Poaching Personnel in the System of Competitive Relations of Small Businesses

The subject area of the article is one of the areas of market rivalry of small businesses (hereinafter referred to as SMEs), namely, the poaching of leading specialists from competitors. The scientific position is argued, according to which, in the field of small business, the practical implementation of the above method of unfair competition has certain specifics, in particular, the active role of owners who personally act as a «bounty hunter», as well as their use of uncharacteristic for medium and large entities business motivational tools. In addition, only in the studied area of entrepreneurship is a situation possible in which the transfer of only one specialist to a competing firm can not only worsen, but completely and immediately undermine the market position of the victim of aggression. This should be taken into account by the management of any SME focused on the use of high-quality human capital. The purpose of the study is to develop proposals for choosing a strategy and tactics for managing the personnel of a small enterprise, ensuring a high degree of protection of its personnel elite from the threat under consideration. The objectives of the study are, firstly, to identify the specifics of its implementation in the area of entrepreneurship under study and, secondly, to determine the most effective methods to counteract it. Results of the study: the features of the organization of the process of poaching the best specialists from competing SMEs, as well as additional threats to their competitive positions in case of their implementation, were revealed. Taking into account these features, recommendations are formulated and argued for choosing the subsequent implementation of HR technologies that allow maintaining the quality of the human capital of a small enterprise as one of the important factors that ensure its competitive position in the serviced market.