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Corresponding author:
1 Department of Accounting, Economics and Human Resources Management of Enterprise, 
Prydniprovska State Academy of the Civil Engineering and Architecture.
E-mail: elena.kakhovskaya@gmail.com
2 Scientific Research Department, Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics.
E-mail: ndch_TL@knteu.kiev.ua
3 Department of Applied Economics, Odessa Institute of Trade and Economics of Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics.
E-mail: ekolesnikova.od@gmail.com

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30525/2256-0742/2018-4-3-115-122

ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY OF INVESTMENTS  
INTO PERSONNEL DEVELOPMENT OF ENTERPRISES

Olena Kakhovska1
Prydniprovska State Academy of the Civil Engineering and Architecture, Ukraine

Tetiana Lositska2
Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, Ukraine

Katerina Kolesnikova3
Odessa Institute of Trade and Economics  

of Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics, Ukraine

Abstract. The purpose of the article is the research of further improvement of investment process into personnel of 
the enterprises, using modern methods and tools, which are put into practice, for an increase in resulting economic 
effects of enterprise’s activity. A key element in the functioning of companies is a balanced management system, 
so improving the effectiveness of investing in human capital should be considered by management as a priority. 
Therefore, it is important to improve the process of investing in personnel, using modern methods and tools that 
improve the efficiency of the company. Results. The structure of human capital is disclosed, which can be represented 
as a set of such components as health; competence; technical and special skills, which include the costs of continuing 
education, remuneration, other benefits and compensation. Problems that restrain investment of investments in 
personnel and tasks of personnel development policies are highlighted, the main one of which is maximizing the 
return on investment in employees. Practical implications. A motivating factor is an investment in planning and career 
motivation, which allows achieving a balance between the interests of the enterprise and the employee on the basis of 
principles: scientific, fairness, observance of labour legislation, efficiency, consistency. The definition of the economic 
efficiency of staff development in general form consists of three consecutive stages: the definition of the cost structure 
and their valuation; the definition of the structure of results and their valuation; comparison of the calculated values of 
costs and results reduced to one point in time. Value/originality. Management of investments aimed at the development 
of human capital will increase not only the effectiveness of the realization of human potential but also the efficiency 
of the use of all tangible and intangible assets of the enterprise.

Key words: investments in personnel development, investment efficiency, evaluation of investment efficiency in 
personnel, social aspect of investing in company personnel.

JEL Classification: D25, J24, М12, M53

1. Introduction
Level of economic development of any state depends 

on a large number of factors and components, among 
which an important place is taken by the level of 
functioning efficiency of the industrial companies as 
one of the main components in the state economic 
system. This efficiency is reached due to the creation 
of the balanced production management system on the 

basis of simultaneous and rational management of three 
types of the company capital: fixed capital, working 
and human capital. The last researches of domestic and 
foreign authors about the efficiency of investment into 
a human capital demonstrate that more significant and 
longer effect brings direct investments in forming and 
personnel development of the companies, instead, of 
the simple use of the fixed or working capital.



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2. Analysis of recent research and publications
Problems of investment into a companies’ human 

capital are very relevant for their effective work as 
personnel structure, its knowledge, abilities and 
professionalism become high-valuable assets of the 
enterprises, which at competent management are 
transformed to the capital bringing the increasing 
income to the owner of the business. Unlike costs for 
the workforce in the Ukrainian legal acts, as well as in 
the international regulating documents according to the 
work’s statistics, there is no accurate and unambiguous 
determination of essence of investments into personnel, 
as in a human capital of any enterprise. Scientists of the 
different countries worldwide are engaged in the solution 
of this problem. The American economists McConnell 
and Brue (2013) define the essence of investments into 
personnel as certain actions and the related costs, which 
improve skills, capabilities, and labour productivity 
of workers and will be repeatedly compensated by 
the increasing income in the future. According to the 
authors, it can serve as the predominating incentive for 
such investments.

All human capital investments McConnell and 
Brue (2013, р. 484) divide into the following groups: 
expenses for education (include general and special, 
formal and informal preparation on a workplace); 
expenses on healthcare (expenses on prevention of 
diseases, medical attendance, dietary food, improvement 
of housing conditions); expenses on mobility thanks to 
which workers migrate from places with rather a low 
production to places with rather high.

According to one of the founders of the basic 
model theory of the intellectual capital H. Becker, 
investments into the human capital, except offered 
by McConnell and Brue, still have to contain costs of 
children’s education and also information search about 
the prices, income, and salary. This scientist for the first 
time carried out calculation of economic education 
efficiency by calculation of return from investments in 
the human capital. This efficiency is 12–14% of annual 
profit. H. Becker’s (2003, p. 66) contribution to the 
development of a branch of knowledge under the name 
“Human Capital” still considered the main scientific 
work in this area.

Jac Fitz-enz (2006, p. 66), in turn, emphasized that 
investments into development of employees are costs of 
all educational and qualification actions of the enterprise 
and the program for development of personnel.

I.M. Novak (2006, p. 84-85) approaches determination 
of essence of investments into personnel at the corporate 
level based on “total costs of the employer on the 
reproduction of workforce power” of which “qualitatively 
new human capital with the high level of qualification, 
health and working capacity” is result.

Many researchers consider human capital investments 
as the instrument of influence and stimulation of 

reproduction. V.P. Antonyuk (2007) considers that 
human capital investments are “the costs performed 
for the purpose to increase in productive employee 
abilities and future income.” O.M. Bilyk (2004, p. 382) 
connects increases in cost efficiency from investment into 
personnel with the subsequent natural macroeconomic 
growth and defines investments into an intellectual capital 
as “production costs of specific goods (certain means of 
production – knowledge, qualification, etc.), which are 
directed to a gain of opportunities and, as a result, the 
worker’s earnings (the total revenues of the country).”

The interrelation between the efficiency of investment 
into a human capital and macroeconomic growth found 
the reflection in works of O.A. Grishnova (2001, 
p. 18) and S.O. Tsimbalyuk (2006, p. 104). Both 
authors consider that such attachments “bring quite 
considerable in volume, long in time, and integral in 
character economic and social effect.”

A similar approach to the determination of 
investment’s efficiency into personnel is noted also in 
work of such scientists as M. Bublik, V. Koval, V. Redkva 
(2017, p. 236).

Such differentiation of investment orientation 
promotes identification of the most effective directions 
of investments based on the analysis of the level of 
return, labour productivity, and dynamics of indicators’ 
change of intellectual potential and physical health of 
employees. In the same manner increase in the level of 
motivation and interest in good results of the production 
process is a positive tendency of forming, development 
and reproduction of a human capital.

Despite numerous researches concerning the concept 
“investment into personnel” and efficiency assessment 
of such investment, such researches have no system 
complex character, in addition, have no connected 
investments into personnel with the decision to invest 
and also to decide social problems of personnel.

The purpose of the article is the research of further 
improvement of investment process into personnel 
of the enterprises, using modern methods and tools, 
which are put into practice, for an increase in resulting 
economic effects of enterprise’s activity.

3. Fundamentals of the formation  
and functioning of the policy of investing  
in personnel

Now, human resource management becomes one of 
the most significant strategic management functions. It 
is connected with the fact that in the economy based on 
knowledge, a workforce is the carrier of the labour and 
intellectual potential capable of providing competitive 
force and realizing the profitability potential of the 
economic entity in the achievement of long-term 
prospects by it. The practice of the developed countries 
showed that the considerable competitiveness of the 
companies is guaranteed by no means not so much at 



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the expense of natural resources and the progressive 
equipment, how many for the account results of rapid 
formation of the human capital. Human potential, 
managers’ ability to competently put and execute the 
purposes, and also effective use of resources become 
major factors of the successful existence of the enterprise.

In these conditions, achievement of strategic objectives 
of human resource management is impossible without 
the implementation of investments into personnel 
assuming costs of development and realization of 
labour potential and formation of the human capital as 
a non-material asset of the economic entity capable of 
bringing income to both the worker and the employer. 
The concept “investments” is, first of all, the process of 
an investment in the enterprise’s assets for the purpose 
of receiving investment income.

Investment process always assumes receiving income, 
which has to be predicted, planned, and calculated, 
and investment decisions are agreed with the strategic 
objectives of the company. Therefore, it is necessary 
to plan, consider, analyse, and control not only the 
expenses connected with compensation for the use 
of labour but also expenses, which are carried out for 
the purpose of development and realization of labour 
potential and formation of the human capital. There 
are sets of such components as health; the general skills 
connected with basic preparation, ability of information 
search and its use during the solution of problems, 
natural abilities and education level; the technical and 
special skills connected with engineering procedures, 
including physical capacities and also the analytical 
skills leading to improvement existing or to the creation 
of new equipment and technologies, which can present 
the structure of the human capital.

Moreover, if employees pay the general skills 
independently or they are financed by the state, then 
other components of the human capital demand 
investments from the enterprises. Therefore, investing 
in labour protection, the company will help to keep 
the health of employees at the necessary level, to cut 
expenses on payment of sick leave, and to reduce losses 
because of the employees’ absence in a workplace. 
All these actions can be considered income from 
investments in healthcare.

Now the mortality rate in Ukraine among other 
countries of Europe also makes the highest 1455 people 
on 100 thousand of the population. For comparison, 
the minimum level of mortality is in Switzerland – 
467,2 persons. Western Europe, in general, has by 1,5 times 
lower mortality rate, than Central Europe, and in the 
Balkan countries, except Greece, and the Baltic countries –  
the mortality rate represents nearly 1 thousand on 
1000 thousand persons. Maintaining health and 
efficiency of personnel at the enterprises is promoted 
by strengthening of labour protection and improvement 
of working conditions through the improvement of the 
organization and service of workplaces, introductions 

of ergonomic actions and so forth. It provides the need 
of accurate observance of the legislation requirements 
of for the sphere of labour protection, investigation and 
accident prevention on production and occupational 
illnesses, ensuring receiving by workers all the provided 
legislation and collective agreements of privileges and 
compensations for working conditions (Info-light, 2017).

Investments into technical and special components are 
connected as with the search of the necessary employees 
meeting certain requirements so with the development of 
their potential and preservation of these personnel in the 
company. Carry costs for professional development, the 
worthy compensation capable of holding the employee 
at the enterprise, other privileges and compensations 
to such investments. At the same time, an important 
point is the understanding of the dependence of the 
number of personnel, valuable to the enterprise, on 
the level of investments in it. It is possible to carry to 
such investments: costs of the search of competent 
experts, the salary, privileges, and other payments, funds 
allocated for professional development and the level 
of special and technical knowledge and skills, and also 
the funds allocated for health protection and insurance. 
The competitive salary, privileges and other payments 
increase the probability that all investments directed to 
the development of special and technical skills reduce the 
risk of the departure of the employee from the enterprise. 
Besides, they promote an increase in productivity as are 
the important motivating factor.

Investments into planning and motivation of career 
allow reaching balance between the interests of the 
enterprise and the worker as the consecutive advance 
of the employee on a number of positions promotes the 
realization of concrete goals of the enterprise. Thus leads 
also to the development of the intellectual potential 
of the worker and definition of a position, at which he 
could work with the bigger creative return.

However, only the expenses of the enterprises 
connected with compensation are carried out according 
to the existing current legislation. And investments 
in personnel (professional education; motivation for 
development; directly development of personnel; 
health protection), are performed with the presence 
at the enterprise of free financial resources and the 
sufficient level of competence of the enterprises’ chiefs, 
allowing to estimate economic feasibility of certain 
costs of personnel for the purpose of its development 
for receiving additional, higher profit. At the same 
time, the policy of investment into personnel has to 
be characterized by the systematic approach and its 
complexity, which, in its turn, relies on such principles 
as a scientific character, justice, observance of the labour 
law, efficiency, the sequence, methodicalness.

In the conditions of maximizing profit, the owner 
of the company interests whether investments in the 
human capital are expedient as they affect resulting 
economic effects of activity of the company how 



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developed principles of work on the development of 
personnel promote achievement of strategic objectives. 
Heads have to perceive the employees as a potential 
source, but faith in employees as in a financial leverage 
meets seldom, and many managers consider these 
efforts not investment, but the next expenses.

It is possible to allocate the following problems that 
constrain an investment of expenses into personnel: any 
invest interest of employers in personnel in connection 
with an indistinct understanding of efficiency of these 
investments; insufficiency of financial resources for 
ensuring investments into the human capital; insufficient 
level of encouragement of professional workers’ 
development; uncertainty of the employer concerning 
loyalty of workers who undergo study as workers who 
improved skills can pass to other enterprise that will 
lead to loss of finance; lack of the universal method 
of investments’ efficiency assessment into personnel; 
insufficient motivation of workers to increase in the 
professional level; misunderstanding by employers of 
cause and effect relationship between investments into 
personnel and efficiency of the enterprise’s activity; 
complexity of expenses’ definition, which need to be 
performed to investments into personnel; neglect 
difference in return from investments into different 
categories of personnel (Momcheva, 2013); the long 
period of return on investment in personnel, which, 
by estimates of researchers, only in education make 
10-20 years, and on average – 16 years (Novak, 2006).

Despite the big costs connected with the training of 
skilled workers and maintenance of their qualification 
level, the modern organizations nevertheless consider 
costs of development of personnel as investments, 
which respectively have to bring a return in the form of 
an increase in efficiency of the enterprise’s activity.

Statistically, the most part of investments in the 
study of personnel is made by the companies, which 
are engaged in finance, insurance, the real estate, high 
technologies and transport services. And, mostly, a 
smaller part of investments is made by the companies 
in the field of production, healthcare, agriculture, 
construction and development of fields. At the same 
time, in the companies from officially fixed by the 
strategy of human resource management revenue 
counting on one employee is nearly 3 times higher, and 
return from investments into personnel is 70% more, 
than at the companies, which have no such fixed strategy 
(Risin, 2009).

One of the main objectives of the development 
policy of personnel is maximizing return from 
capital investments in employees. Such economic 
justification of the offered policy of development 
can be based on the analysis of the existing policy, 
assessment of the efficiency of the held events, the 
introduction of necessary changes. Thus, calculation of 
economic efficiency of separate elements of personnel 
development – planning of career, vocational education 

of personnel, and preparation of a personnel pool – 
will allow realizing the system approach defining the 
influence of the system of personnel development on all 
company in general.

4. Stages of the process of assessing  
the effectiveness of investment  
in personnel development

Determination of the economic efficiency of 
personnel development in a general view consists of 
three consecutive stages:
1) determination of expenses structure and their cost 
assessment;
2) determination of results structure and their cost 
assessment;
3) comparison of the estimated sizes of expenses and 
results brought to one timepoint.

It is known that the production efficiency only for 
30-35% depends on investments, the others – on the 
skill level of workers and experts. It is possible to draw 
conclusions from such figures on the importance of 
vocational training on production: in the countries 
of the European Union, the frequency of professional 
development of workers represents about 5 years, in Japan –  
from 1 to 1,5 years, in Ukraine professional development 
is carried out each 12 years (Gemma, 2013).

Revenue, profit, prime cost, products, development on 
one worker, losses of working hours on one worker, the 
average salary on one worker, etc. can act as indicators 
of the activity results in the organization reflecting the 
influence of personnel development.

The main attention of modern researchers and analysts 
is concentrated on the assessment of the efficiency of 
vocational education. However, the existing techniques 
can be used for the assessment of development’s 
efficiency in general, as training is a key element of the 
system and the main form of development of personnel.

The most popular is the four-level model of assessment 
of learning efficiency and methodology of calculation of 
return on investment into training (Return On Investment 
(ROI)), which were developed by the famous expert in 
the field of human resource management Jack Phillips in 
the early nineties. The essence of this technique comes 
down to the creation of a relationship of cause and effect 
between the provided training and result of the activity of 
the trained personnel.

Stages of the process of efficiency’s assessment of 
investments into the personnel development (based on 
Jack Phillips’s technique):

I. Planning. The plan of investments’ assessment into 
the personnel development, which contains:

1. The description of indicators, which dynamics 
will characterize results of the provided training. These 
indicators have to be the objective and economic effect 
of their change (growth in incomes, cost cutting) can be 
estimated.



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2. The methodology of data collection (questioning, 

observations of personnel, analysis of the administrative 
reporting, etc.).

3. Sources of data collection (reporting of the 
enterprise, participants in training, heads, working 
groups, etc.).

4. Evaluating terms.
5. List of the persons responsible for collecting and 

data processing necessary for assessment.
II. Data collection is made according to the 

methodology defined at the first stage during, in time 
and after training for objective assessment of the 
dynamics of the chosen indicators.

III. Identification of effect of the provided training. 
For an exception of the influence of the external factors 
that are not connected with the provided training the 
following approaches are used:
•	 trend	analysis	of	the	previous	periods.	The	tendency	
of indicator’s change before carrying out training is 
defined. The difference between a trend and the actual 
result is attributed to training influence;
•	 expert	 assessment	 of	 the	 influence	 of	 the	 gained	
knowledge on indicators’ dynamics. Managers of 
the company, detached onlookers or other training’s 
participants can act as experts.

IV. Transformation of the obtained data to a money 
equivalent. The indicators characterizing productivity, 
quality, and time expenditure are transformed.

When calculating total costs of training, the salary of 
employees, administrative expenses, etc. are considered 
not only costs of development of the training’s program, 
such as manipulative materials, a fee of experts and rent.

Calculation of value of an indicator “return on 
investment” (ROI) is made on a standard formula:

ROI = (GI – E) / E,                                                             (1)
where GI – Gain on income(profit); E – expenses for 

education(training).
There are four main aspects, which should be 

considered for the calculation of the ROI of investments 
into personnel: productivity; absenteeism (absence 
from the workplace for various reasons); turn; 
adaptation speed. Each of indicators plays an important 
role in the assessment of investments into personnel, 
but it is necessary to focus on something one as too 
many factors influence a resulting effect – profit. So, for 
example, results of the research conducted by Robert 
Zemsky et al. (2002) demonstrate that increase in 
education level by 10% productivity grows by 8.6%, and 
the same growth of fixed assets increases productivity 
only by 3.4%. Thus, the profitability of investments in 
the human capital is almost three times higher, than 
investments in cars and the equipment.

Not always, it is possible to isolate indicators, which 
are not subject to external factors’ influence. In such 
cases, it is necessary to confirm the received value of 
an ROI’s indicator, having analysed the effect of the 

provided training in three directions: “reaction of 
participants of a seminar”, “knowledge” and “behaviour”. 
If in these directions good results are received, it is 
possible to claim that distortion of assessment of ROI is 
insignificant or is absent.

Introduction of ROI assessment’s system in training 
significantly simplifies life to specialists in personnel 
and improves their mutual understanding with top 
management as the report on training can be presented 
in the form of tables, from which it is accurately visible 
how many employees were trained, what expenses, what 
gain of business indicators. In addition, to financial 
service with its help, it is easy for top managers to 
estimate return from the provided training.

Jac Fitz-enz (2006) as a key indicator for determination 
of investments’ efficiency into personnel suggests using 
return on investment coefficient in the human capital 
(HCROI). It is defined as a ratio of the profit got after 
a deduction of all expenses on labour (except for the 
salary and privileges) and the size of expenses on labour 
(the salary and privileges).

Voronkova, Belichenko, & Popov (2006) adds to the 
key indicators of investments’ efficiency of: productivity 
indicators; speed of passing of the business’s procedure, 
engineering procedure; expenses and any results when 
performing special programs and initiatives; skills of 
workers, loyalty, moral atmosphere in collective; ability 
of personnel to study, transparency of the procedure of 
investment.

Hamblin and Kirkpatrick’s method does not allow how 
much the company needs funds for training personnel 
in order to reach the correctly set business goals, and 
Tobin & Stephen S. Golub (1998) proposed to calculate 
the indicator of intellectual capital as a whole as the ratio 
of the market value of the asset to replacement cost.

5. Transformation of investment activity  
and investment portfolios of companies  
in the direction of increasing expenditures  
on human capital

Investments into the human capital have to be 
considered on an equal basis with investments into 
development and maintenance of business. Motives of 
investment into the human capital have to be defined 
not only economic, but cultural, psychological, and 
social factors.

For the achievement of economic success, business 
firms have to be socially oriented that forces them to 
change the investment strategy, including the structure 
of the investment portfolios in social projects (Koval, 
Prymush, & Popova, 2017).

Already big and average, and sometimes small enterprises 
are estimated from a position of the relationship between 
workers and consumers, between workers and the 
management (owners) and also estimate according to 
their contribution to society and its development. Thus, 



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the enterprises from “business” of the enterprises become 
the “social” enterprises, which in the mission combine a 
gain of income and support of interaction with the external 
environment, investing and actively directing economic 
trends that form the world. The emergence of this kind 
of the enterprise is promoted by the following factors  
(Kaji, Edelman, & Khan, et al., 2018):
- the growth of individuals in business: more attention 
is paid to the quality of work and influence of work’s 
results on a society where the enterprise functions, 
thanks to globalization and fast communication, which 
gives an opportunity hyper-quickly to communicate 
and express the opinion, influencing social changes 
globally and in real life;
- the business itself is able to fill a so-called vacuum in 
society: based on world poll, it was revealed that business 
embodies trust of the population for 54% against 43% of 
trust to the government. People wait from business for 
decisions in healthcare, the safety of a cyberspace, the 
help in making the world fairer, etc.;
- technical progress has a bilateral impact on society: on 
the one hand – serious opportunities to reach stability 
and growth, on the other hand – training of cars, 
artificial intelligence, the performance of work instead 
of the person. All this needs mastering from the person 
new knowledge and skills and consequently, needs 
investments into personnel.

The enterprise has to be the active participant of social 
life and social projects today, consider a certain trend 
in labour market development. Yes, more and more 
workers pass into a work freelance segment, rendering 
the services as the entrepreneur. The enterprises have to 
consider such opportunities of cooperation already now, 
understanding all its pluses and shortcomings. Now for 
the successful person, his development is on the first 
place and if the enterprise considers and encourages the 
development of the person in the company, the level of 
efficiency of this person is much higher, than those who 
act as a part of collective.

The main criterion of success of the company success 
of each worker as parts of this enterprise appears. The 
last becomes impossible without investment into the 

continuous development of workers. Besides, the far-
sighted organizations see a certain potential and an 
opportunity for an increase in life and professional 
experience with life expectancy growth. Usually, it 
needs innovative methods and policy of maintenance 
due to investments of a longer career, development 
of new career models. Twenty percent of defendants 
of a research confirmed cooperation with workers 
of advanced age. This factor of durability allows the 
companies to solve an urgent social problem and to get 
advantages from employees devoted to the company 
with wide professional experience.

Importance of the embodiment of new approaches 
to the development of personnel due to investments in 
personnel is confirmed by data of the international poll 
on regions of the whole world (Table 1). The tendency 
to increase in life expectancy, in turn, increases the 
number of 55 years working further on. In Figure 1, the 
level of interest in workers of advanced age is displayed.

In spite of the fact, that the general statistics show 
not great interest to workers of advanced years, but, 
according to the same statistics (Kaji, Edelman, & Khan, 
et al., 2018), during the period from 1996 to 2014, about 
68% of the senior workers (at the age of 55-64  years) 
opened the enterprises and began new business in 
comparison with 32% of young businessmen (at the 
age of 20-34 years). Besides, workers of advanced years, 
which worked in IT, study several times quicker new 
mobile programming, work with artificial intelligence, 
and other modern technologies. They should not spend 
5-8 years on the study if to speak about youth.

Such an approach needs creation of new programs of 
personnel’s investments for people of advanced years 
quicker to adapt them to the enterprise’s activity. Global 
tendencies indicate the general aging of the population, 
and most likely the enterprises, which will ignore this 
fact, will not be able to compete with those companies, 
which considered this tendency further. Creation of such 
an environment in the company, which will maximize 
the advantages of workers of advanced years, is necessary. 
However, for this purpose it is necessary to reconstruct 
radically approaches to improvement of knowledge, skills, 

Table 1
Value of factors of personnel’s development depending on the region

Factors

Global Americas Europe, Middle East and Africa Asia Pacific
Latin & 
South 

America

North 
America

Africa
Central & 

Eastern 
Europe

Middle 
East

Nordic 
countries

Western 
Europe

Asia Oceania

From careers to experiences 84.1% 87.2% 80.6% 84.7% 80.3% 81.3% 81.4% 79.8% 91.6% 87.3%
Well-being 84.0% 88.2% 78.9% 88.0% 75.1% 84.8% 83.3% 80.1% 91.6% 86.6%
The hyper-connected workplace 82.1% 85.5% 84.6% 85.0% 72.8% 79.9% 84.3% 78.9% 83.6% 89.0%
New rewards 77.4% 85.3% 71.1% 85.6% 74.8% 85.0% 58.8% 69.8% 87.5% 65.6%
Citizenship and social impact 76.7% 81.0% 76.1% 86.8% 63.6% 76.6% 67.8% 72.0% 83.0% 82.8%
AI, robotics, and automation 72.4% 70.4% 64.5% 70.7% 67.0% 74.5% 83.0% 69.2% 84.1% 73.2%
The longevity dividend 69.1% 74.8% 59.7% 73.2% 58.1% 70.5% 63.8% 69.2% 76.5% 66.7%

Source: formed on the basis (Kaji, Edelman, & Khan, et al., 2018)  



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and competencies of workers, considering 35-40 years of 
fruitful work, instead of 20-25 years as it paid off earlier. 
Thus, after 55 years, employees will own the same 
knowledge, skills, as well as youth, but they still will have 
an experience, which they will be able already to give to 
the younger generation of workers.

Another trend is a tendency to change in the employees’ 
approach to work. Recent researches (Kaji, Edelman & 
Khan, et al., 2018) showed that more than 75% of youth 
(aged from 20 up to 35 years) plan to open own business, 
it is more than 70% of this 25% which remained will 
work as freelancers and only 12% of this 25% assume full 
work at the enterprise. The similar tendency has to be 
considered by experts in human resource management, 
to include such workers in programs of professional 
development, obtaining new skills and knowledge at the 
level with permanent members of staff.

6. Conclusions and further researches 
directions

In the conditions of economic instability, a lack of 
resources and investments, many Ukrainian companies 
begin to save on everything and, first of all, on personnel: 
cut down salaries, social payments, worsen working 
conditions. However, it is worth remembering that 
income from investments into the human capital gets 
not only to the carrier of the human capital but firstly to 
the organization in which it is implemented, further to 
the region and the country in general.

Strategic management of the investments aimed to the 
development of the human capital will allow increasing 
not only efficiency of realization of human potential, but 
also the efficiency of use of all material and intangible 
assets of the company. The human errors arise because 
of low qualification that can lead to big losses and 
do harm to production and health of the personnel.  
All above-mentioned causes the enhanced attention 

to the person as to a major factor of production 
especially as in modern conditions to achieve a gain in 
productivity is possible only thanks to the intellectual 
potential of personnel. Therefore, economic stability 
and competitiveness of the enterprise, first of all, depend 
on effective investments into the human capital at the 
optimum control of risks in this sphere.

New tendencies indicate in personnel’s development 
and views of a working environment indicate need of 
investments’ uses not only into increase in professional 
knowledge of already existing workers: considerable 
investments reorganization and adaptation of new 
models, programs and the systems of integration of the 
existing world trends in the workforce market demands, 
which are objective and have to be considered. Further 
ignoring of these trends will lead to problems of 
braking of development of the companies, and as a 
result – spheres and branches of national economy.  
An integrated approach to the assessment of investment’s 
efficiency into the personnel development provides 
adoption of reasonable decisions in the sphere of the 
human capital’s management of the companies.

The fullest use of all opportunities and directions of 
investment into personnel at the level of the company 
will allow providing: the gain in productivity of work, 
which leads to increase in volume of made production 
and services and, as a result, to increase in profit of 
the company; increase in competitiveness of products 
and company services thanks to improvement of their 
quality and optimization of costs of their production; 
reduction and elimination of unproductive expenses 
and losses of time during production; reduction of 
turnover of staff and prevention of staff shortage on the 
most important production positions; optimization 
of number of staff of the enterprise; improvement of 
qualitative characteristics of personnel of the company; 
increase in motivation to work at workers.

 

Figure 1. Organizational attitude for the older workers (over 55)

Source: formed on the basis (Kaji, Edelman, & Khan, et al., 2018)



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