My remarks today are addressed to the thought leaders in service firms - that is those organizations who make profits from the provision of professional services rather than the manufacture of goods.

I'd include in this category advertising firms (the basis of my commercial experience) law firms, accountancy firms, insurance companies, financial institutions - indeed, any professional practice firm.

By definition, service firms need to recruit and retain the best and brightest if they are to maintain a strategic edge in a highly competitive market - but increasingly, among Generation Y at least, the best and brightest are declining to be either recruited or retained.

Generation X are determined to be better parents than their predecessors, and are unwilling to sacrifice family time on an indefinite basis for the siren lure of partnership or promotion. 

Among women, recruitment is less of a problem, but retention is a major issue.  And despite the Prime Minister's exhortations, older workers are conspicuous by their absence in either recruitment or retention.

And too often, the employee engagement surveys of those we have managed to recruit and retain make pretty dismal reading.

What to do?  Here's my list of 10 issues that are worth interrogating so that you can be confident that your rhetoric is credible, and aligned with your culture.

Businesswoman Sandra Yates has worked in publishing, advertising, education and the arts - next stop, concert pianist?

The word most commonly used to describe Sandra Yates is "tough". A formidable networker who chairs the Sydney Writers' Festival, NSW Technical and Further Education (TAFE) and Saatchi and Saatchi Australia, it's a description she doesn't dispute, but which only tells part of the story.