Cloud Telephony Changing Human Resource Landscape Cloud telephony has served as the most economic solution to minimize the efforts and costs incurred in a hiring process, and streamline other HR operations
By Ankit Jain
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
You're reading Entrepreneur India, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media.
The human resource of an organization helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality. So, it's of utmost importance to choose the right employees who are both efficient and fit perfectly in your company's culture. And the HR team is responsible to carry out this process effectively.
Human resource department helps an organization set a foundation upon which the company functions and that foundation comprises "people'. To make the process of laying and building this foundation more efficient, cloud telephony assists the HR department to accomplish its objectives with ease.
Cloud telephony aids quality hiring in lesser costs and time. Moreover, it has also simplified the functioning of HR department within the organization. Now, let's dive in to see how cloud telephony simplifies various HR operations.
Automates the hiring process
There are always certain prerequisites that a candidate must fulfil in order to get hired. HR department often ends up spending its time, resources and money on every candidate who applies for the position. Wouldn't it be better to first filter out the candidates based on the prerequisites and then decide whether to screen that candidate further?
Outbound IVR minimizes human efforts by automating the initial filtering process. It generates outbound calls to all the candidates who applied for the position and interacts with them by asking a set of predefined questions. Candidates' respective responses are recorded in the system, and HR can see all the responses in a single window which can be reviewed at one go.
This process not only saves human efforts and time but also enables the company to reach out multiple geographies for hiring candidates. The physical presence of your team will be required only when the candidate fulfils significant criteria.
Ensures privacy and handles large call volume
The job posting is a crucial part of the company's hiring process, whether it's done on the company's website or any other job listing portal. To resolve candidates' queries, and be accessible to the applicants, companies often display their contact number along with the job posting. But giving a personal mobile number of an HR executive can turn out to be problematic. First, it might get exploded with too many calls, and second but most important, it will hamper the privacy of that employee.
A virtual number resolves both of these issues with ease. Contact numbers of all the HR executives can be mapped at the back of a single virtual number. So, when a candidate calls on that number, it will be routed only to that person who is not busy on any other call. So, the issue of high call volume easily gets resolved as multiple calls can, now, be handled simultaneously.
Furthermore, virtual number's call masking feature helps the organization ensure the privacy of employees in the HR department. Call masking feature masks both inbound and outbound calls by keeping the privacy of both candidate and the employees intact. When an applicant calls on the virtual number, a personal number of the employee speaking to the candidate doesn't get disclosed. Similarly, the employee also cannot see a personal number of the candidate.
Mis-dial serves a new tool for efficient hiring
Besides using outbound IVR for approaching the potential candidates, mis-dial solution is another effective medium. Misdial number is advertised on different job portals, through SMS, and other platforms. Interested candidates are required to give a missed call on the advertised phone number. HR executives, then, reverts to them one by one to know their queries or schedule an interview.
This solves the problem of unavailability during non-working hours and is an effective solution when hiring candidates from different countries. Irrespective of the time candidates call on your number, HR executives can revert during their working hours at the time suitable for both the time zones.
Simplifies HR Operations
Use of an IVR also eliminates the manual transfer of calls. IVR routes these calls automatically routed to the concerned business department or agent. There is just one centralised virtual number for the entire department, and this helps the caller (both existing employees or interested candidates) to connect with the concerned department easily, without going through long call waiting time.
Cloud telephony has served as the most economic solution to minimize the efforts and costs incurred in a hiring process, and streamline other HR operations as well. It has contributed a lot to automating several business operations, and human resource automation is the next big step.