Almost a third (30%) of HR departments are planning to change their strategy to move away from recruitment towards areas that have an impact on organisational performance.

According to research from TalentDrain, employers plan to focus on performance management (72%), organisational communication (67%) and engagement and retention (54%).

But the changes will not be accompanied with an increase in budget with 13% of HR departments being forced to cut their budgets by more than 25%.

Ron Eldridge, director of TalentDrain, said: "HR teams are having to rethink their priorities and many are trying to redirect their resources away from recruitment. The new strategic focus, even for organisations that have not cut their HR budget, seems to be around identifying, engaging and retaining those employees who are high performers, while more proactively managing areas of underperformance."