Anotace:
In the context of developments influenced by digitalization, as well as the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and not most minor changes in employee demands on the working environment across all generations, new tools and concepts are being developed in the field of people management in order to sustain competitiveness. The main objective of the paper is to present results of research focused on a specific analysis of applying modern human resource management tools in entities operating in Slovakia with a focus on the maintenance and growth potential of their competitiveness in the European economic area. To meet this objective, particular data obtained through a questionnaire survey were statistically processed and 841 enterprises were contacted. Elements of playful principles (gamification), used in various human resource management tools, bring a positive effect both in saving resources and in qualitative outputs, which was the purpose of the research focus on identifying the existence of the so-called “aha effect”. Evaluations of formulated hypotheses as well as determination of whether there is a statistically significant dependence between the actual application in the enterprises and the degree of importance for their future in relation to individual tools and concepts in human resource management were carried out with the use of Spearman’s correlation test. The research results show that there is a strong positive and statistically significant dependence between the actual application of the analyzed tools and concepts in the enterprises and the perceived degree of their importance for the future competitiveness of the enterprises.