A third (31%) of companies plan to increase their spending on HR Technology in the coming year in an attempt to continue growth and improve efficiency in the face of a challenging economic environment. According to annual research released by global professional services company, Towers Watson, over half (53%) of the 628 global organisations involved in the research are planning to match last year’s investment levels while only 16% expect to reduce HR Technology spending.

Among those organisations planning to increase their investment in HR technology this year, the top three areas of investment included rolling-out additional functionality from existing vendors, upgrading HRMS systems and expanding current self-service functions. The main reasons cited for these changes were to create greater efficiency with the department, encourage collaboration of processes and investment, improve quality and lower costs.

The survey showed that among companies making changes to their HR function, the largest proportion (39%) will move or revert to a shared services environment, while others plan to increase the number of shared-services used (31%) and outsource additional HR functions (26%).  For European organisations, there was a particular emphasis on increasing capacity in talent and performance management software, training programmes and compensation systems.

Other key findings from the survey include:

• Six out of ten organisations (60%) offer an HR portal to HR and employees.  Another 20% are in the process of developing an HR portal.
• Three-quarters of single country organisations believe in having one central HR function for the entire organisation, whereas this models only suits a third (32%) of global organisations, which prefer HR functions that are covered by function and geography with corporate oversight.