Answer: When your employees are pseudo union workers with individually bargained contracts! Say hello to the NFL and “retired” quarterback, Carson Palmer, of the Cincinnati Bengals.
Here’s the back story: in 2010 Palmer was the starting quarterback for arguably the worst team in the NFL. In 2005, Palmer signed, at the time, the single largest contract in NFL history ($118M over the life of the contract set to expire in 2014). After this past season, and years of playing for a bad Bengals team, Palmer demanded to be traded, or (you’ll love this threat) he would retire. The other part of the back story – the Bengals are owned by Mike Brown, son of legendary Cleveland Browns owner, Paul Brown – and he is reknowned for how frugal he is. The result – just 2 winning seasons in the last 20!
Last week Mike Brown responded publicly about this situation, when asked if they would trade Palmer:
“Carson signed a contract, he made a commitment,” Brown said. “He gave us his word. We relied on his word and his commitment. We expected him to perform here. If he is going to walk away from his commitment we aren’t going to reward him for doing it.”
So, now we are going to play a little game called: “What would the HR Pro do?” (This is where you get to play along and tell us what you would do in this situation: Do you cave to the employee’s demands, and trade him away to another team, getting something in return, or do you let him retire and throw away his best earning years as a professional athlete?) Put your response in the comments.
Here’s what I would do:
So, I really see both sides – as a fan (not of the the Bengals, but of sports and seeing great athletes perform) I want the guy to go play, but I would also want my team to get something worthy in return – to help out my team for giving up a starting quarterback in the NFL – which is a very valuable commodity. From the owner’s perspective, I want to see this guy rot! He signed a contract, he needs to live with that decision, and perform to the best of his abilities, for our team. So, I still haven’t really answered, have I?
Go back to Mike Brown’s comment about “rewarding” him by letting him walk away – “Reward” – that’s a strong word, that’s a personal word – sounds like this went from being an employee/employer issue to an issue of “manhood”, and when you’re talking about millionaires and billionaires having a pissing contest – my money will always go with the billionaires.
The problem with people like Carson Palmer is that they want their cake and eat it to – he wants all the safety and guaranteed money of the big contract, but he wants all the flexibility of a non-guaranteed year-to-year deal. You can’t have both. I’m siding with management on this one – I’ll let him retire, and he can sit around and watch us pay some other guy his millions to play a game. Don’t get me wrong, I respect Palmer as well, for sticking by his guns to not work for a crazy person – everyone has a price – and clearly after getting paid about $65 million over the past few years, Palmer’s price is more than what the Bengals are willing to pay.
There is something else that is not being considered from an HR perspective, how do you deal with a disgruntled employee who is not happy working for his current company. Outside of the sports world the employee could look for work elsewhere instead of working for a company he’s not happy at. In HR don’t you have to try to find a reasonable resolution for the disgruntled employee. On the management side having a disgruntled employee around sours the work place and could cause more descent in the workplace.
Having a contract doesn’t mean a whole lot. Companies will void contracts/go BK/whatever when it suits them. But, the companies just cloak that as “business needs.” However, we have a double standard when it comes to individuals — OMG, you *must* live up to the contract that you signed.
Ego is playing a huge roll in the Mike Brown, Carson Palmer standoff. Neither wants to budge and at this point it goes beyond money, and the best interest of the franchise; it is about pride. In HR we have to make sure we don’t let our ego get in the way of finding a positive solution for all parties involved.
Nice little “contract” you got there, Carson. Be a real shame if anything happened to it….
C’mon, this is sports, not real life. I trade the guy and get the best deal I can. My beloved (and AWFUL) Detroit Leos could use some insurance in case whatshisname proves as injury-prone…wait. HR Guy. Not sports fan.
I trade him and get the best I can in return. “It’s just bidness.” Forget all the rest – it’s all emotion and pissing contest. Yeah, I don’t like to reward “bad behavior”. Whatever – again, this happens all the time in sports. If it’s real life? Screw him – retire. Lemme see ya do it, punk!
That is all.
Bad behaviour my ass…players can be (and are) cut at a moment’s notice by teams in the NFL all the team. Most contracts are not guaranteed, hence the universality of signing and workout bonuses, which may be the only guaranteed money players can expect to earn.
I’ll believe Mike Brown’s bloviations about not rewarding bad behaviour when he starts giving all of the Bengals players guaranteed contracts. Until then, it’s just BS emanating from a cheapskate owner who has let it get personal. The likely consequence is that the collision with Carson Palmer is going to end up netting the Bengals nothing except another “rebuilding” season as they start a rookie quarterback. Not only that, but the needless fight with Palmer is simply reinforcing a very negative image of Bengals ownership. Aside from the draft, players have a choice about where they play, and this is not likely to impress NFL free agents.