Inside Asian Gaming

September 2014 inside asian gaming 67 Insights The older generation also does not have a lot of education and they are not really looking for a career. Even if you ask them to attend a supervisor training course, they will respond, “Why should I? I am not going to get promoted. I don’t have the qualifications and the education. All I want to do is peacefully and quietly work my next 10 years as a dealer, and I’m already making more than I would cleaning tables or doing dishes.” But are you concerned these older workers are not getting enough training? Especially because the casinos will probably have to hire even more of them over the next few years to staff their new Cotai properties, which will start to come online from next year? No, because their jobs are so limited. The casinos just need to make sure the hard skills of those workers are taught properly— teaching them how to deal cards, not to make mistakes and to smile when necessary. We don’t expect them to interact with the customers. If one day the casinos here decide the dealers need to interact with customers like the ones in Las Vegas do, maybe it will be necessary to train them more then. Another feature of Macau’s labor market is that it’s common for staff to frequently switch jobs, with many leaving companies right after they receive training. Could this lead to companies regarding training as waste of resources? We try to educate management. We tell them if they manage to build some loyalty and some team spirit the staff will probably stay longer. It’s a choice between having unskilled, unmotivated staff who will leave anyway and having skilled, motivated staff who may stay a little longer. In the past, management thought: “I train them and they leave. What’s the point?” Now they realize if you train them you could get to keep them and they will become assets. The attitude towards training is slowly changing, and we have a few successful examples, like a junket that has been able to maintain its staff turnover at just 2%. Also, some training is aimed explicitly at retaining people. We do a lot of team- building exercises for both casinos and junkets. Hopefully, through these exercises, the staff can learn the value of being part of a team and become more loyal towards their company. That’s why we see junkets with staff turnover of 2% or 3%, and others with turnover of over 20%. Casino operators are huge, so their turnover is always in the double-digits. In line with the government’s mandate that more locals rather than foreigners occupy senior positions in casinos, we’ve seen many locals promoted to roles they are arguably not yet qualified for. Have you been called in to offer training to these people? Most of the training resources these days go to the supervisory level—supervisors and junior management—not to senior management. We are called in to teach a variety of things, from soft skills like EQ to basic office skills, like how to use Excel to prepare a budget. But we’re not generally called in to teach leadership skills, because [the casinos] don’t see these staff as leaders anytime soon. The casinos just need them to manage the 20 staff under them. Casinos have to be very tightly structured because of all the money involved and the need for security. What types of training do junkets provide their staff? Junkets got into training within the last four or five years, starting with the biggest one, Suncity Group. Suncity decided to start offering training to its staff in order “If you look at the casinos these days, there are many middle-aged ladies working as dealers on the floor who have the basic skills to do the job. They are not encouraged to interact with customers, so all they have to do is smile, be courteous and efficient.” Virgil Chan