Casino industry struggles to find, train workers

John Wilen

Friday, June 18, 1999 | 11:04 a.m.

One of the biggest issues faced by today's fast-growing casino industry is finding enough qualified employees.

The demand for bodies is driving a boom in the employee training industry, and is prompting gaming companies to compete for employees with a more diverse array of training programs.

A panel of human resource experts from private industry and academia spoke about gaming industry staffing challenges at the Las Vegas International Hotel and Restaurant Show at the Las Vegas Convention Center Wednesday.

"Our big overall four-letter word is 'need,' " said Shari Grimes, human resources director of the Boomtown hotel-casino in Biloxi, Miss.

Henry Melton, an adjunct professor at UNLV, said many people don't realize the amount of work that goes into finding enough people to staff a mega-resort. To estimate the number of people a large resort hotel-casino needs for a four-star rating, take the number of rooms and multiply by two and a half, said Melton.

"If you need that many people, you need to be recruiting at least five times that if you want the quality," said Melton.

The fast-growing casino industry work force is one of the most diverse in the nation in terms of education and work background, ethnicity and national origin, said Melton.

"Our industry is analogous to the auto industry years ago," said Melton. "We're looking for low-tech, high-talent people to bring into the fold."

While finding qualified employees is a big problem for casinos in established gaming markets like Las Vegas and Atlantic City, it is a nightmare for emerging gaming markets like the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.

"Our biggest problem is employees," said Beverly Martin, executive director of the Mississippi Casino Operators Association.

With 2 percent unemployment and a gaming industry that has added 10,000 hotel rooms in the last five years, Mississippi casinos don't know where to find qualified employees, said Martin.

To complicate matters further, Mississippi law prohibits people from paying for any type of gambling-related training. The ban essentially means that Mississippi schools and universities can't offer the kind of casino management and worker training offered by UNLV and the Community College of Southern Nevada.

"Our universities will not allow anything," said Grimes.

The casinos' only recourse is on-the-job training, or looking outside of Mississippi.

"Basically, if we can get the employees we need ... we still need training and classes," said Martin.

Many Mississippi casinos send their employees to gaming schools in places like Las Vegas, she said. Of course, they also try to recruit trained employees to the Gulf Coast from other gaming cities.

"If you know anybody who wants to come to Mississippi, we'll take them!" said Martin.

The Mississippi employee crunch is causing other, unexpected problems, said Martin.

"Our hospitals are overwhelmed with all the people we've brought into the area," said Martin.

News of Mississippi's training problems made at least one panel participant happy: Dan England, director of gaming management and development for the UNLV Gaming Institute. England touted UNLV's planned new 35,000 square foot, three-story gaming institute building, slated to open next year.

"One of the hot new things in training is going to be the new UNLV Institute building," said England.

The building will include a 4,000 square-foot fully functional casino with hard and soft count rooms and gaming machines and tables donated by manufacturers, said England.

"It really is the next step with regards to a facility," said England. "You ship your students to us on that bus and we'll fill it up with slot technicians and send it back," he added to Martin and Grimes.

The building will also be equipped with video and computer equipment for "distance learning," another possible way to address Mississippi's training needs, said England.

The Community College of Southern Nevada also offers classes in a realistic gaming lab, and culinary training in a number of mock kitchens and dining rooms.

Jim Wortman, director of gaming research at the Conrad N. Hilton College of the University of Houston, noted that Las Vegas is not the only city in the country with a training institute. There are operating gaming training institutes in New Jersey and Connecticut, and planned institutes in Detroit and New Orleans, he said.

"There are other facilities than UNLV," said Wortman.

There is also a hotel and restaurant management institute at the University of Houston, said Wortman. Texas has a $5.5 billion gaming industry, including the state's lottery, pari-mutuel industry and charitable gaming, he said.

"Gaming is alive and well in the state of Texas," said Wortman.

England said training is an important extra casinos can offer employees in an era of intense competition.

"It's become more of a survival tool now," said England. "Cannibalism is alive and well in Las Vegas."

For instance, some properties now offer not just job training, but "life skills" training on basic things like balancing checkbooks.

Marguerite Brown, training and organizational development manager for Caesars Palace, said Caesars takes a multi-tiered approach to training. There are classes tailored to every type of front-line casino position, classes for supervisors and company-wide training in subjects like problem gambling regulation compliance.

In addition, said Brown, Caesars is developing a training program just for senior executives.

"We are in the process of developing a series of courses ... that deals with fiscal responsibilities and long-term financial projections," said Brown.

Companies that don't offer innovative training programs will lose employees to companies that do, said England.

"The joint down the road is going to come in someday and steal them away unless you provide something else in terms of training," said England.