The coming year will witness a considerable change in the existing trends. There will be a lot of emphasis on Leadership Coaching, which is expected to get bigger with more and more ‘popcorn leaders’ emerging in the industry. As there evidently is a shortage of leadership talent in the current scenario, coaching will become a key enabler to fill this gap.

In the high-end technology and expertise space, contractual employment will become a trend especially in the middle management domain. This will fill the existing gaps in the areas of deep expertise. This is already prevalent in US, but it will catch up in India in 2012. People will retire early and work as freelancers on term contracts at fixed price per hour/day, etc.

Another upcoming trend will be the obvious emphasis on mentoring and focus on improving employability. In the learning domain, experiential learning and mentoring will take prominence over class room training. Finishing schools will grow to improve employability of talent, but the need for soft skills will be fulfilled more by experiential learning and peer group learning using methods like peer coaching, mentoring, etc.