Feather Falls Casino:

 

How A Successful Casino
Becomes More Successful

Part 4: Sustaining the Gains

This article concludes The Feather Falls Casino Story by reviewing the Casino’s plans for sustaining and building on its gains.

Three previous articles covering the organizational growing pains Randy Carter discovered as the new General Manager at Feather Falls Casino, the improvement actions taken, and the dramatic results attained can be found in Native American Casino’s September, October, and November editions.

Feather Falls Casino in 2003 and beyond

Feather Falls Casino has made rapid and significant progress toward its vision of being "California’s Best Bet". The challenge for 2003 is to further establish and reinforce the Casino’s new organizational culture within all departments and employees.

In 2003 we will be working on goals to insure that every employee [management and non-management]:

• Understands Feather Falls Casino’s vision and culture and can explain it to new hires and potential hires, as well as demonstrate it to all customers. [To be the #1 casino of choice in Northern California, known for its outstanding Customer Service, Gaming, Entertainment, Food, and Atmosphere. California’s Best Bet!]
• Can explain how his or her work contributes to fulfilling Feather Falls Casino’s Vision
• Understands where they fit in the organization and the importance of their function in the Casino’s success
• Experiences focused personal growth in job skills and customer relations
• Experiences a consistent professional management infrastructure throughout the organization

These goals are intended to drive performance up by raising expectations at every level in the organization. In 2002 Feather Falls Casino established a Vision. In 2003, the Casino will make it a LIVING Vision by:

1. Continuing the recognition of Most Improved, Most Cooperative, & Outstanding Employee Contributions
2. Conducting another Employee Survey & including a Training Needs Analysis
3. Expanding and introducing Training for managers, supervisors, employee job skills, and safety
4. Designing and implementing a customized in-house Customer Treatment Program
5. Implementing a revised Employee Orientation program for all new hires
6. Clarifying and publishing a pictorial Organizational Structure
7. Managing Turnover with departmental goals, tracking, and problem solving

1. Recognition

Using the criteria the department managers identified for most improved and most cooperative departments, each department manager votes to select the winner for each most improved category. The winning department gets their name on the trophy and keeps it for three months. The winning department manager also gets additional concert tickets and merchandise prizes to share with their department’s employees.

The Outstanding Employee Contribution is also awarded quarterly IF a deserving employee is nominated. Every employee is eligible. The top five executives manage this award.

2. Employee survey

Redoing the employee survey and following through on the suggestions will enable Feather Falls Casino to:

• Send a strong and consistent message to all employees that management listens, cares, and responds
• Objectively measure improvements in employee satisfaction for each department and the casino
• Establish and maintain accountability for employee treatment, involvement, and satisfaction for all department managers and executives
• Renew specific targets for supervisory and management development and departmental action planning
• Compare employee satisfaction with turnover within each department and analyze the ± impact of employee treatment, involvement, and satisfaction on turnover
• Identify the most needed employee job skills to be developed
• Identify the most difficult and common customer communications situations that employees face. These situations will become the foundation of the customer treatment and job skills training.

A primary reason that the initial management workshops were effective was that the content was directly related to specific needs identified in the survey and management interviews. Improvement action plans were directly tied to what our employee ‘customers’ and managers told us was needed. Thus we got buy in from both the employees and managers.

3. Management, Supervisory, Job Skills, and Safety Training

Training will be based on needs that are identified through employee surveys and interviews. This enables us to gain immediate application of the training on current issues management and employees are facing.

Personnel will be coached to design and lead the training whenever possible. This enables the Casino to develop the in-house ability to upgrade employee skills in a timely and cost effective manner.

Manager and supervisory development will be designed to coach and teach leadership skills that support the Casino’s vision and servant leadership culture.

Job skills development and safety training will rely primarily on in-house design and implementation. This enables Feather Falls Casino to customize each learning experience to specific needs within the Casino, offer just-in-time sessions for small groups, and save tuition, travel time, and T&I expenses.

4. Customer treatment training

Feather Falls Casino’s will provide all employees with practice using practical communications tools for handling difficult people and situations. Growth Associates will design this training and train in-house staff to conduct it.

Handling difficult customers and situations only addresses the tip of the customer treatment iceberg. The other 90 percent of handling difficult customers is being proactive by providing treatment and service that prevents customers from becoming upset. Therefore the customer treatment training will also focus on actions employees can take to satisfy customers and build customer loyalty.

The end result will be a series of in-house custom designed customer treatment training courses that can be run at any time without outside consulting or trainer costs. This will make it practical for the casino to run the sessions for small groups of new hires.

5. Employee Orientation

New hires are most impressionable during their first 10 days on a new job. Therefore, Feather Falls Casino will design and conduct a new casino orientation program to be administered in the first 4 or 8 hours a new hire is on the job. Orientation will include touring the Casino, briefly visiting each department, and hearing "The Feather Falls Casino Story" [Vision and Values] from one of the top executives.

"When new hires go home at the end of their first day we want them telling their spouse, friends, and neighbors about the unique company they are joining."
Randy Carter, GM

6. Organizational Structure:

There were many changes in management during 2002. To keep current employees and new hires up to speed with their organization we will post a current organization chart with pictures of executives and department managers.

The chart will be posted in several visible places throughout the Casino. It will be drawn upside down to reflect and reinforce our servant style of leadership.

7. Managing Turnover

Based on the Casino’s history, turnover was projected at 52 percent for 2002. Turnover has dropped to 25 percent Since introducing organizational improvements in April. The goal for 2003 is to bring turnover down to 17 percent.

Each department will establish turnover goals and track their turnover. Successes will be positively recognized. Failure to meet turnover goals will be analyzed to find solutions. These actions will be combined with the management and supervisory training.

Conclusion

Feather Falls Casino has come a long way. We have converted the initial growing pains into great gains. The next year will be focused on sustaining the gains and building on the successes that have produced record returns for the Casino and the Concow’ Maidu Piaute tribe.

The gains have been accomplished through a common sense approach involving every employee in the process of making Feather Falls Casino California’s Best Bet.

This is the fourth of a four part series on organizational improvement. The four parts cover:

Background situation - Part 1: Birth, Success, and Growing Pains

Actions taken - Part 2: Actions To Turn Growing Pains Into Great Gains

Results to date – Part 3: Great Gains Results

Future plans - Part 4: Sustaining the Gains

The articles are written by Randy Carter, General Manager of Feather Falls Casino, and Bill Werst, President of Growth Associates, the consulting firm working with Randy and his staff to initiate the process of continuous organizational improvement.

What We Offer	What We've Done	Who We Are
Start ups Growth/Expansion Mature Market/Casino	Feather Falls Casino: How A Successful Casino Becomes More Successful Part 1: Birth, Success, and Growing Pains Part 2: Actions To Turn Growing Pains Into Great Gains Part 3: Great Gains Results Part 4: Sustaining the Gains	Vision/Mission Pete Lusich Bill Werst
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