If the Shoe Fits
Have you ever been in a job that just didn't feel right but you couldn't put your finger on why? It was a successful company, the wages were good and you were working with a great bunch of people but it just wasn't quite right.
A friend and I were chatting about this exact situation the the other day and she said something that struck a chord - she described a previous job as being like 'wearing my shoes on the wrong feet'.
I knew instantly what she meant.
That's the feeling that finally led me to take the plunge and branch out on my own.
When I first spoke about setting up on my own people talked about what a brave move it was. Rightly or wrongly it didn't feel that way to me - it was just a better fit than what I was doing before.
Don't get me wrong some things are the same -the type of work I'm doing, the kind of people I'm working with, but others are completely different (networking, 'selling ' to customers and writing blogs for starters!). All a bit scary at times but now that I can choose the kinds of clients I'm working for, focus on my key skills and work on a greater variety of projects it definitely feels like the shoes are finally on the right feet.
The idea of 'fit' cuts across so many aspects of HR too.
When recruiting, organisations focus almost as much on 'cultural fit' as on competence nowadays. The phrase 'hire for attitude, train for skill' is a mantra for many Companies. The continuing appetite for team building events, psychometric profiling tools and the concept of certain types of individuals being .'............ (insert company name) kind of people' all show the importance of fit in an organisation.
This is especially true of small businesses when a good fit can accelerate the growth of the organisation and a poor fit can drag it down.
When I was small my mum used to take me to Clarks to get my feet measured for my new school shoes. Just think what life would be like if we had something similar a similar measuring device when hiring new employees / applying for a new job!
