses you don't already have permission to use.
Yes, if that group is an audience. Every notice goes to exactly one audience, and DirectToEmployees doesn't combine two audiences at the moment you send. If you often notify the Eastgate night shift, create Eastgate Night Shift as its own audience and put those people in it.
A company import keeps the email address, the name and an audiences column naming audiences you already created. Every other column is dropped before anything is saved, and the preview shows those columns as not stored. That's a narrow import rule, not a scan for sensitive information, so prepare a communication-only file rather than a full HR export.
The people you invite, each signing in as themselves. Owners and admins reach every audience; a Site or Department Lead sends only to the audiences you grant; a viewer reads along. Leader approval starts off, and you can turn it on in Settings.
Don't plan on it. DirectToEmployees is built to carry notices, not to measure who read them, and nothing here is a record that anyone saw something. If you need to know something, ask the people who know, through the channels your company already uses for that.
No. You can tell an audience that extra shifts are available and where to claim them, in your scheduling system or through your usual process. DirectToEmployees doesn't hold, fill or assign shifts.
No, and it isn't described as one. It's a channel beside your emergency procedures and any notices your company is required to give, and it replaces none of them.
No. There is no location tracking and no monitoring of anyone's device. Your company sees that a person is connected, never where they are or how their notifications are set.
Yes. A workday change isn't only a closed site: a system that's down for a remote support team or a moved meeting for an office team is the same job. Create the audiences those teams actually are.
Setting up a Hub is free. One typed Blast to one person is one credit; people still on email use one email credit instead. Credits are prepaid, never expire and can come from any legitimate source, and there is no subscription.
Journeys and Event Campaigns, such as New Team Member Welcome and Planned Site Shutdown. Hub Pro unlocks at $500 in cumulative Blast Credit purchases. Everything else, from sending to audiences and roles, is included from the start.
They're opted out and stop receiving everything from your company's Hub, and they're removed from every audience, including the ones your company assigned. If they reply START later, messages resume, but someone at your company has to add them back to their audiences.
Set up your company's Hub, create the audiences your company actually works in, and start with the email addresses you already have.
Already have a Hub? Sign in