Bermudians face the most profound period of their life in overcoming the current global financial crisis and economic meltdown.

That was the stark warning delivered by Sir John Swan to personnel managers when he spoke at the Bermuda Human Resources Association (BHRA) annual general meeting held at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess hotel yesterday.

Sir John said the Island needed to get back to what it does best and cautioned not to be complacent during today's worldwide financial crisis.

He talked about the current global economic situation and what impact it will have on Bermuda's employers, as well as the challenges facing them in the next five years.

"I think there is going to be no period that is more profound in your lifetime than it is right now," he said.

"There is a profound global change taking place and it is in a short period of time and it has enormous implications for human change.

"It is not just economic change, but climate change, global change and social change."

Sir John said capital was disappearing fast and it was going to be very hard for today's generation of people to deal with the problem.

He said it was all about individualism and that Bermuda's allies in the past were not going to be there for the Island in the future as it strives to survive on its own.

Calling on human resource professionals to hold discussions about what is happening both locally and globally, he told them to educate their companies' staff in order to address the issues at hand.

"The fact is that we have never had a period of such exuberance where capital flowed out from everywhere and if you wanted it you could have it," he said.

"The end result now is cash is drying up and so what we are seeing is a reversion back to reality."

Sir John said there were two ways of creating capital — from human resources and raw materials, and stressed the importance of HR professionals in explaining to employees why they were being laid-off and why their companies were shrinking.

He cited the example of American International Group (AIG) and the part it played in getting Bermuda back on its feet via the tax treaty signed with the US in the 1980s.

"AIG is a good example because it carried Bermuda on its back when we were down and out back in the 1980s," he said.

"We could not get tourism back and international business was finished and as a result of competition business was going to Barbados and the Cayman Islands and AIG was the company working with Mike Murphy, their senior lawyer, to help us to negotiate the treaty and it took us six years to do that."

Sir John said Bermuda should focus on its strengths of intellectual capital and to stand up and be counted on the world stage.

"We really have a difficult situation on our hands because we are not creating wealth and raw materials are becoming scarcer," he said.

"We don't have raw materials, so our job is service — we have to be very creative, informed and consistent and we have to get the message out that we are good, we are the best you can find, so there is no better place to go.

"We have to get the message out that we are together and we have to convince the world that Bermuda is in business, it means business and it wants to do business with you.

"People need to be told why they should bring money to Bermuda — because they can trust Bermuda, and we need to be concerned citizens to make Bermuda a better place and not lose by default.

"We need to stand up now and say 'Let's make it happen and let's be a solution to the problem that we see everyday'.

"In our little Island it may take a time for economic change to come, but when it comes it will have a big impact."