Imagine if football teams or rock groups hired players in the same way that big companies do their recruitment. The transfer window would be a lot more interesting if Manchester City invited potential centre forwards to supply a CV and covering letter. And the line-up of Take That would have to include a member representing all major diversity groups to accommodate HR procedures, swelling the size of the band to that of a small choir.

These days the ability to apply for jobs via email, social media or Linkedin means many big firms regularly get 1000s of applications, which, rumour has it in the bigger organisations are initially filtered by robots, looking for selected keywords and phrases. I’m sure modern footballers are much better educated and media-savvy, but for those of us at a certain age the idea of Leeds Utd’s 1970s hard-man defender Norman ‘bites-yer-legs’ Hunter carefully assembling the sentence ‘I am a people-focused and task-oriented worker that presents a strong face to competitors and takes a direct approach to problem solving,’ is one that is hard to imagine.

Recruitment is a strange process. If you share the idea (and you probably should) that any company is only ever going to be as successful as the quality of the staff it employs, then it seems crazy that so many companies pay little more than lip-service to getting the very best people.

So what if the standard recruitment process was more like football? Let’s assume that you, Barry of Workington, burger-flipper at Wimpy have taken it upon yourself to be the very best in the business. You’ve worked at it, practised hard, tweaked your technique and put in the hard miles. Not only are your burgers so flipping tasty that the kids come from miles around to enjoy them, but your productivity is 30 per cent higher than any other employee in the county, your workspace is immaculately clean, everybody likes you and sees you as an inspiration for them to do a better job too.

Surely, if there were any justice in the world the head-hunters at McDonalds would be circling, with a lucrative contract offering riches beyond your wildest Workington dreams? A transfer deal that sees your wages doubled and a cut of the transfer fee agreed between the two companies to secure the deal.

Just imagine if that was how employment worked. A different business model where everyone had a contract and rival companies could keep an eye on the star performers and actively seek out the best employees and make them an offer they couldn’t refuse.

If you were part of such a system how much more incentivised would you feel to do a great job? How much easier would it be to see the value in what you do and look for ways to make an impact, whatever the role, if you knew the world was watching?

And, interestingly, the knock-on effect of this might be that as you got older, your experience would be better valued in some roles. And, while your value might eventually drop a little, the current sheer drop of ‘thank you for your application after careful consideration we have…etc’ that seems to afflict many job seekers over the age of 55 might become a more gentle slope into managed retirement.

The system we use now, the whole world over is absolutely the wrong way around. If I get fed up with my job I have to somehow seek out a role that might be comparable or a little better. Hopefully I’ll see an advert that ticks the boxes, but probably, I won’t.

I then have to apply to a person in an HR department who has little understanding of the things that make me special and why they would help me to help their company make a significant difference to their performance.

If I meet the HR requirement my application might get passed to someone in the relevant department, who may or may not be enjoying life and motivated and may or may not give a monkey’s about whether the company employs someone who is going to shake it up and re-write its history.

Imagine the opportunity if the structure of every business included talent scouts whose role was to seek out someone like you and sign you up as the missing link in a team ready to take on the world of photocopier repairing?

I love this idea because I genuinely believe it would encourage so many more people to see their work as more than just a place to go and moan about management. Productivity, however it is measured in any particular company, would soar.

When economists talk about effectiveness and the key measures of a thriving economy, productivity is just about the most important measure. And, in sport or business – any business – productivity, whether it be number of goals scored, cups, races or tournaments won is what matters.

Maybe we should flip the theory on its head. If sportsmen were judged like the rest of the economy and stayed with a team until they decided to move on, regardless of performance, how slow-paced and dull would the Premier league be? If no one really cared whether their team was first or eighteenth because there was no league table, cup competition or other kind of measure of success other than survival, how long would anyone other than the local supporters keep watching?

Clearly, changing the system from how we work now to something so different would take years, but I can’t think of an industry or environment where it wouldn’t work and in the current global economy it’s the bravest and often the most innovative and lateral thinking who get the prize.

In that spirit can I take this opportunity to recommend Norman Hunter to the Government as our next Minister for Defence?