In this week’s Raving On Air, Deana sits down with Steve Neely, General Manager, Rolling Hills Casino to tackle the #1 industry challenge – Staffing. What can we do differently to attract today’s workforce? From increasing our measures of gratitude to a bold billboard guaranteeing a starting wage, Steve shares how the Rolling Hills Casino team has overcome these challenges in its rural location. Read the below transcript or watch the video to hear more.
What are YOU doing differently to show appreciation to your existing team and attracting new team members? We’d love to hear your story. Email [email protected].
Video transcript:
Deana Scott:
Hi, Raver’s, Deanna Scott here. Welcome to Raving On Air. Sponsored by Tribal Gaming and Hospitality Magazine. Visit TGandh.com for all your operational insights. Steve Neely, with rolling Hills casino and resort general manager. He’s got all the fun toys and tricks that he is in Northern California. Thanks for joining us, Steve.
Steve Neely:
Oh, thanks for having me. It’s been too long.
Deana Scott:
It has. And you know, we’ve had a few things going on, right? Just a pandemic, construction at your place.
Steve Neely:
You know, world peace, all that fun stuff.
Deana Scott:
Just a day in the life of a gaming executive.
Steve Neely:
Yeah, no doubt.
Deana Scott:
You know, one of the things I wanted to dive into with you is the staffing issue. You and I have talked about this in the past. It was happening long before the pandemic, but we’re at a point where leaders are really struggling to come up with new ideas and innovative ways to get people to commit to our organizations. And you sitting in the GM chair, you think about that every day, right? Your teams are burnout. So you’ve got some things that are, you’re trying maybe you could tell us about them.
Steve Neely:
Well, I think you’re exactly right. You know, first we were struggling to get the staff and the volumes were good. Then the pandemic hit and we lost a lot of staff folks that just didn’t come back. And then, you know, all the money from the government came in and everyone got tired of going to Walmart and home Depot. So they came to the casino we were faced with just trying to take care those folks. And then a lot of people decided that they just didn’t want to work anymore for whatever reason. And so here we are, volumes are extremely strong. We’re done with our construction project, which was another fun thing we were dealing with during the pandemic. And now we have all these new outlets and can’t get bodies to fill them.
Steve Neely:
So to your point, I mean, we’re not any different than anyone else. We’re all struggling with it. Ours is exacerbated a degree because we are a rural location. So we don’t have a huge population base to pull from. So we really have to come up with compelling reasons for people to come to work for us. And we’re also very lucky in that the Tribe is very supportive of the efforts that we’ve tried to implement, and they’re willing to let us try some things. Through the exercise, we really had to identify what our greatest challenge was. And certainly retention is a big deal. But what we found is a lot of people really just didn’t want to take the chance of not being able to make a decent income. Now we can tell tipped employees at our property make far greater incomes than those that are tipped at other restaurants in the area, other bars in the area.
Steve Neely:
But the other bars and restaurants in the area were willing to put a higher guaranteed, hourly a salary out there, and people were not willing to take a chance. So we decided to go a different way. And we took a look at the people we have, and we were able to run some numbers and get an idea of what our team reasonably can expect to make. They’ve made this much for several years in a row. So if it’s going take a big number to get someone to come join our team, let’s put a big number out there. So we feel we have enough open positions at our property right now, if you’re a bartender or a wait staff or a dealer or a slot attendant, we can reasonably feel comfortable.
Steve Neely:
You’re going to make $50,000 a year just coming to work, not doing anything different than we have always done show up and do the job, and you’re going to make this kind of an income. And so we put on a billboard, we guaranteed the income for an annual income of $50,000 a year. If you’re a bartender, if you’re a wait staff, if you’re a dealer, if you’re a slot attendant and you come to work for us, we will guarantee a $50,000 a year salary. And when you look at what people make, it’s not an unreasonable number.
Deana Scott:
I think that it, it has to take some of that worry out, right? For somebody who’s going to, move into this industry, which I’d like to talk about that in general. But depending on the shift you work and your schedule there would be some insecurity about, “Am I really going make that if I’m not working every Friday and Saturday?” So what has the response been?
Steve Neely:
Your point is dead on. So before we rolled this out, I personally wrote a letter to every single employee on staff that would be affected by this. And I wanted them to hear from me. I didn’t want them to hear it through our Facebook page or anything else. I talked to as many as I could, but I made sure that everyone got written notice of what we were doing. And within 24 hours, I probably had half a dozen of our employees that were impacted by this. Stop me on the floor. And tell me, “Thank you, I know it probably doesn’t apply to me, but just having the comfort of knowing that it’s there really makes me feel important and makes me feel that you care about us.” And that’s all I could hope for.
Deana Scott:
You know, I think sometimes we get caught up in this as shift work, and we don’t think about these as hospitality, gaming, career jobs. And so that attitude really doesn’t allow us to get people who want to start at one of those positions and then see a path to doing something greater. And I think being able to have some sort of guarantee or a career path, not only allows them to take a chance on getting into the industry, but knowing that they’re going to be able to take care of their families and this isn’t just a stop gap until something better comes along.
Steve Neely:
No, you’re exactly right. And, and I said for many years, I don’t know that there’s a better industry out there for single mothers than being able to deal blackjack or being able to, come in and take care certain positions that we have here at the property. I stand by the flexibility that we allow our teams to have the income quite frankly that they could make. And also the ability to select what shifts they want to work. Just the freedom is unlike any you’re going to get at a bank. You’re going to get this in a lot of positions and surely not going to make the income in a retail position that you would make here. I think that it’s something that we oftentimes don’t take enough credit for and advertise enough. And I think that programs like this at least allow us to have the conversations with people and hopefully get them excited about looking at us when they maybe wouldn’t have thought of us before.
Deana Scott:
I think you have to be willing as a leader to leverage that flexibility too. I think there can be a set it and forget it, scheduling mentality where this is the shift. If you don’t want it, “tough, we’ll find somebody else.” And so really managing shifts for lifestyle choices is that flexibility that the next generation or the current generation of work or expects
Steve Neely:
They do. And, you know, I have two millennials and they’re not in the house anymore, but I’ve watched two millennials grow up.
Deana Scott:
I’ve learned from them.
Steve Neely:
Exactly.
Deana Scott:
Steve, we had it wrong.
Steve Neely:
You, and I’ve learned so much from them about just how important things other than, checking that box. It’s really important that as employers, we don’t lose sight of that. You know, these are humans and they have many kinds of needs, not just employment needs. And I think just showing just a little bit of willingness to work with them goes so far and you really just try to put yourself in their shoes.
Deana Scott:
And I think it allows us to remember too, that we are an entertainment industry and we need to bring that feeling to our employees as well, if we’re expecting them to have fun get people excited about being there, how we treat them, how we incorporate their lifestyle and their family, or their choices too, into the organization, that loyalty can go a long way. And to your point, I think we’ve forgotten the human aspect of it.
Steve Neely:
That, and to a degree we’ve forgotten how hard to these jobs are, you know,
Deana Scott:
Amen.
Steve Neely:
First of all, you know, just having to come to work every day and just be nice. You know, My staff will attest I’m not very good at that. Just to the amount of energy it takes to be able to perform every day. It’s a show every day, we’d want to lose sight of that, that customer that had a bad experience on the way to the casino. We want them to not dwell on that. We want them to come here to get away from that. And, you know, never mind that we had a bad experience on the way to work today. We can’t share with our customers, they don’t care. They came here to get away from all that garbage.
Steve Neely:
So let’s create an environment by making sure that the people you have in these positions are the best and feel good about what they do. And you get somebody that’s really good at what they do, and they feel good about what do, and let’s celebrate that. And let’s reward that quite frankly. I mean, for the most part, the customers are going to be supplementing this income, and it’s amazing how much more a tipped employee makes when they’re having fun at work, when they feel good at work. And oh, by the way, the company just happens to make more money too.
Deana Scott:
And I think the customers appreciate it too. They end up having these relationships with our team members and they want them to be happy where they’re at. They want a place somewhere where they feel good about what about the softer side. So when you look at employee surveys the hourly rate is never the number one reason why somebody stays in an organization. So guaranteeing that, we don’t have to worry about what we make; I think it takes a big question off the table. But what about the softer side and the benefits? Are there things that you’re doing differently now based on the conditions that are happening right now?
Steve Neely:
Well, I can’t remember what we were doing, to be honest with you. It’s been such a whirlwind the last couple years. I think more than anything else, we introduced a process where instead of making our teams wait a full year to get an annual review and to get a raise, what we did is we took that annual amount and we divided it so that we actually do four reviews a year. And each time we do a review, we give them a score between one and a hundred or zero and 99. And whatever that is determines what’s their raise. So if they get a 90%, then they get a 0.9% raise, and we do that, four times a year. So if they do that, it’s effectively a three and a half percent raise throughout the year.
Steve Neely:
And more than the monetary side of that, what’s really important is those conversations. And we’re constantly giving them feedback on how they’re doing what they can do to improve what we appreciate about them. I think we lose sight of the opportunity to just have conversation with our people. How important that is; people love hearing about how good a job they’re doing, and they truly want to do a better job. So why do we wait and have this conversation one time a year and give someone a small amount of income? The more important part is just to say, thank you. You know, we actually force that conversation four times a year now, and it’s probably the best thing that we’ve done, and it’s allowed our managers and our hourly employees to get closer and monitor performance; to be able to give them immediate feedback on it, but more than anything else, just to have that conversation and say, thank you.
Deana Scott:
Yeah, that gratitude really makes a big difference in any organization. So we definitely do a lot of that coaching as leaders as a really important part.
Steve Neely:
Yeah, and that’s really been a big part of our culture. The last couple years we were able to bring in who I think is the best HR professional in the business and Thomas Dullien. The writing that he is done and all the publications, his track record of transforming culture. It’s really just allowed us to take our property to a level that you don’t normally find in a location like we have.
Deana Scott:
Well, we will definitely have to do a Raving On air with him. Steve, I heard your phone going off earlier. So I know people are standing at the door and on the phone waiting for you, but as always, I appreciate you always pushing the envelope to make us all better.
Steve Neely:
Well, and I appreciate you giving this format for people to, to hear from others. And I personally appreciate the conversations that you’ve had, and I’m honored to have the opportunity to do it with you. And I surely look forward to catching up sooner than later.
Deana Scott:
Thank you, Steve. And on behalf of the Raving team and Tribal Gaming and Hospitality Magazine, thank you for joining us. Be happy and safe.
