Program Manager, Learning & Development (Human Resource Unit)

Job Title: Program Manager, Learning & Development (Human Resource Unit)

Reporting to: Senior Program Manager, HRU

Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra

Experience: 5-8 years

About CEGIS Foundation

Centre for Effective Governance of Indian States (CEGIS – pronounced See-Jis) aims to improve lives by helping Indian state governments deliver better development outcomes. We believe that the most impactful lever for accelerating national development is to improve governance and state capacity to better deliver core public services at scale.

Informed by cutting-edge research and evidence as well as a practical orientation toward implementable ideas, CEGIS works with state governments in India to enable a transformative improvement in their functioning. CEGIS's vision and Theory of Change (ToC) are an outcome of extensive research done by Prof. Karthik Muralidharan (CEGIS Co-Founder and Scientific Director) and outlined in his multiple award-winning, national bestselling book Accelerating India's Development, and enabled by strategic philanthropic support provided by Ashish Dhawan (CEGIS Co-Founder).

CEGIS Approach and Model of Functioning:

CEGIS's solutions to enhance governance are co-created with state governments in a state-led way, where we focus on deep partnerships with states using an iterative cycle of think-demonstrate-document-transfer. We work closely with the top bureaucratic leadership, front-line workers and public officials in Finance, Planning, Human Resources and a few other priority line departments. Many of our solutions reflect ideas outlined in the book Accelerating India's Development, and these solutions are constantly refined based on real-time feedback and are designed to both be customised to the contexts we are working in and to create templates that can provide the starting point for replication across contexts.

Our focus areas reflect evidence that key characteristics of high-performing organisations include (a) measuring outcomes through reliable, high quality data that enables goal setting and progress monitoring; (b) strategic use of personnel – competency based hiring and training, skilling, and performance appraisals to determine job assignments, pay, and promotions – to achieve the goals above; (c) strategic budgeting where resource allocation and revenue collection are based on evidence and cost-effectiveness; (d) and creating efficient systems to leverage external actors (including for-profit and nonprofit organisations). CEGIS partners with states to improve capacity by focusing on these pillars of State effectiveness, and aims to also integrate these horizontal governance improvements into integrated sectoral roadmaps to accelerate the achievement of state and national development outcomes.

Internally, CEGIS is organised into solutions teams that lead the design and technical quality control of our research and evidence-backed approaches to improving governance and state capacity; delivery" teams that lead state-facing work to contextualise the solutions, and support governments in implementing them; and enablement teams that enable the organisation to function smoothly.

CEGIS@6 to CEGIS@10: Building on momentum to catalyse national development

Since its incorporation in 2019, CEGIS has gained significant momentum in building strong collaborations with state government(s) as a trusted partner who can provide both thought leadership and implementation support on key governance reforms. CEGIS's position as a non-profit that does not take any funding from the government (other than in-kind contributions of office space/staff) has been a key enabler in earning this trust.

Beginning with 1 state government engagement in 2019, today CEGIS is working across 9 Indian states (Assam, Chhattisgarh, Delhi, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh). We also partner with union agencies/ministries such as the Capacity Building Commission, the Ministry of Women & Child Development (MoWCD), and the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) to share insights from our state-level work to inform national-level guidelines and dissemination to other states. Finally, we also take on selected work at the district level to design and test implementation templates.

From a small group of founding members, we have grown to become a team of 150+ members located across the country, and expect to grow to over 200 in the coming year. Led by a former senior civil servant with deep governance experience, state and solution team leads with decades of domain expertise, and enabling functions led by professionals with considerable corporate experience, the team at CEGIS brings together knowledge and experience that spans various sectors – from development economics, research, governance, management consulting, and social entrepreneurship.

Over the last 6 years, CEGIS has also garnered support for our vision and theory of change from several foundations and philanthropists whose partnership has enabled us to build our organisational capacity as well as continue to experiment and improve our solution design to augment state capacity and governance. With the rapidly growing demand for CEGIS's offerings, CEGIS is well-positioned to play a key role in accelerating India's development.

To explore what the mission of CEGIS is and the impact we hope to have, please take a look at this video of our CEO, Dr Vijay Pingale.

About the Personnel Management Vertical

We believe that empowered, equipped and future-ready public officials are crucial to achieving citizen-centric service delivery.

We work with central, state, and local governments to actualise their human capital by improving human resource (HR) management practices and organisational effectiveness using a competency-driven approach. We believe that supporting governments in undertaking these reforms will improve execution capacity and provide a fulfilling career journey for public officials.

The competency-driven approach focuses on the knowledge, skills, and attitude required for specific government roles. By adopting this approach, CEGIS aims to clarify the work officials do and empower them to achieve better results. This translates to a shift in accountability – from simply following processes to delivering tangible outcomes.

The Personnel Management team achieves this through three key workstreams.

1. Competency-Based Recruitment: Ensuring the right people are selected for the job and bringing the necessary competencies (knowledge, skills, and attitude) on board from the outset.
2. Competency-Based Learning & Development: Equipping public officials with the ongoing training and development they need to excel in their roles.
3. Performance Management Systems: Evaluating and improving individual and team performance based on achieving defined goals, not just by adherence to procedures.

Through these efforts, the Personnel Management team strives to bring enhanced clarity and effectiveness to government work in India. By empowering officials with the right skills and holding them accountable for achieving desired outcomes, CEGIS is paving the way for a more efficient and impactful government service.

Engagement in Maharashtra (GoHRM) and About HRU

Maharashtra's vision under Viksit Maharashtra 2047 aims to increase life expectancy to 85+ through expanded healthcare infrastructure, preventive care, and data-driven innovation. Primary healthcare will be strengthened through Ayushman Arogya Mandirs, expanded sub-centres and PHCs, and improved recruitment and incentives for healthcare workers.

Goal-Oriented Human Resource Management (GoHRM) aims to improve HR management by linking individual competencies with organisational goals through aligned goal-setting, learning systems, and performance management. The Human Resource Unit (HRU) serves as the anchor for this effort, acting as a state-led institutional mechanism to drive competency-based learning and performance systems.

The scope of work would include:

• Strengthening Goal–Competency–Learning Alignment
• Integrating Learning, Assessment, and Performance Systems
• Institutionalisation through HRU-led Governance
• Strengthening Training Ecosystem and Digital Infrastructure

These GoHRM interventions in Maharashtra aim to create an integrated, data-driven HR ecosystem where goal setting, competency development, learning systems, and performance management are tightly linked and institutionally sustained through state-owned mechanisms.

This will allow CEGIS to drive sustainable, competency-based capacity building and improved service delivery and health and nutrition outcomes at scale.

Position Summary

We are seeking an experienced and dynamic Program Manager – Learning & Development (L&D) to lead the design, development, and implementation of capacity-building solutions that address competency gaps among public officials in the state government. This role is pivotal to translating the HRU's vision into actionable L&D programs, piloting, operationalising, and scaling them across departments, while ensuring strong alignment with Mission Karmayogi and the mandates of the Capacity Building Commission (CBC).

The ideal candidate will have a deep understanding of competency-based approaches in learning and development and demonstrate advanced research and synthesis capabilities to translate field insights into high-impact interventions. With a proven track record in project management, stakeholder coordination, and implementation, the candidate should be driven by a commitment to strengthening public service capacity and enabling systemic reform in government HR practices.

Roles and Responsibilities

1. Design and Implementation of Competency-Based L&D Solutions

• Lead the design and rollout of competency-based L&D interventions, including training needs assessments, and curated learning pathways for key government positions.
• Coordinate and support extensive role-competency mapping exercises to inform the creation of work allocation orders.
• Support the design and implementation of competency-based training needs assessments, ensuring quality control, administering assessments, and analysing results.
• Oversee the mapping, curation, quality assurance, and onboarding of competency-based training interventions/courses and collaborate with institutional partners for sourcing high-quality L&D content.
• Work closely with Administrative Training Institutes (ATIs) and other training partners to align delivery mechanisms with competency needs and institutional mandates, while helping them streamline their processes to enhance quality and compliance.
• Promote a culture of continuous learning by integrating diverse methodologies, e-learning, instructor-led sessions, workshops, job rotations, performance support interventions, etc.

1. Research, Synthesis, and Knowledge Management

• Conducting secondary research regarding competencies and learning opportunities associated with the identified positions
• Conduct primary research (interviews, FGDs, surveys) with public officials to map roles, responsibilities, activities, and associated competencies.
• Translate field insights and research into structured knowledge products such as frameworks, facilitation guides, reports, presentations, and policy briefs for internal and external dissemination.
• Maintain a robust system of documentation to ensure institutional memory and shareable learnings from the program's implementation.

1. Project and Team Management

• Maintain project trackers, documentation systems, and communication plans to ensure clarity, alignment, and accountability across workstreams.
• Support the Senior Program Manager in tracking project milestones, identifying risks and dependencies, and reporting progress to CEGIS and state leadership.
• Lead and mentor a team of associates, providing work planning, quality control, and developmental support to ensure timely, high-quality delivery.
• Inform iterative improvement of L&D solutions by relaying field insights to design and technology teams.
• Stay abreast of emerging trends in adult learning, learning technologies, and public sector capacity building to inform solution refinement.
• Actively participate in internal capacity-building workshops to enhance your practice in L&D implementation aligned with organisational standards.

1. Stakeholder Engagement and Coordination

• Manage relationships with key government partners, training institutions, and internal teams to ensure alignment on program design and implementation.
• Facilitate regular review meetings, capacity-building workshops, and structured consultations with CBUs and other stakeholders across departments.
• Maintain a regular communication cadence with external stakeholders, prepare discussion notes, and ensure timely sharing of project updates, reports and deliverables.
• Ensure cross-functional collaboration with internal teams to gather inputs, avoid duplication, and maintain consistency across tools and communication artefacts.
• Coordinate with colleagues working on performance management systems to feed in relevant field insights, identify competency gaps, and departmental needs, ensuring learning solutions and performance frameworks are mutually reinforcing.

Education and Experience

• Degree in Human Resources, Business Administration, Management, Public Policy, Social Work or a related field.
• 5 to 8 years of experience in a high-performing environment, focusing on human resource management, capacity building or project management, preferably within the Indian government ecosystem
• Prior Experience of working on complex multi-stakeholder projects, especially with governments, donors, and research organisations
• Candidates with exposure to the Health or Nutrition Sector will have an added advantage.

Required Competencies

The competencies required to perform the above-mentioned roles and responsibilities are as follows:

Domain Competencies

• Public Administration Understanding: Understands India's governance and policy landscape to ensure solutions are contextually relevant and aligned with governmental priorities
• Learning and Development Solution Design: Understands the components of the learning and development (L&D) lifecycle and uses competency to design learning and development programs and frameworks
• Organisational Capacity and Systems: Analyses organisational performance to drive sustainable improvements in capacity and efficiency

Functional Competencies

• Project Management: Skilled in planning, resource allocation, risk management, documentation and delivering results aligned with organisational objectives
• Analytical Acumen: Ability to assess patterns, synthesise insights to inform decisions
• Communication and Knowledge Practices: Communicates ideas clearly across formats and captures knowledge for dissemination

Behavioural Competencies

• Developing People: Guides and mentors the team to support professional development.
• Learning Orientation: Seeks feedback, reflects on gaps, and fosters a culture of adaptability and continuous improvement within the team
• Collaboration: Builds trust with stakeholders and fosters collaboration and alignment through clear, consistent engagement

Role Logistics

• The role will be based out of Mumbai, Maharashtra
• Language Proficiency in Marathi and English
• Remuneration will be competitive with Indian philanthropy and social-sector pay scales, depending on the candidate's experience level.
• CEGIS is an equal employment opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will be considered for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, colour, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, disability, age, genetic information, veteran status, ancestry, or national or ethnic origin.

Pre-reads for the application process

Please go through the following materials before sending in your application.

• CEGIS Overview

• A glimpse into life at CEGIS -CEGIS Retreat 2024

• State Capacity, Governance, and Public Systems — Prof. Karthik Muralidharan on Seen & Unseen with Amit Varma – on education, healthcare, federalism and state capacity, and bureaucracy in India.
• CLOP Initiative website
• Go-HRM: Goal-oriented approach to human resource management (GO-HRM)
• Karmayogi Bharat website

• You are also strongly encouraged to read Prof. Karthik Muralidharan's book Accelerating India's Development: A State-Led Roadmap for Effective Governance (especially Chapters 1, 4, 5, 6, 10, and 11), which informs much of CEGIS's work and theory of change.

Recommended listening:

• Karthik Muralidharan Episodes on SparX by Mukesh Bansal: Podcast Episode 1, Podcast Episode 2, Podcast Episode 3.

• Karthik Muralidharan: India's Roadmap for Effective Governance — FED Dialogues: Podcast Episode.

• Karthik Muralidharan on Making Governance More Effective — Sushasan | Podcast.