How Reply.io digitized HR processes and recruiting with PeopleForce

There are startups with Ukrainian roots that have already gained recognition on a global scale. One such company is Reply.io, with over 4000 clients from 60+ countries, continuous development, and the use of artificial intelligence. Reply.io is a leader in the field of personal and business communication automation. Moreover, Reply.io is one of the most active clients of PeopleForce, always ready to collaborate and contribute suggestions and ideas.

Olga Dolgintseva, the HR manager at Reply.io, recommended our platform to the management based on her own experience. This marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between Reply.io and PeopleForce. In an interview with Olga and her colleague, Lead Recruiter Oleksandra Syzonets, they shared why an HRM system is crucial for them in a modern company and how exactly PeopleForce facilitates their daily work.

About Reply.io

Reply.io is a leading AI-powered sales engagement platform that automates personal and business communication across email, calls, SMS, LinkedIn, and messengers. Over 4000 clients from 60+ countries rely on this platform every day.

The Reply.io team comprises over 110 remote professionals, united by the mission to connect businesses and facilitate growth through personalized communication automation.

How did you come to use PeopleForce?

Olga worked with PeopleForce before joining Reply.io. In her previous company, all document flow was done using Google Docs. To input information about a new employee, for example, she had to fill out several tables: birthdays, absences, etc. Olga quickly realized that such fragmented processes consumed over 60% of her working time. That's why she initiated research into HRM systems on the market to find the optimal solution.

There was an understanding that during the search for a system, certain criteria needed to be taken into account. For example:

• Availability of leave policy control in the system
• Availability of document flow that can be conducted in a single space
• Consideration of employee birthdays
• Ability to make announcements on the feed
• Keeping track of employee assets
• Security of the system
• Optimal cost

At that time, Olga directly spoke with PeopleForce's Regional Sales Director, Tetiana Dumanova. Tetiana provided detailed information about all the advantages of the PeopleForce HR platform. In turn, Olga managed to test the system and try it out in practice.

After joining the Reply.io team, Olga quickly realized that automation was indispensable. At the time, only the tracking of absences was automated, while all other HR processes were managed through Google Sheets.

"It seems to me that automation of processes is essential for any HR specialist, as without it, they would spend most of their time on routine personnel tasks. It's important to define your own criteria for choosing an HRM system and select one that perfectly meets the company's needs, with particular attention to scalability. With PeopleForce, our initial experience was positive, and when I moved to Reply, I demonstrated to the founder how PeopleForce effectively surpasses our previous system, which was limited to leave tracking only. We determined that PeopleForce provides all the necessary tools in one system and can adapt to the company's growth. This convinced him to start working with PeopleForce, and now we are actively integrating new modules to meet our current and future HR management needs."

– Olga Dolgintseva, HR manager at Reply.io.

For conducting recruitment processes, Oleksandra also used another system, which was too complex, overloaded with various functionality that a recruiter is unlikely to use in routine work. On the way to PeopleForce, Oleksandra and her team tried various systems and task managers, but they all were poorly structured for daily work.

In the case of PeopleForce, Oleksandra liked the platform's friendliness and openness to communication and changes. She understood the system's processes in just two weeks after being tasked with managing recruitment in the company.

"At PeopleForce, everything is exceptionally comfortable and organized. The interface is intuitive and flexible, allowing users to add custom fields to candidate profiles, configure pipelines tailored to specific position requirements, and conveniently manage all accompanying materials, among other features. What particularly stood out to me was during discussions about acquiring the PeopleRecruit module, the PeopleForce manager responded to all my numerous questions about functionality: "yes, we have this", "yes, we do this." It's impressive when a platform aligns perfectly with your needs and expectations. PeopleForce exceeded all my expectations in terms of recruiting approach!"

– Oleksandra Syzonets, Lead Recruiter at Reply.io.

How did the Reply.io team react?

The team was already quite well adapted to using various systems, so they reacted quite positively to the transition to the new system.

Managers emphasize that they particularly liked the fairly user-friendly interface, which is simple and easy to understand. Overall, the atmosphere that PeopleForce conveys is friendly and positive.

The recruiting team mentored by Oleksandra also quickly adapted to the new system. Due to the platform's flexibility in customization to the specific characteristics of the company as a whole, job vacancies, and recruiters' needs, it rapidly became the primary tool for efficient recruiter workflow.

Client file info

Having information about employees, the Reply.io company wanted to upload it into the system to save time and avoid manual input. To do this, they needed to gather the information into an Excel file and hand it over to the technical team at PeopleForce, who then transferred the data to the client's account. Olga, on her part, only verified the accuracy of the data.

Using the CoreHR product

The team actively uses several functions:

• Team absence tracking
• Onboarding and adaptation (especially suitable for remote teams, as Reply.io actively develops corporate culture and promotes the integration of newcomers into the team)
• Organizational structure in the "Teams" section
• Mandatory notifications via email and in the system (removing the additional responsibility of HR specialists to send emails about recent changes and news)
• Company calendar for planning holidays and important dates
• Integrations with messengers and the Google platform
• Custom reports

Using the Recruit product

The team actively uses several functions:

• Parsing candidates through Djinni and LinkedIn using the PeopleForce Prospector plugin
• Managing candidates through the recruitment funnel and scheduling meetings via the platform
• Adding custom fields to the candidate's profile in the system
• Using assessment sheets
• Sending job offers, etc.
• Custom reports on recruitment

“It took me only two weeks to tailor the Recruit product to meet our specific needs. During this time, I delved deep into its functionalities, created various documents, letters, and offer templates, and significantly improved our entire Recruitment process. Concurrently, candidate management through the platform began immediately."

– Oleksandra Syzonets, Lead Recruiter at Reply.io.

The top 5 advantages of PeopleForce, according to Reply.io

1. Organization and structure. With the platform, all company processes are organized and have a single place and source of information, making them easy to find, monitor, delegate tasks to, and store data.
2. Convenient representation of the recruiting process. Everything, from creating positions to extending job offers, satisfies the Reply.io team.
3. Time savings. The HR platform is fundamental to the company, saving specialists, managers, and recruiters time and helping them focus on truly important tasks.
4. Integrations with messengers. Integrations help you stay in constant contact with the team and see everything that happens in a convenient format, such as Slack.
5. UI/UX design and a user-friendly interface became one of the reasons why company specialists paid attention to PeopleForce and continue to be a significant advantage of the platform for Reply.io.

Review of PeopleForce

"I believe that HRM systems are essential for companies that value both their own and their employees' well-being. These systems play a central role in ensuring the smooth and efficient operation of any company. Unlike task managers, HRMs are designed to handle complex HRM functionalities. Recently, my team and I conducted extensive research and testing on various HRM platforms. Among them, PeopleForce stood out as the best option we've experienced and applied!"

– Oleksandra Syzonets, Lead Recruiter at Reply.io.