Here is an article written by Laura Vanderkam for CBS MoneyWatch, the CBS Interactive Business Network. To check out an abundance of valuable resources and obtain a free subscription to one or more of the website’s newsletters, please click here.

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(MoneyWatch) While many managers assume that their team members would like to work less, the dirty little secret of corporate America is that many people would actually like more challenging jobs. A recent survey by Lee Hecht Harrison found that 62 percent of people say they often feel underutilized in their jobs. 24 percent said they sometimes do. In some cases this may be because they’re overqualified: USA Today reported this week on a study led by Ohio University economist Richard Vedder that found that nearly half of working Americans with college degrees are in jobs that don’t really need them. Among retail sales clerks, USA Today reported, 25 percent had a bachelor’s degree in 2010, vs. less than 5 percent in 1970.

Even if you’re leading an overqualified crew, you’re best served by trying to match people with work that requires as much of their brainpower as possible. Unchallenged workers are often unhappy workers, and unhappy workers leave when they get a better offer. Here are [two of five] ideas for finding and using your team’s hidden talents.

1. Get to know your people. In school, no one has to do their extra-curricular activities, so these side projects often give insights into the activities people enjoy for their own sake. A team member who wrote for her college newspaper might enjoy writing. Someone who planned parties for his fraternity might have a talent for staging events.

2. Keep a good someday/maybe list. I like productivity guru David Allen’s concept of a “someday/maybe” list, which consists of good ideas that perhaps you won’t try today, but you might at some point. Think of interesting projects or leads it would be fun for your department to pursue and ask your team members to add to it too. Then develop the discipline of pulling these projects off the list occasionally, and assigning them to team members with talents you’ve identified in that area.

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Laura Vanderkam, a Philadelphia area journalist, is the author of 168 Hours and All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending. To view all articles by Laura Vanderkam on CBS MoneyWatch, please click here.