When Precision FM was still in its infancy, founder Brij Thankey began to realise that he couldn’t transfer the ideas he’d picked up in his corporate career straight into his fledgling start-up.

In his earlier life, there were too many instances where desktop modelling on a spreadsheet to see how much money the business could save by ‘getting the machete out’ was the order of the day. But he now saw that he needed to think less about the business’ numbers and more about its people. Get the people side of it right, by recruiting good people and building strong teams, and the numbers would follow.

When it comes to recruiting, Brij’s motto is to look out for the undiscovered gems. He came to realise that when someone did well in an interview, all that told you was that they were good at doing interviews. It was all too easy to reject people at first sight, just because they performed poorly in an unnatural situation that bore no relation to the job they were being interviewed for. Give them a chance, look a little deeper, and they’d often prove to be great out on site, talking to customers and dealing with real-life issues.

Skills can be taught, Brij says, but what you need to look for is the will, the burning desire to do well. Give people an opportunity, be patient with them and most of the time they’ll get there.

Brij pays tribute to the inspiration he got from Phil Carter, the ‘Elon Musk of the training and apprenticeship world’. Phil changed lives, and that’s what Brij aims to do at Precision FM, by identifying those undiscovered talents and helping them to flourish.

If you want to find out more, check out the video above.

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