Cavileer approach at the Silverton: Hotel president announces 50 percent wage reinstatement

By John Katsilometes

Saturday, July 31, 2010 | 2:29 a.m.

The first robust applause erupted when Craig Cavileer announced what wouldn’t’ happen.

“We're not here to announce we're selling the company,” he said.

“Yay!” said the audience.

The Silverton president further told a crowd of around 700 employees, assembled in mandatory town hall-style meeting in the hotel’s tented entertainment pavilion, they would be receiving a rebate of sorts.

In the form of their own wages.

“(Silverton owner) Ed Roski will reinstate 50 percent of your wage reductions,” the hotel president continued, “and these changes will go into affect on Aug. 9.”

“Yay!” said the audience.

Required to take pay cuts ranging from 1-2 percent up to 20 percent, the Silverton staff is living somewhat larger as 50 percent of those wages will be given back to every full- and part-time staffer on the hotel’s 1,000-member work force. Every person drawing a Silverton paycheck, full- or part-time, saw his or her pay cut in October as the hotel buckled under the weakening economy.

Since, Cavileer said, the company has achieved enough financial ability for him to convince owner Roski to invest in something that wasn’t a club, restaurant or entertainment venue. People, specifically.

And those people are grateful.

Executive Chef Joseph Mullligan, whose surname hints to a second chance, said he was not surprised that his pay was cut nine months ago. Nor was he surprised that Friday afternoon’s newsflash was something positive, even as hotel officials attempted to keep the information secret.

“(In October) I knew we had to do something to stay afloat, we did what we had to do to endure. It was hard, but it was also smart to do that,” said Mullligan, who has been with the hotel a little less than four years. “So now, it’s very generous for them to give back. … But I’d heard some talk it would be something like this, and when I heard we were going to have an inspirational speaker today, I felt it would be positive.”

The speaker who followed Cavileer is a slight person but a heavyweight in the world of online retail: Zappos founder and Chief Executive Tony Hsieh, who arrived touting and toting his New York Times’ best-seller “Delivering Happiness.” Hsieh informed and entertained the audience for about 45 minutes.

After the presentation, Cavileer said inviting the energetic and youthful – at age 35 – Hsieh to the program was a way to further demonstrate the company’s focus on its own small community.

“We don’t connect enough with each other,” he said. “We spend tens of millions of dollars connecting with our guests, we spend all this money reaching out – some people get 11 pieces of mail a month from us – but we don’t have those moments where we can actually connect with our leadership, and certainly with me.”

As he spoke, Cavileer nodded toward a bank of slot machines sitting just outside Mermaid Restaurant & Lounge. He ticked off a list of casino owners and executives who possess those same games of chance: Michael Gaughan of South Point, George Maloof of the Palms, Kevin Kelley of Stations Casinos, and Tony Marnell of M Resort.

“We all have the same product,” Cavileer said. “It’s like Home Depot and Lowe’s. So it’s really about trying to create something unique, innovative, and trying not to overdue it or you’ll lose money. Customer service is so important, too. You can do all this work in promotions and features to bring in a new customer, and lose that customer with a bad experience somewhere in the hotel.

“With a reinvestment in our people, maybe our 1,000 employees can be even more engaging.”

As one of those employees, room chef Earl Governor, said: “We’re going to do our best to pay it forward.”

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