Bellagio hiring a big task

Gary Thompson

Friday, Oct. 16, 1998 | 10:57 a.m.

Stormin' Norman surveyed the troops, then opined about the objective.

"Think of it as a military campaign, one that requires strategic planning and decisive action," boomed the burly general.

Then Norman Schwartzkopf, architect of 1991's smashing Gulf War victory over Iraq, outlined the steps necessary to mold a large and disparate mass of people into a cohesive team capable of reaching a lofty goal.

But Schwartzkopf wasn't speaking to soldiers. Instead, he was talking to Mirage Resorts Inc. executives tasked with fulfilling Chairman Steve Wynn's audacious promise -- to build the greatest hotel in the world.

Those executives knew bricks and mortar -- even marble and Monets -- aren't enough to make a great resort. You need impeccable service that makes guests feel important, and that starts with a motivated staff.

Schwartzkopf is a friend of Wynn and one of a host of luminaries such as Michael Jordan and former President George Bush who have presented annual awards to Mirage Resorts' employees.

So when Schwartzkopf learned of Wynn's plan to build Bellagio, he suggested a military mindset might pay off.

"In a way," says Artie Nathan, "it really was like Desert Storm. We knew the goal, and we had to put together the right team to do it."

As vice president of human resources at Bellagio, Nathan was the general charged with whipping 9,500 new employees -- many with no gaming or hotel experience whatsover -- into a well-oiled team.

Make that "teams" -- 586 of them, to be exact. For Nathan realized the task would be far simpler if the vast army of workers was split into platoon-sized units, each made up of 20 or fewer people.

"For them, that's the company," says Nathan. "It's breaking things down into the smallest possible component and explaining the strategy so everyone understands completely what's expected."

The strategy is simple to express, harder to execute.

"The challenge is to build a professional staff, allow their confidence and personalities to come through, and give them a sense of ownership in the facility by making them understand they are responsible for it," says Nathan.

The process began long before applicant screening started. Nathan and his human resources staff wanted to understand and address the apprehensions and aspirations of would-be employees of all job classifications.

"Just about every resort has limousines, for example, but we sat down and took a close look at every aspect of limos," Nathan says. "How do you load them, how do you unload them?

"Limo drivers at our other properties wear suits, but at Bellagio will wear tuxedos. We had to know whether that made a different mindset, a different attitude.

"We knew that when you ask someone to sit down and fill out a job application, they have hopes and fears that make it tough for them," Nathan recalls. "We said we wanted to start off giving people a completely different mindset."

That mindset change began with construction of a $3 million job-processing complex, consisting of 65 trailers joined together in a parking lot behind The Mirage and Treasure Island. The company spent $400,000 to reinforce the floors, raise the roofs and outfit the complex with a pleasing decor.

The human resources staff installed a bank of computers powered by a proprietary, user-friendly computer program that eliminated the need for the time-consuming chore of filling out applications in writing.

They scheduled appointments by phone, allowing applicants to avoid the long, tedious lines new resort applicants customarily face.

"We set the appointments to force them to begin thinking in a structural way," Nathan says. "That was the start of the mindset change, a way to manage change in behavior."

From April 11 to May 17, the company processed more than 75,000 initial applications -- a number that represents one out of every 10 workers in Southern Nevada.

"I have to admit that was fewer than I expected," Nathan says ruefully, sounding like a man who's lost an over-under bet. "I'd met with human resources directors from the entire valley and had challenged them to work harder at retaining employees, and they did."

From May 18 to July 18, the staff conducted 26,000 personal interviews, did background checks on 18,000 applicants (at an average cost to the company of $75 each), and ran drug tests on 12,000 finalists.

Many of the 5.3 percent of applicants who failed the tests were from other cities, where drug exams aren't the norm, says Nathan.

From Aug. 12 to Sept. 12, Mirage sent out more than 100,000 letters, including formal job offers to more than 9,500 applicants and "thank you" letters to thousands of others. Only 1.3 percent of those offered jobs turned them down, most because the shifts they preferred weren't available or only part-time positions were open.

Nathan says the 9,500 hired at Bellagio needn't worry about layoffs after the resort opens -- a fear raised by the practices followed by some casino companies that overstaffed new properties, then laid off surplus workers when business didn't meet expectations.

"We didn't overhire at The Mirage or Treasure Island, and we haven't at Bellagio," he says. "If anything, we're still a little short in some positions.

"Laying people off after they've left another job to come to you is the rudest thing you can do. There may be some attrition because some people will say the job wasn't what they expected, but we won't lay anyone off. That's our promise to them."

About 3,200 of the new Bellagio workers came from other Mirage properties such as The Mirage, Treasure Island and Golden Nugget.

"It was hard to say no to all of the 12,000 Mirage employees who wanted to move to the new property, but we had to limit the number who transferred so we wouldn't decimate the other hotels," Nathan says.

Twenty-five percent of the applicants came from non-gaming venues, while 5 to 6 percent were unemployed. Several hundred students and retirees were offered part-time jobs of 20 to 30 hours per week. Four hundred senior citizens will fill positions from the mailroom to the executive suites.

Another 300 successful applicants were on a welfare-to-work program or came from the boot camp for first-time felony offenders at the Indian Springs prison.

"It's not who you hire but what you do with them after you hire them," says Nathan, a strong advocate of corporate social responsibility. "Treat them right, train them right and reward them right, and you'll be fine. We don't think it's a risk, but the right thing to do."

That attitude has won Nathan scores of awards, including being honored last year as the best of 100,000 human-resources executives in North America.

"Given the support I've had at Mirage, if I didn't win that award I ought to be arrested," he says.

All told, Mirage spent $13 million on pre-opening training of the new staff and will allot $10 million annually to personnel development at Bellagio. It's part of a corporate-wide continuing education program with links to Cornell, Purdue, UNLV, Community College of Southern Nevada and the University of Houston, all leading hotel and culinary schools.

Mirage also hasn't stinted on job-related amenities for the Bellagio staff. Its "back of the house" offers two employees-only retail shops that sell goods at cost, a marble-floored employee restaurant called "Mangia" (Italian for "eat") that cost as much per square foot as Cafe Bellagio, and -- instead of an in-house newsletter -- a 24-hour employee television news channel dubbed "Benito" that features the latest in Bellagio news, job openings and other information.

"The back of the house is clearly indicative of how we treat employees," Nathan says. "If we treat them right, they'll treat our guests right."

The entrance to the back of the house is emblematic of the approach. Employees enter Bellagio through canopy-covered doors framed by a tree-lined sidewalk that is as decorative as the main public entrances at some other Strip resorts.

The idea is to give employees a sense of kinship with Bellagio's guests, to feel that going to work each day is part of their own resort experience.

Wynn has also granted thousands of employees who meet directly with guests the authority to issue comps without supervisory approval for the first 90 days of operation.

"If a guest is unhappy," Wynn says, "we don't want a food server or 21 dealer looking over their shoulder for a supervisor. We want our staff to understand that Bellagio is only as good as they are, and to take that responsibility seriously. If they're going to do that, I've got to load the gun for them."

It's all part of the Mirage corporate culture, which emphasizes treating employees as part of the family, says the 48-year-old Nathan, who's spent 16 years overseeing human resources at Mirage Resorts.

"Steve Wynn and (Bellagio President) Bobby Baldwin understand this stuff better than I do," Nathan says. "For a guy in human resources, this a dream job."

It can be a dream for others, as well. Nathan recalls the time a young Laotian woman named Amie Khounphithack, a reservations clerk at Treasure Island, won the employee-of-the-year award. The winner's family had escaped the war-torn country by boat and spent months in a teeming refugee camp before emigrating to the United States.

"Her parents were with her for the ceremony," says Nathan. "And when George and Barbara Bush came out to present the award, Amie's father was stunned. He bowed to kiss Bush's hand and both he and the president started to cry. You could have heard a pin drop."

"It seemed time just stood still for a moment," recalls Alan Feldman, vice president of Mirage. "It was such a powerful thing. To have any conception of what this family had gone through, the sacrifices they'd made, the hardships they'd endured, and then to see their child succeed enough in America to have the president of the United States give her an award was indescribable."

It's that ability to evoke emotion, to touch the souls of people in ways that extend beyond their jobs, that Nathan and his colleagues believe will help Bellagio fulfill Wynn's audacious promise.

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