Personnel management is recognized as one of the most important ways to improve the competitiveness of the organization in the local and national market. In the modern world, the life cycle of knowledge is becoming shorter, which requires regular updating of professional knowledge and abilities. Continuous updating of knowledge and improvement of skills are obligatory conditions for success. The most important task of enterprises of different forms of ownership is to increase the attractiveness of jobs in the regions for highly skilled professionals, to achieve high efficiency of employees through the improvement of personnel management systems. Management innovation is a universal tool for modernizing management. SWOT-analysis of the personnel management system of the Department of Property and Land Relations of the Voronezh Region made it possible to identify its strengths and weaknesses. The proposed innovative forms of management: career maps, employee development maps and scoring system are estimated using the models of D. Kirkpatrick and D. Phillips. Based on the analysis of trajectories of innovative development, the optimal moment for introducing changes and changing the development trajectory is determined. Assessment of the socio-economic impact of the implementation of measures confirmed their necessity and inevitability in the real economy.

The improvement of urban systems based on the active use of information technologies, which is necessary to achieve these goals, requires specialists with appropriate qualifications. This article uses a methodological approach to the study of human resource development from the perspective of two-way communication between producers and consumers of an innovative product. The educational, structural-industry and information technology aspects of development are considered. The results of the analysis are presented, and the methods of partnership cooperation between higher educational institutions and representatives of the business community in the construction and housing and utilities sectors are identified. The experience in the field of training and retraining specialists in construction specialties with elements of student research has been synthesized. The prospects for improving the system of personnel training in the field of housing and communal services are identified. A SWOT analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of urban modernization has been carried out. Among the weaknesses, the failure of highly qualified specialists was revealed. Among the threats is the absence of a legislative and methodological framework in many areas of housing and communal services reforming. In the annex to the concept of “smart cities”, Rohmer’s model is considered, confirming the primary role of human resources in reforming and further operating the urban infrastructure. It is shown that the success of the initiative of a smart city depends on personnel, processes and technologies.

Paradigmatic changes in education arise as a result of the emergence of a fundamentally new reality in society. Society has predicted this new reality through the concepts of post-industrial society, information society, knowledge society. The basis of this new reality is the development of information technologies (IT). These transformations of reality are taking place so rapidly that the institute of education has not had the time to realign itself in this new space and has been late in its development of new breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence. The purpose of the study is to show the fundamental paradigmatic differences between classical education and smart education, and to build a bridge of dialogue between these two paradigms.

Efficiency in the use of energy resources is a priority for the “smart cities” trajectory of sustainable development. This is an essential condition for improving the economic, social and environmental well-being of citizens in general. The importance of life systems orientation to the consumer as an effective user is emphasized. The factors of sustainable development of technologies were identified: updating and modernization of fixed assets in the fuel and energy complex and other sectors of the economy, social and industrial infrastructure on a new technological and energy-efficient basis; provision of forecasting, full accounting and regulation of energy resources consumption, as well as reduction of their losses. The directions of increasing the energy systems efficiency in various sectors are generalized. The necessity of developing human resources through digital skills training was emphasized.

Today, robots are actively being introduced in all sectors of the economy from the production of industrial goods to the service sector. The leader in this area is China, it is ahead of the United States and Europe. Russian industrialists are quite conservative in technological updates. It was emphasized that robotics and automation, combined with the cybernation, mark a radical turning point in society. The importance of industrial automation in solving technical, technological, socio-economic and environmental problems is shown. Models of economic growth in industry, in particular P. Romer, confirm that the rate of economic growth is directly dependent on the amount of technological innovations. The negative aspects of automation, which consist in a sharp reduction in employment, are also emphasized, but long-term forecasts, on the contrary, indicate its increase, but a change in the structure of professions.