With the nature of work and workplaces changing, managers will need to think and behave differently in the future. Employees and managers will be impacted by aspects of remote working, level of trust in organizations and management, own learning and skilling, dealing with the new known and unknown, and the value and economic impact of their work under deeper scrutiny, among others.

While some core aspects of the ‘manager’ role will not change, many other aspects will. What will particularly need a shift is the how of performing the role. How will a manager need to think and behave given challenges of productivity, delivery, employee engagement, capability building and integration of tasks and people?

This podcast season, we delve deeper into different aspects of this subject of managerial capability, and how organizations should re-think about it in their context.

There has always been a debate about both efficacy of and investment in managerial training. There is recognition that manager capability is key to smooth functioning of an organization. However, given the business challenges and economic environment in the next few months and years, is this really an area of focus for CEOS and CHROs?

• Why should organizations invest in managerial capability building? Is there money and mindshare for it?
• Whose need is it anyway? Employees may be quite happy in non managerial roles in the future given the deep challenges, stress and need for learning that will come with manager roles.
• Should not each individual manager actually build their own skills? If people aspire to manager positions, they should ready themselves. This is an argument forwarded by many.
• Is investment in managerial capability similar to investment in other people capabilities, e.g., technical skills. How will leaders balance and decide where to invest?

CEOs at the end of the day are worried about organizational performance. In these times, agility is also in focus. Pivot or Perish is much used and abused in the current context. Many CEOs believe that the middle layers of managers are not really required. Others differ.

• How do you really build a agile organization? Are a significant number of managers required to be able to remain competitive? Or is it a hindrance?
• What kind of investment is required in manager capability building to really make them valuable to the organization?
• Is is easy to establish a linkage between manager capability and organization performance?
• Can most current managers adapt to the new demands of workplaces of the future? What needs to be done by leaders to enable that?