HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE WORLD ECONOMIC CRISIS

In this paper attention is focusedon the processes of companies restructuring whichSerbian managers have often used in fighting withdifficulties in business arising under the influenceof the global economic crisis. The effect of theseprocesses largely depends on the way in which theyare carried out and they are directly linked with thefunction of human resources. Basic strategicactions were mainly focused on restructuring theworkforce. The analysis of the characteristics ofprivatization in Serbia leads to the conclusion thatthe way in which the process has been realized inSerbia in many cases has not generateddevelopment and long-term economic interests, butrather narrow individual consumer appetites andshort-term profit orientation. This is supported byimages of Serbia today, including everyday revoltsof disgruntled workers, protest blockades of roadsand railways, hunger strikes and so on. In this way,Serbian companies have reduced their mostvaluable asset - the employees and were leftwithout an effective weapon in the struggle with thechallenges of the global economic crisis. Startingfrom the fact that human resources are the keyresources which should be used in dealing with thechallenges of the global economic crisis, the paperemphasizes the imperative of investing in modernhuman resource management practices in order torelease Serbian companies of their bad situation assoon as possible and make them become morecompetitive.