Openness key to helping workers combat problems, executive says

By Liz Benston (contact)

Tuesday, Dec. 7, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

Casino companies need to do a better job making workers feel more comfortable about approaching their employers for help in conquering personal problems, including a gambling addiction, Steve Wynn's top human resources executive said at a conference Monday.

"It's hard enough to find good employees," Arte Nathan, senior vice president and chief human resources officer for Wynn Las Vegas, said at the 5th annual Conference on Gambling and Addiction at the MGM Grand. "You want to try to keep them."

Companies can end up spending more time and money finding a replacement than by helping good workers fix their problems, he said.

Nathan was one of the first casino executives to implement a mandatory rather than voluntary employee assistance program. The program, which has been in practice at Wynn's companies since 1983, requires employees with known problems such as a gambling addiction, alcoholism or drug abuse to participate in and complete employee-sponsored counseling and treatment programs.

"These people are used to getting fired," Nathan said. "We started to make the (employee assistance program) a condition of employment. We went up against (casino) executives and lawyers" who wanted instead to fire problem employees, he said.

Getting employees to seek help isn't easy, he said.

Over the years, Wynn's former company, Mirage Resorts Inc., discovered that using employee testimonials worked better than other programs such as free gym memberships to combat obesity and smoking cessation programs to help workers kick cigarettes, Nathan said.

Nathan said his own story about being addicted to painkillers has moved many employees to seek help.

A fall in 1973 left Nathan paralyzed for seven years and also led to a dependence on codeine and valium. He relapsed in the late 1990s when a torn achilles tendon required pain medication. Nathan's daughter found him in a coma and when he recovered, he slipped into a depression.

"I'm a recovering drug addict ... and I will be that way the rest of my life," he said. "That kind of openness from a company (means) if you've got a problem it's OK" to talk about it.

Nathan said his company expects to offer employees more testimonials in the future so they can understand the nature of an addiction and seek help for themselves, friends or family.

The major Las Vegas casino companies tend to be better than other industries in offering full-scale employee assistance programs, said Robert Boswell, a Las Vegas-based addiction treatment specialist and senior vice president with Pioneer Behavioral Health, a Massachusetts-based company that offers treatment centers nationwide, including two outpatient psychiatric centers in Nevada.

That's in part because there appears to be less corporate stigma involved in admitting a problem and seeking help, he said.

Boswell, who recently relocated to Las Vegas, said nearly all of his patients who work at large corporations are mandatory referrals from those employers, with casinos at the forefront.

"This is the only place I work where senior management is intimately involved in the mental health of employees," he said.

The overall percentage of casino workers seeking help is still relatively small, experts said at the conference.

A recent study of non-Nevada casino workers found that only 7.1 percent of employees sought help through employee assistance programs even though a significant percentage of workers had gambling and drinking problems, said said Richard LaBrie, associate director of research and data analysis at Harvard Medical School's Division on Addictions.

Even that rate appears higher compared with other industries, LaBrie said.

Marketing efforts to help problem gamblers work best if they reach out directly to gambling addicts and families of addicts, said Richard Earle, president of Greenbranch Enterprises Inc., a firm that specializes in public service advertising for nonprofits and government organizations.

Mild campaigns such as a "gamble responsibly" message may not have much effect because they are more generic in scope and don't speak to compulsive gamblers, said Earle, who previously concocted advertising campaigns for major advertisers including Procter & Gamble and Revlon.

"You have to zero in in a very intrusive way," he said.

The conference is sponsored by the National Center for Responsible Gaming, a casino-funded group that promotes awareness of problem gambling and raises money for research. More than 400 casino officials, regulators, psychologists, treatment providers and researchers attended the conference, which runs through today.