In recent years, career progression was timely. Promotions and pay rises have been predictable.

Growing as a manager was also about executing a simple playbook: Hire X number of direct reports. Build an empire. Meet the requirements of the next level of seniority. Ask your manager for a promotion. If you don’t get it, jump to another company with not just a a better title, but also a 50-100% raise.

Over the next few years, as most start-ups go to the capital markets, fail to raise money and close down, the number of options for employees will be drastically reduced.

Not just the number of companies, but also the layers of an organisation will come down.

And most managers will ask: is the 5 year PM earning 50 LPA more productive than the 2 year PM earning 25? The majority of managers have never had to work with a budget.

In the past: managers were rewarded for building a senior team. Now: Managers will be rewarded for doing more with less.

And the hiring budget is going to get smaller and smaller as time goes on.

Managers are not immune to this. A lot of managers are managers by virtue of the accumulation of years of experience. They are not necessarily good leaders.They will realise how hard the job really is when they have to inspire their team in a bear market, get more out of them when their reports don’t get the raises they used to, and are asked to do RTO.

Managers are going to start to be questioned about productivity. Is a senior manager who earns twice the salary and has twice the team of another manager producing twice the result?

A lot of managers are going to go back to being ICs.

The good old zero interest period is over. Brace yourself for tough times ahead.