Casinos compete for job-hopping workers

David Strow

Sunday, Aug. 13, 2000 | 8:41 a.m.

In many respects, Gerardo Gallardo is almost the epitome of the Las Vegas casino worker.

Transplanted from Los Angeles one year ago, the Las Vegas cook is preparing to start his third job in the city at the Aladdin's Elements steakhouse, after working stints at the Orleans and the Venetian hotel-casinos. Gallardo says he hasn't been unhappy with his previous employers -- he just wants new challenges.

"They're all about the same (pay)," Gallardo said. "I don't do it for the pay. If you stay in one place, it's always going to be the same.

"You have to challenge yourself if you want to move up."

No business in Las Vegas is as labor-intensive as the casino industry, the city's largest employer. With the Aladdin's opening on Thursday and its 4,000 new jobs, nearly 200,000 Las Vegans will be working in the gaming industry -- about one out of every four local workers, according to the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation. Those numbers will grow again on Sept. 1 when the Suncoast hotel-casino opens with a staff of 1,900 new hires.

Combine this with the city's historically low unemployment rate -- 3.4 percent and falling -- and the natural tendency of casino workers to move from job to job, and you have one huge challenge for local human resources officials.

"The unknown is both scary and exciting," said Shannon Bybee, executive director of UNLV's International Gaming Institute. "It's the old frontier concept. You will always have people who aren't happy where they're at.

"The higher turnover in the last 10 years is more than you will see in a stable period without new places opening all the time."

For both the newest casino opening on the Strip or a 30-year-old property, the ongoing challenge is bringing job candidates through the door.

When hotels first open, the challenge is considerably lessened by workers' hunger for the novelty of a new property -- and the opportunity to get in on the ground floor, without waiting for promotions behind a long list of employees with seniority.

"It's a great opportunity to get your foot in the door," said Erica Shiogi, who left the Venetian's child-care center to work as an administrative assistant in the Aladdin's corporate offices. "Here, everyone starts out fresh."

"The reason I came here is I heard they'd give everyone the chance to be someone," Gallardo said.

Not all of these employees come from competing properties. A number of employees said they relocated from across the country, while others at the Aladdin came from the soon-to-be-closed Desert Inn.

The flow of new workers is substantial. In May the state reported that the Las Vegas metropolitan area had a workforce of 753,300, a net increase of 34,400 workers in 12 months. Over that same period, the Las Vegas gaming industry added 7,100 jobs, pushing total employment to 193,400.

One of the longest moves was made by Jacob Jimenez and Kimberly Satter, both longtime employees of Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. After a glowing report by a colleague who left to work at Paris Las Vegas, the couple soon started hunting for jobs in Las Vegas. Both found them at the Aladdin, where Jimenez will work as a valet and Satter will work as a food server.

"It's one of a kind," Satter said. "It's not owned by a big group of properties. It's original ... it makes me feel like I did when I started working at Disney."

Loyalty to a manager also can play a big factor in where employees go.

"People don't work for companies, they work for people," Aladdin Human Resources Director Fred Harmon said. "Once we started hiring our management team, our applicant pools got larger and larger. If a manager has loyalty like that, they must be a good manager."

If a property has been open for awhile, it doesn't have the luxury of novelty working in its favor. That means human resources executives must sometimes resort to more aggressive measures to land candidates for openings.

One of the more aggressive recruiters in Las Vegas may be Doug McCombs, director of human resources at the Luxor. At a recent Las Vegas gaming convention, McCombs talked about how he once sent human resources employees "undercover" into the Bellagio's back areas to hand out pamphlets and drum up potential candidates. The scheme worked great, McCombs said, until the "agents" were ejected by Bellagio security.

In May McCombs purchased a newspaper ad asking if employees were concerned about their jobs in the wake of a big merger -- then invited them to apply at the Luxor.

"We're clearly exploiting the Mirage-MGM merger," McCombs said. "The rumors (of layoffs) work well for us. It's a great source of new employees."

When applicants do come in, McCombs said, those with substantial experience are red-flagged for immediate attention.

"The goal is that no quality applicant has to wait more than 48 hours to hear if we want them or not," McCombs said. "If it takes any longer than that, we assume they're gone."

Hard Rock Casino manager Roy Brennan espouses a more subtle approach. He said he often goes into competing casinos on "secret shopping" trips -- not to recruit, but just to observe dealers.

"They're auditioning for me, and they don't even know it," Brennan said. "They'll come into our place looking for a job, and we'll remember them. But I'm not going out there trying to steal employees."

While experience is good, Brennan said it's a luxury.

"Get your HR departments out of the mind-set that you have to have experience to do these jobs because that's getting harder and harder to find," Brennan said. "Look for personality skills, customer service skills. The job-specific skills can be taught."

Though many gaming operators have turned recruitment into an art, the challenge to keep employees from jumping ship is another struggle altogether. By some estimates, turnover in the gaming industry runs at about 35 percent annually.

Not even novelty, it seems, prevents employees at new properties from moving on. At the Aladdin, Harmon said, applicants have been coming in from the newest Las Vegas resorts, including Mandalay Bay, Paris and Bellagio.

Aladdin officials are well aware that they've only accomplished half the battle in attracting people. Now, the challenge will be keeping those 4,000 new employees.

The Aladdin organized an aggressive orientation plan to give new employees a sense of belonging. At the start of each session, each group of 250 workers was addressed by Aladdin Chief Executive Richard Goeglein. At the close of the day, smaller groups of 20 competed in events designed to test their familiarity with the property, all to the sounds of the theme music from "Rocky."

The effect such sessions had on the employees was obvious, as the workers broke into periodic chants and cheers, and high morale seemed infectious.

"We've gone through a lot of effort to recruit these people, so we want to keep them," said Wes Miller, the Aladdin's director of training. "You've got to create an environment they never want to leave."

Retaining employees is no less a priority for even the largest casino operators. At the 8,000-employee MGM Grand, officials recently wrapped up an annual employee retention campaign, during which MGM Grand Chief Operating Officer Bill Hornbuckle addressed all of the property's employees in various sessions.

Cynthia Kiser Murphey, senior vice president of human resources and administration at the MGM Grand, said the hotel has been successful in its seven-year history in retention -- about one-half of the employees who joined the MGM Grand at its 1993 opening remain with the company, she said.

MGM Grand's retention strategy, Murphey said, includes such benefits as "flex time," an on-site medical center, an on-site "university" and competitive pay.

But one program seems designed to appeal to employees' thirst for something new. MGM Grand offers its employees the chance to transfer to new jobs within the property -- a program 1,900 employees participated in last year.

On Sept. 1, parent company MGM MIRAGE will roll out a vastly expanded version of the program that will allow employees to transfer between all 14 company properties, from the MGM Grand and the New York-New York to the Bellagio, MGM's Detroit casino and the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Miss.

"We offer good quality reasons for people to stay," Murphey said. "We understand what makes the business work, which is having a great relationship with the guests. The best way to have that is to have a great relationship with the people who work for you."

And her thoughts of attempted raids by other companies?

"We focus on the positives," Murphey said. "There's a tremendous amount of excitement in the properties as to what the future might bring. If others are trying to make a deal about it, that's their issue, not ours."

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