Inside Asian Gaming

January 2016 inside asian gaming 9 “Companies continue to provide ‘mimic’ role- play classes, which often leads to service that embarrasses both the employee and the guest with wooden conversations that are scripted rather than productive, impactful or motivating. These kinds of ‘monkey-see-monkey-do’ or ‘plug-and-play’ interactions frequently fail.” Cover Story supervisors of existing casino and resort facilities, not one executive could answer the question, “What is the single most important factor that affects communication between a supervisor and a team member, or between an employee and a customer?” This indicates a lack of understanding of the relationship between human behavior and productivity, and ultimately profitability. Leaders and talent managers are failing to understand the benefits of developing meaningful human resource management strategies that foster innovation, productivity and motivation. Instead, human resource development efforts are mostly a grab bag of best practices, how-to tools and those cringe worthy monkey-see-monkey-do role- plays referred to above. Copying or adopting systems or methods from other companies is not a financially viable solution, given the fact that each organization has its own unique agenda, culture and challenges. Given this lack of deep understanding amongst managers, it is unsurprising that few line staff possess the necessary skills, abilities or practical experience with guests or among themselves to deliver an exceptional level of service. Exacerbating this problem, shareholders typically favor management that maximizes short-term profit rather than the interests of the wider stakeholder group, which includes employees, customers, vendors, shareholders and the communities in which the organization operates. As a result I have seldom found gaming, hospitality and entertainment companies to have truly thoughtful long range plans for talent and management development roadmaps that support their business strategies – instead limited term processes and tactical initiatives are introduced that provide minimal benefits in terms of fostering loyalty and morale. Often human resource departments are operating merely as personnel administration centers, focussing on a short sighted governance model. They process the mundane paperwork of hiring, firing and annual leave requests, rather than recognizing the importance of true talent development. There is, however, some light at the end of the tunnel. Over the last three years of listening to integrated resort gaming executives discuss the major challenges they face in operating in Macau, inevitably I’ve found managing human resources to be in the top three. So management is indeed conscious of the problem. But despite having the insight to recognize this corporate priority, few are comfortable on how to develop a strategy to engage creativity and advance their people in a deep and meaningful way. HUMAN ASSETS WHOLE So what is the answer to Macau’s current shortfall in human assets development? The first step lies in a thorough understanding of the intersection between human performance and corporate profitability. Our employees are the practicing ambassadors of guest relations. The goal is concierge level hospitality and service initiatives. Every Dr To has been featured on numerous magazine covers over the years