“If you are either a male or a female, with a bachelor degree and your age is above 25 you can gladly join our prestigious team in our call center.”
Have you ever seen or read this advertisement before, apart from comic magazines? Actually, you can find this advertisement posted by some well-recognized organizations.
One of the funny and recurring situations happening nowadays is the recruitment process for call center agents, and how organizations or companies choose the newcomers for this department.
I once called the call center of a reputable organization to inquire about something, the answer was, “Sorry, we can’t answer you now because we have an update in our system. We will call you again.” They even did not take my phone number to contact me later, or ask when the most suitable time for me to receive calls is!
How come we do not find the capabilities and real requirements for this job? Particularly since it is not a job of merely answering a phone, but one of how can I help you, save your time and have answers to all your questions.
I do not only blame the customer service employees or their managers, or the IT specialists who are incapable of handling or structuring the system, but I am mostly blaming the ones responsible for hiring those people and training them in the first place. What are the criteria that such organizations use to select their employees?
I can say that the answer is nothing!
Do you now know the answer for my question, why human resources (HR) employees are hated, even from customers like me?
Observing the attitudes of HR employees and HR systems in different organizations we can tell why HR departments are often hated. On purpose, they continue to apply the traditional and the historical role for this department (Employees’ Affairs)! They limit their work efforts to merely observing the attendance of employees, and handling the paper work of the organization or company.
In organizations that function correctly, the recruiting stage involves knowing the vacancies available, preparing the job description and requirements for each position, interviewing and testing the candidates, and then matching the requirements of any job with the capabilities of the candidates.
Organizations surely spend a lot of time and money in the recruiting stage: from tests, interviews and possibly second interviews for the candidates. However, in the end, the candidates end up working in a position that does not match their capabilities. How come the company wastes such vast amounts of money, resources and time, and then demands growth and profit by the end of each fiscal year?!
“Do they live with us in this century?” I always ask myself, and now I am asking you the same question. “What else are they waiting for to wake up?!”
Marian Yacoub
EDITORS: Mennat-Allah Yasser Zohny & Nada Adel Sobhi