Marji Lefroy's piece in today's Herald raises some interesting questions about how to deal with Australia's skills shortage.

She is right that a number of forces need to come together to deal with this very real manifestation of the (Global) War For Talent.

But even if these factors do coalesce (and that will be no mean feat, requiring foresight from Mr Rudd down), they only cure the problem for the nation. What they don't do - at least in the short term - is cure the problem for individual businesses . How does business A stop business B from poaching that brilliant new Pom who has just got off the boat?

Obviously business A can raise salaries, pay bigger bonuses etc - but ultimately this simply makes life more difficult for everyone.

Instead, the smarter firms are working on the psychological - as opposed to purely financial - contract that exists between employee and employee. Employee engagement survey after employee engagement survey makes it very clear that Generation X and Generation Y are after much more than salary alone: because these days big bucks are a given.

Better management, better development, greater opportunities - this is where the action is going to be over coming years.  Easy it ain't, but in order to secure and retain the very best staff engaging in this field is absolutely vital.