Gareth Bale Transfer: What employers can learn from it

Image credit: Pablo Morquecho/Flickr

Real Madrid finally acquired Gareth Bale from Tottenham FC for a record £86 million transfer fee.

£86 Million! That’s the value placed on Gareth Bale, making him the most expensive Footballer In the world!

In other words, Real Madrid believes Bale can benefit them to the tune of £90 Million.

I'm not going to go into what makes Bale so exceptional, but let’s take a look at the possible factors that managers and club owners could use to gauge a player’s value, shall we?

One major factor could be talent, that is the skill of the player. Another factor could be his status in the squad. Is he indispensable? Some other factors could be adaptability (ability to adapt to the league’s style of play), image rights (revenue expected to be generated from merchandising sales through a player), and on and on.

By valuing players properly, clubs can better manage their budgets and ensure they do not overpay or underpay.

So if football club managers can go through all this strain just in anticipation of trophies, why can’t employers in the labor market do the same? Every employee is an important and unique asset that will subsequently generate value, no matter how little, to the establishment where he works.

At this point, I can safely say that Football Club managers know how to manage and value their human resources better than employers in the labour markets.

Do employers also see that employees are assets to them? Do they value their employees as such? I believe it's time to rethink the fixed wages, unchanging pay grades, commissions and all the rest.

Employees create value with their ideas, work, skills and expertise (just like footballers). This value created undoubtedly translates into economic benefits (present and future) for the employer. So  employee wages can be valued based on expected innovation, creativity and other important skills that employees will potentially translate into funds for the employer. And I'm not referring to Profit-Sharing here.

In essence, I think it’s time to do it like the football managers and value employees, as in the case of Bale, like all other assets or investments by judging employee pay based on the intrinsic value and expected future economic benefits likely to be generated by that employee.

What's your take on this?