Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

As MGM honored, economy challenges diversity efforts

Casino giant is gaming industry’s only recipient of prestigious award

MGM Mirage diversity

Richard Brian

Punam Mathur, senior vice president of MGM Mirage corporate diversity and community affairs, and Eddie Dasis, a mechanic at The Roller Coaster at the New York-New York hotel-casino, discuss the MGM Mirage diversity program.

Click to enlarge photo

Punam Mathur, senior vice president of MGM Mirage Corporate Diversity and Community Affairs, poses outside New York-New York.

Beyond the Sun

Diversity snapshot at MGM Mirage

The MGM Mirage work force is 30.3 percent Latino, 14.9 percent Asian and 12.1 percent black. Managers are 13.9 percent Latino, 10.3 percent black and 10 percent Asian, as well as 45.2 percent are women. Of 61,145 employees in 2008, 37,909 were ethnic minorities.

More than 6,500 employees have completed the company’s formal Diversity Training program.

During 2007, MGM Mirage spent more than $254 million in biddable goods and services with minority-, women- and disadvantaged-owned business enterprises. The company has a purchasing division dedicated to supplier diversity. The numbers for 2008 are unaudited and have not yet been released.

In 2001, MGM Mirage created its Corporate Diversity and Community Affairs Department. That's now led by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Murren, Executive Vice President and General Counsel Gary Jacobs, Senior Vice President, Corporate Diversity and Community Relations Punam Mathur and Vice President, Corporate Diversity, Communications and Community Affairs Debra Nelson. Also in 2001, the Board of Directors created a diversity committee that is now chaired by former U.S. Labor Secretary and current MGM Mirage board of directors member Alexis Herman.

The company has a corporate diversity council, property diversity councils, a purchasing diversity council and a construction diversity council. Besides its formal Diversity Training program, MGM Mirage provides diversity education during orientation for new employees, offers programs to help promising employees become managers and has made a special effort to ensure that a diverse workforce will be hired for its $8.7 billion CityCenter venture on the Las Vegas Strip.

The company requires minority business participation on all contracts and purchases exceeding $1,000 and, for CityCenter, it contacted thousands of contractors and vendors seeking minority participation.

Bobby Baldwin, MGM Mirage chief design and construction officer, last year was honored by the Nevada Chapter of the National Association of Minority Contractors as the 2008 "Advocate of the Year" for supporting diversity in the construction industry. Through 2008, more than 100 contracts totaling more than $220 million had been awarded to minority, women and disadvantaged businesses working on CityCenter, the largest private construction project in U.S. history.

The 2007 MGM Mirage diversity program annual report is available here.

Source: MGM Mirage

About MGM Mirage's award

The 2009 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity covers 19 industries ranging from small regional companies to global giants. The 401 applicants completed a detailed survey with more than 200 questions measuring CEO commitment, human capital, corporate and organizational communications and supplier diversity. MGM Mirage's total score was 49.18 compared to the average of all Top 50 companies of 36.71.

DiversityInc comments about MGM Mirage:

  • A strong effort to create an inclusive work force, including innovative diversity training and employee councils, has propelled this gaming company back on the list. MGM Mirage also has put great effort into its supplier-diversity program.
  • The company holds its senior executives responsible for diversity success. Property presidents are required to include diversity objectives in their annual business plans. They are measured and rewarded for performance.
  • The company has a unique system of property councils that assess its diversity needs. Each of the companies within MGM Mirage has a Property Diversity Council consisting of executives and employees who work at the property level. Each council is responsible for planning its diversity agenda and addressing the specific needs of its property related to diversity.
  • Each property has unique needs and concerns because the employee demographics for each property tend to vary widely. When Property Diversity Councils meet, council members have the opportunity to discuss concerns surrounding the needs of (non-heterosexual) employees. They also have an opportunity to raise concerns that are specific to employees' religion and age.
  • MGM Mirage also has excellent diversity training. Its Champions program was the first in-depth educational program of its kind in the gaming industry.
  • The company allocates 57 percent of its philanthropic endeavors to multicultural groups, including the NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, the Hispanic Association for Corporate Responsibility, the OCA (Organization of Chinese Americans) and the National Urban League.
  • MGM has had an evolving supplier-diversity program. In 2008, MGM Mirage dedicated one employee to coach suppliers and obtain Tier II (subcontractor) reporting. This included spend threshold and propensity to include diversity in the supply chain.
  • Source: DiversityInc

Tears emerged from the eyes of several hotel and casino employees as they listened to the horrible comments about their co-workers.

A group of women of all races and men of color listened to the comments and looked into the eyes of their white male co-workers. The white men stood shoulder-to-shoulder, facing the group. These white men, the trainer commented, were arrogant, dishonest, prejudiced, greedy, elitist, white-collar criminals, serial killers and even trailer trash.

The moderator asked the onlookers to consider whether these words accurately described the characteristics of these men -- men who are co-workers, teammates, coaches, fathers, brothers and sons. The white men were asked if these words reflected their characters.

Of course not, everyone agreed -- offering some comfort to the men who had to listen to the comments while their co-workers watched their reactions, which ranged from victimization to humiliation.

Welcome to a stereotype-breaking session during an MGM Mirage diversity training class.

This was just one of hundreds of classes for thousands of MGM Mirage workers and managers since the company broke new ground in the hotel-casino industry in 2000 by launching a comprehensive diversity program that has set the standard for the industry.

The much-honored MGM Mirage diversity program this month received another prestigious award. MGM Mirage was the only gaming company and the only company based in Nevada to be named to the 2009 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity, ranking No. 19. MGM Mirage also was on the list in 2006 and 2007, and was a "Noteworthy Company" in DiversityInc's 2008 awards.

"We have been singled out for this honor because employees at all levels of our company – from our front-line service employees to our top-ranking executives – charismatically embrace diversity principles and have integrated these standards into their everyday interactions with our guests, co-workers and the communities in which they serve," said Punam Mathur, MGM Mirage senior vice president of corporate diversity and community relations.

Front-line workers, vendors and contractors enthusiastically endorse the program and many are watching with interest as the company transitions under new corporate leadership and struggles to meet today's economic realities that have slashed revenue and earnings at MGM Mirage and -- as at other gaming companies -- have led to layoffs and other cuts.

The company owns casinos and resorts in Las Vegas, Henderson, Jean and Reno; and outside of Nevada in Detroit, Mississippi and Illinois. It's a partner in a property in Atlantic City and has a resort in the Chinese region of Macau.

With the new economic realities, Mathur and her diversity department staff have fewer resources to work with, but are trying to maintain the momentum in broadening the culture of diversity within the company.

“No one is willing to lose that competitive edge,” she said.

Formal diversity training -- a cornerstone of MGM Mirage's diversity program -- is continuing. But because of its cost, the number of training sessions this year has been cut to about one per month, down from about 150 annually in recent years. Employees will continue meeting at the property level for “diversity recharging” sessions and community service projects.

Helping personal and work relationships – and shareholders

Eddie Dasis, for instance, is a mechanic on The Roller Coaster at MGM Mirage's New York-New York hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip. He and some co-workers recently got to take a roller coaster car to a school and showed it off to students.

“It makes you a better person, not only at work but in your personal life,” Dasis said of the diversity training, which culminates in participants being named “diversity champions.”

Dasis, 47, said the training got him to see things through the eyes of others -- and to be more accepting of not only co-workers and supervisors, but of family members.

Not only is he a better father, but he now gets along better with his supervisor.

“I had a hard time working for women,” he said. “It opened my eyes to the other side of the fence.

“I've become more patient and not so critical of other people and how they do things. I am more laid back now -- I would snap before,” he said.

What do the changes that Dasis has experienced have to do with “diversity,” which is often thought of in defensive terms?

Managers throughout corporate America regularly receive “diversity training” with the goal of teaching them not to break the law by discriminating against job applicants and employees on the basis of their gender, race, age, religion and other protected factors.

The success achieved by Dasis illustrates that for MGM Mirage, diversity is much more than complying with the law. It's even more than “it's the right thing to do.” At MGM Mirage, diversity is a culture with a clearly articulated goal: creating a more successful company that will make more money for the company and its shareholders.

Creating a more successful company in large part rests on the premise that in the ultra-competitive hotel-casino industry, every employee must be inspired to perform at 100 percent of potential and understand the cultural nuances of co-workers and customers. That way, casino customers and hotel guests will not only want to visit MGM Mirage properties, but will want to come back because they've received excellent service.

“Diversity is a culture where 100 percent (of the employees) can give 100 percent,” Mathur said. The diversity training, she said, addresses “anything that impedes you from doing your best.”

For Dasis and many of his co-workers who have taken the three-day diversity champion training courses, reaching 100 percent of their potential meant having to better understand their co-workers and customers. And that meant overcoming stereotypes.

Overcoming stereotypes

A recent training session at the company's Circus Circus hotel-casino in Las Vegas involved about two dozen workers from numerous MGM Mirage properties. The white men were just the first of seven sets of employees who had to stand next to each other, listening to stereotypes about themselves.

Next came the women, of all races. They were called things like easy, weak, emotional, needy and were said to talk too much.

Then came the blacks: Good athletes, pimps, receivers of welfare, poor tippers.

Then the Hispanics: Catholics, poor, cheap laborers, illegal, sexist and with big families.

Then American Indians: Alcoholics, poor, lazy, uneducated, being close to nature, being Indian givers.

Then the Asians: Poor drivers, passive, industrious, willing to work for low wages.

Then the gays and lesbians: Flashy dressers, creative, social outcasts, immoral, dirty.

Senior citizens were characterized too, though none attended this session. They were called Republicans, stubborn, cranky, opinionated, cheap.

For some of the casino employees, this amounted to shock treatment as the trainers drove home the point: Instead of thinking of these people in terms of stereotypes, MGM Mirage employees must recognize them for who they truly are.

Women, for instance, are team members, co-workers, wives, girlfriends, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and nieces. They are presidents of two MGM Mirage properties. One has been an attorney general of the United States. Blacks? One is a president of the United States. And so on.

And, driving home a point Mathur makes about the financial benefit of diversity training, the workers are reminded that seeing people for who they really are applies to customers, too. No class of people will feel welcome at an MGM Mirage property if, for instance, the workers feel they will be poor tippers just because of the color of their skin.

‘Industry is moving in the right direction’

The MGM Mirage diversity initiative was launched in 2000 and grew through the early 2000s as two things happened simultaneously.

Investor Kirk Kerkorian's MGM Grand Inc., as the company was known then, was going through the regulatory process to buy resort developer Steve Wynn's Mirage Resorts Inc. when the Las Vegas chapter of the NAACP publicly embarrassed MGM Grand and Terry Lanni, then its chairman and chief executive.

The NAACP said it was fearful of Mirage being taken over because Mirage had a good record of dealing with minority businesses, while it charged MGM Grand was weak in that area. Lanni, at the time, defended MGM Grand's diversity practices, but the criticisms by the NAACP succeeded in helping to bring wide attention to the issue within the industry.

Gene Collins, head of the NAACP in Las Vegas at the time, also pressed a demand Lanni felt was outrageous: That MGM Grand fund a $100 million community investment initiative in a poor part of Las Vegas, much as regulators in Detroit had required community investments by casino licensees in the form of a loan pool.

"We're not a bank. It's ridiculous to ask for that," Lanni said at the time of Collins' demand. "We're not in the kind of position to make that kind of investment.”

Over time, as MGM Mirage led the gaming industry in advancing opportunities for minority employees, contractors and vendors, the $100 million investment demand was dropped and even a prominent critic, Collins, joined other minority business advocates in praising MGM Mirage for its diversity efforts. As the years passed, Lanni said he was grateful that minority business groups had pressed their cause with the company. In 2005, he told Collins: "You deserve credit for bringing this matter to our attention."

During this same period, gaming companies faced questioning about diversity practices from an unaccustomed source: The Nevada Gaming Control Board. Diversity wasn't something regulated by the Gaming Board and state Gaming Commission, but it became a more important topic with the appointment of former Las Vegas FBI chief Bobby Siller to the Control Board.

Siller, who is black, started serving on the board in 1999. He questioned gaming executives about diversity and talked publicly about what was obvious: A lack of minorities in key management positions in the industry.

"Having minorities in executive offices creates an automatic awareness," he said in 2000. "If you get to a certain level in a property, you don't see any minorities or women. This is a growing community. All of our citizens should benefit from that ... no one should be left out."

Over time, other big gaming companies, such as Harrah's Entertainment Inc., Las Vegas Sands Corp., Station Casinos Inc. and Boyd Gaming Corp., began talking more about diversity and some formalized and bolstered initiatives that had been quietly under way for years.

As he was preparing to leave the board in 2006, Siller said: “The industry is moving in the right direction, though there are some that will never get it.”

Diversity training and new economic realities

As MGM Mirage's diversity program continues through the post-Lanni phase and faces new cost constraints, minority business advocates remain supportive and are monitoring MGM Mirage in hopes that the years of progress are not reversed.

Cornelius Eason, president of the Urban Chamber of Commerce, which largely represents black-owned businesses in the Las Vegas area, said he doesn't expect MGM Mirage to reduce its commitment to diversity.

“They've created a culture with an attitude of inclusion that's going to be in place for awhile,” said Eason, president of Priority Staffing USA, which has been a vendor for MGM Mirage. “It's not so much a program as it is a culture shift that is going to be woven into who they are for awhile.”

Eason said he thinks MGM Mirage Chairman and Chief Executive Jim Murren, who succeeded Lanni in November, believes in the program and is encouraged that two primary drivers of diversity are still on board with the company. They are Mathur and Debra Nelson, vice president of corporate diversity, communications and community affairs.

Otto Merida, president of the Latin Chamber of Commerce, also praised MGM Mirage's diversity program.

“I think they have been very effective,” he said.

But Merida is concerned because he doesn't know whether, in light of Lanni's departure and corporate cutbacks, the company will have adequate resources to continue aggressively recruiting minority business partners. Merida also wonders if MGM Mirage will continue having high-profile events for minority leaders and others announcing the results of its diversity efforts -- results like the amount it's spending with minority vendors and contractors.

MGM Mirage said that while it's not having an expensive event this year to announce its diversity results, as it has in years past, it expects to release them to its minority business partners such as the Latin Chamber in mid-May; and will have an internal company event attended by several thousand employees and led by Murren.

"Despite our current economic constraints, we expect to maintain our company’s memberships in all of the local minority chambers this year," added MGM Mirage spokeswoman Yvette Monet.

And while Murren has been occupied with financial issues at MGM Mirage, he's made it clear that the diversity initiative and culture will continue under his leadership.

"I may have some cool new job titles, but the most important title I have is ‘Diversity Champion in Chief,’” Murren told a group of Diversity Champions at the company's Bellagio resort in December.

In the current economy, with the company needing every possible dollar of revenue, he said, "There has never been a more important time for us to embrace the principles and lessons of diversity."

Murren also told employees that the MGM Mirage diversity program helped him overcome grief following the terrorist attacks in 2001, when he lost many colleagues where he once worked on Wall Street.

"Candidly, it took me a while to wrestle with that. It was the diversity program that ultimately got me through," he said. "I realized that there is hate in the world, but there is more love. There is anger in the world, but there is more compassion."

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Louisa Mendoza, owner of Keep it Clean Janitorial Service, is shown by a chandelier in a Bellagio villa. Mendoza has a contract for cleaning chandeliers in the hotel. Employees Marta Uribe (on ladder) and Araceli Saldana are in the background.

An immigrant’s Bellagio success story

One of the MGM Mirage diversity success stories is Louisa Mendoza, owner of Keep It Clean Janitorial Service in Las Vegas. She's known as “the chandelier lady” because of a contract she landed in 2003 to clean the chandeliers at MGM Mirage's Bellagio resort.

A Mexican immigrant who learned to speak English by watching soap operas and reading children's books, Mendoza said she had just $16.17 in her pocket when she left an abusive relationship and started earning money to support herself and her son by baby sitting and cleaning homes. She tried expanding into commercial work, even having her son sleep overnight in a jewelry store while she cleaned it. She was making little money before meeting Kenyatta Lewis of MGM Mirage, now the company's director of supplier diversity.

Mendoza recalled she had been in contact with some small business organizations and was encouraged to attend a lunch event to make business contacts at the MGM Grand resort. That's where she met Lewis.

“I hardly spoke English. I told her ‘I'm small.’ She said, ‘No one is too big or too small for MGM Mirage,’” Mendoza said. “I gave her my card, but I thought, she's not going to call me. The next day, she did.”

Mendoza said the Bellagio purchasing department helped her write a janitorial services proposal and worked with her when she asked for just a 30-day contract, something the Bellagio purchasers weren't accustomed to. Mendoza wanted a trial contract because she feared the job might be too big for her to handle. She eventually started out with a 90-day contract, which covered expenses and the pay of $10 per hour for her five-person crew.

“That was a lot of money then,” she said.

Her company still has the contract to clean more than 600 chandeliers at the resort and has expanded to other areas of the Bellagio, as well. The deal launched her business, which has expanded into janitorial and construction cleanup contracts with other casino operators and businesses.

She now employs about 10 people. Mendoza said she used to count pennies to cover daily living expenses, but now can afford to pay tuition for her son to attend Bishop Gorman High School.

Since she started doing business with MGM Mirage, Mendoza said she's seen many small vendors benefit from the diversity program.

For instance, she said, “They hired a company to teach us about business management.”

“They should be ranked No. 1” in national diversity rankings, Mendoza said. “They changed my life.”

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