A new survey has revealed how the current economic downturn has impacted human resources (HR) strategy, budgets and employee turnover.

The Employee Engagement and Retention Survey 2009 was conducted by Talentdrain.com and shows that HR teams are expected to do more with less.

According to the survey, HR departments are being forced to give greater emphasis to “organisational performance” while giving less focus to recruitment.

HR practitioners in 336 organisations were questioned for the survey and 30 per cent said they had changed their strategy.

Just over half (56 per cent) admitted to giving a lower priority to recruitment while 72 per cent said more importance should be placed on performance management.

In addition, some 54 per cent said they were spending more time on employee engagement and retention.

Chris Simpson, account manager for Business Link, said recently that downscaling a business is “a major decision that you shouldn’t take lightly” and should only be entered into when all other potential cost cutting ideas have been “exhausted”.

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