The Institute of Contemporary Development held a roundtable discussion on “Spending Reductions During Crisis: Risks and Consequences”. The key issues under discussion included methods for optimizing personnel costs by keeping the core staff intact and ensuring they fulfill their basic responsibilities.
 
The roundtable discussion was organized by the National Bureau of Human Capital together with INSOR and the Free Social Sciences Platform Foundation.
 
The participants included were labor experts and representatives of oil&gas and metallurgy companies. The agenda included issues related to labor law, financial risks and social psychology (employee motivation and loyalty).
 
The discussion was opened by Alexander Antonov of SeverStal, who spoke both about difficulties created by the crisis and about positive issues. He said that the crisis forces companies to invigorate their financial system through internal reserves. Negative sides of the crisis, as seen by Alexander Antonov are: a decrease of working capital, reduction of available cash (own and borrowed), the inability to increase production capacity due to cuts in investment, growth of production prime cost and considerable reduction of profits. The positive effects of the crisis include the optimization business processes, productivity increases, reduction of prime production cost and expansion into new markets.
 
Senior lawyer of the Center for Social and Labor Rights Galina Yenutina noted that laws are being violated with regard to employee dismissals. She analyzed specific legal cases which demonstrate the current trends. 
 
Yekaterina Arkhipova, Managing Partner of the National Bureau of Human Capital, spoke on communication between a company and its employees during the crisis period. The participants discussed systems of motivation used in various companies, special methods and events aimed at boosting employee loyalty during and following times of crisis. To illustrate this, speakers gave examples of foreign companies’ experience.