The recent past is currently seen through rose colored glasses, and the future seems bleak.

It’s not a wrong approach because everything has genuinely turned on its head. Life is not so perfect anymore, even if the past never was.

It’s amazing the things that were said about the issue of talent management only two short years ago. Makes us look as if we were in cloud cuckoo land. See if you can remember what it was like before we were all kicked in the perpendiculars.

This is what we said to each other two years ago. This was the norm:

1. Economic growth has its downside; the high demand for talent.

2. Increased demand for labor is creating multiple offers for ‘precious’ job candidates.

3. Wage inflation continues to threaten businesses strategy.

4. Emerging economies top the wage inflation tables.

5. Pro-active recruitment is the only way to win the ‘War for Talent’.

6. Despite the cost, part-time and contract employees are a necessary choice to ensure that you have the skills you need. The Free-Agent economy is upon us.

7. Compensation and benefit packages are not enough to ensure staff loyalty. They want, and deserve, more.

8. Good staff are looking for high levels of career growth. If you don’t deliver you will lose them. If you can’t deliver you don’t deserve them.

9. The primary job for Human Resources is recruitment.

10. As Baby Boomers retire, we will see the longest period of skills demand in economic history. Full employment for everyone!

How many of these sentences can be reversed? I think they all can. For every 2006 high you now have a 2009 low, and for every 2006 increase you have a 2009 decrease. Grass may soon be growing in the cracks on our streets and highways.

Who’d be a Futurist?