The global economic slowdown is forcing companies to look closely at their expenses and at efficiency gains in all relevant business areas. In order to maneuver through this storm, many companies will need to uncover ways to eliminate human resources-related costs or increase the ROI on human capital spent while maintaining focus on the long-term business objectives of the company.

Companies that achieve that balance will be able to emerge out of the crisis in a stronger position. The downturn should be viewed as an opportunity to make the company more agile and prepared for future growth.

In this podcast, Hewitt experts Piotr Bednarczuk and Jim Bloomer discuss the opportunities and pitfalls as human capital decisions are made in this environment:

• Understanding the importance of what employees value;
  
• Awareness of potential "unintended consequences;" and
  
• Thinking broadly about reductions, but truly leveraging other less apparent tactics.

PODCAST:
Click here to access to this podcast, "Human Capital Management in a Downturn". Running time for this podcast is 14 minutes; file size is 13 MB. If you experience a slow connection, please right-click this link and download the podcast.