Web 2.0 Employee Engagement Technology Watson Wyatt Cutbacks
Global - HR practitioners who increased their use of Web 2.0 technologies to engage employees cost effectively during the downturn have said employee satisfaction remains high in the workplace.
With more than 70% companies reporting an average 11% cut from their HR budgets, Web 2.0 tools are seen as a viable mean to stretch the corporate budget. According to Watson Wyatt's 2009 HR Technology Trends Survey, respondents that have deployed or piloting Web 2.0 tools reported high levels of employee satisfaction at work.
Since the downturn began, 72% out of 181 multinationals polled have increased their use of the intranet and 61% have increased their use of email to communicate with employees. A third of respondents have also increased their use of webcasts with 13% and 12% increasing the use of social networking tools and blogs for communication respectively.
Jon Osborne, senior technology consultant at Watson Wyatt, told CCH, a provider of business and corporate law information services that HR is recognising the usefulness of Web 2.0 to personalise employee communication at a low cost. "Particularly in this difficult economic time, using tools such as role-based portals, internal blogs and webcasts ensures that both managers and employees can send and receive tailored messages in an engaging format."
True to form, the survey also found that companies are adopting personalised role-based employee portals the most rapidly. While 41% are deploying or piloting the portals, nearly a quarter plan to adopt them in the next 24 months. Companies are also planning to deploy more personalised media tools - such as blogs (13%), wikis (13%) and podcasts (10%) - in the next 24 months.
So far, the standard intranet is seeing a slowdown of implementation with only 2% planning to implement one in the next two years. More than half of companies polled are also planning more talent management technology in the same timeframe. With an emphasis on integration, 46% will integrate their existing applications or leverage their enterprise resource planning while 27% will move to an integrated suite.
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