How to make sure you have the right person

Naomi Simson runs RedBalloon.com, a website which sells “experience” packages. She says businesses have a responsibility to ensure they have the right people doing the right job.

“Everybody wants to run a team of A-graders, but you’ve got to find the right person for the right role. And I would say that an organisation has a certain responsibility to make sure they’ve got the right person in the right role. So we use some tools to find out what their strengths are.”

“We use the Gallup tool and we look at what people’s strengths are. So if you’ve put somebody into an analytical role and they’re really, really struggling with it and they are at 60%, and then you look at what their strengths are and they might be ‘WOO’.”

“WOO is ‘winning others over’, and speaking to people – it might be positivity; they’re as bubbly as anything and you’ve got them in an analytical role. You’ve actually put them in the wrong role.”

“So I think there is a certain responsibility for employers. If you’ve recruited somebody in, be responsible about making sure you have the right role for them and you’re delivering what you’ve promised.”

“It’s a two way street here; don’t bring them in to do what you think is one role and then shift them into another one because that is more urgent than the others. And that happens a lot in organisations.”

Read more about Naomi Simson and RedBalloon.