As teams increasingly start to work from remote locations on a virtual platform, organizations find it difficult to cater to the face-to-face interactions, which often form the foundation of adequate career management initiatives for the present workforce. Therefore, a challenge for organizations will be to identify how they can provide an effective career management opportunity even as businesses become geographically dispersed. Bringing a customized personal experience, without necessarily being physically co-located presents a new challenge – use of technology and ability to leverage these by managers will be a key enabler for this.

Going forward, organizations will have to move away from their skewed approach towards leadership development of only high potentials towards focusing on identifying methods to encourage horizontal leadership development of those whose contribution to the business is critical. Such individuals may not have the aspiration to move up the ladder but they can be provided horizontal development, which can further enhance engagement, retention and greater work satisfaction. The talent today needs far outstrip availability so we need to provide different, equally fulfilling, career paths for different talent groups. Companies have so far only focused disproportionately on the ‘few’ but now need to reach out to the ‘many’ who provide the depth and experience in any business.

Ethical leadership and ability to recognize and drive the right thing has often been the domain of senior leaders but young leaders need to be made aware, coached and trained in the ways that they can drive ethical leadership at all levels. It will become an expectation of everyone in an organization to drive this and be a key requirement.