Though falling in line with the near universal condemnation of the way Willie Randolph and two Mets coaches were fired, Newsday’s Ken Davidoff is quick to stress, “the Mets do have a better manager today.” WFAN’s Steve Somers (above), however, is a tad less convinced of Jerry Manuel’s abilities. “Maybe he can make Carlos Delgado younger?” wondered the Schmoozer. “Maybe he can make Ryan Church see straight?”
Davidoff’s colleague, Newsday’s Patricia Kitchen, finds (unsurprisingly) a bunch of human resources experts who give the Mets a failing grade for their treatment of Randolph, Rick Peterson and Tom Nieto.
In baseball or the corporate world, you don’t let someone go when he’s so far away from home, his family and support network, said Bill Heather, senior vice president and head of the Melville office of Right Management, a human resources consulting firm that also offers outplacement services. Apart from a firing for some unethical breach, you do it “as conveniently for the person as possible,” and that means close to home, Heather said.
When companies make comparable mistakes — like firing a worker at 5 p.m. on Friday — “they want it to be an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of event. No drama. Everyone’s back Monday morning and the person’s gone,” said Paul Falcone, a human resources executive in Los Angeles and author of “The Hiring and Firing Question and Answer Book.”.
Experts said you don’t want employees to hear the news from outsiders, as some players did as they returned to the hotel. You have to plan the dismissal so you can follow up immediately with the person’s staff, in this case the players, said Doug Silverman, a senior human resources manager at Nikon in Melville and president of the Long Island chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. Randolph’s firing showed “poor communication and poor judgment. They didn’t think about perception,” Silverman added.