Human Resources Development under the Conditions of the Global Crisis

At the end of the year 2008 the world was affected by the financial, later even economic crisis. Countries as well as enterprises all over the world have been threatened by this event significantly. The crisis has influenced almost every area of the human life. One of the areas affected by the crisis in the most significant way was the area of human resources management. Despite the fact that people – employees are considered to be the most important company’s asset and the crucial source of its competitiveness, they have become the most frequent object of the costs cuts. Companies have started to downsize, to reduce wages and benefits and also to reduce the duration and extent of employee education. Due to the fact that employee education is the most important way of the human capital development, the restrictive actions in this field might have fatal consequences on the future performance of the company. The paper deals with the most significant changes in the area of employee education under the conditions of the global crisis. It is based on a survey aimed at human capital and potential development that was carried out on a sample of Slovak enterprises at the beginning of 2010. The objective of the survey was to analyze the initiatives of the Slovak enterprises in the area of human capital and potential development as well as to identify the most significant changes in performing these activities as a result of the global economic crisis. The main aim of the paper is to characterize the impact of the global crisis particularly at the labor market and to identify the impact of the global crisis on the investments into human capital development with the focus on employee education as one of the personal activities.