Companies are investing more money in human resources (HR) this year than they have since 2011, according to a new report by professional services company, Towers Watson.
The “2014 HR Service Delivery and Technology Survey” showed that the top three areas that companies are spending money on are talent management, HR data and analytics and integrated talent management and compensation.
Over one thousand HR professionals from 45 countries participated in the survey. The respondents were from different industries, like financial services, technology, retail, manufacturing and professional services.
Reengineering key processes was the top HR initiative taken over the last 18 months, with 55% of companies prioritizing this area. Other priorities included improving management capabilities (49%) and implementing manager self-service (36%).
More than half of respondents spent about the same amount of money in 2014 as prior years, but 23% percent spent up to 20% more in 2014 and 10% spent more than 20% more in 2014.
About 29% of respondents plan to move to a new human resource management system (HRMS).
Adoption of software as a service (SaaS) is one of the major technology trends that companies are considering for their HRMS needs. Forty percent of respondents are exclusively looking at SaaS solutions in order to improve functionality.
Other than technology updates, companies are also working to improve employee engagement. Over half of companies do employee engagement surveys at least every two years. Thirty-three percent of companies use this data to create positive change within their organization, while 30% of companies think that they should do more.
“Our daily work as HR professionals has tangible and immediate implications for the workforce and the organization as a whole,” the survey said. “Successful HR leaders prioritize opportunities to make their organizations more agile and flexible by addressing technology, structure and process challenges.”
