Self-assessment Can Identify Where Problems Exist

Like the boy who cried wolf, too many prognosticators for too long have been predicting a massive talent shortage - with frustrated employees departing their jobs in droves.

"The new year is expected to usher in a flurry of job hopping," announced USA Today. A large staffing firm quantified the percentage of disaffected employees as being "more than half," while a retained search firm put the number at precisely 42 percent. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 38 percent of HR professionals believe employee turnover is increasing.

To date, few if any organizations have seen a mass exodus from their ranks. In truth, talent shortages will begin to catch many employers unaware - but that problem is not across the board, nor will it happen all at once. As is often the case, the devil is in the details.

For instance, some occupations are relatively stable, while others are relatively fluid. Some skills are increasingly in high demand, while others have waned. Some departments and business units enjoy exceptionally strong morale, while others are in chaos. And the amount of entropy, or disorder, in a modern organization only increases with size.

For all those reasons and more, ...