I love dashboards more than most. Something that is simple to read and provides a quick glance as to what is going on. Check out the dashboard below that the Brookings Institute released for Nevada:
If you are interested in reading the commentary behind this dashboard, read the state of the union according to the Brookings Institute (published in the Las Vegas Sun).
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Vexed that some 30% of driver candidates flunk its traditional training, United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS) is moving beyond the classroom to ready its rookies for the road.
In the place of books and lectures are video games, a contraption that simulates walking on ice and an obstacle course around an artificial village.
Based on results so far, the world’s largest package-delivery company is convinced that 20-somethings — the bulk of UPS driver recruits — respond best to high-tech instruction and a chance to hone skills.
Driver training is crucial for Atlanta-based UPS, which employs 99,000 U.S. drivers and says it will need to hire 25,000 over the next five years to replace retiring Baby Boomers.
Candidates vying for a driver’s job, which pays an average of $74,000 annually, now spend one week at Integrad, an 11,500-square-foot, low-slung brick UPS training center 10 miles outside of Washington, D.C. There they move from one station to another practicing the company’s “340 Methods,” prescribed by UPS industrial engineers to save seconds and improve safety in every task from lifting and loading boxes to selecting a package from a shelf in the truck.
So far, the new methods, designed by UPS and researchers from Virginia Tech, are proving successful, UPS says. Of the 1,629 trainees who have completed Integrad since it began as an experiment in 2007, only 10% have failed the training program, which takes a total of six weeks overall and includes 30 days driving a truck in the real world. UPS is known for promoting within, and many driver candidates began as UPS package handlers or other employees.
Article written by Jennifer Levitz at jennifer.levitz@wsj.com
Read article here from Yahoo Finance
Provided by Wall Street Journal
By Amanda Finnegan
Despite Nevada’s tough economic climate and growing jobless rate, casino executives today said they are seeing the benefits of federal stimulus dollars flowing to Las Vegas.
In the wake of national media appearances by two high-profile Las Vegas casino executives, Harrah’s Entertainment, Station Casinos and Hilton International hosted a teleconference Thursday to chime in on the Obama administration and the effects of the federal stimulus on the industry.
Wynn Resorts executive Steve Wynn, who has been critical of the Obama administration for months, voiced his opinion again during a roundtable discussion on Fox News Channel on Oct. 10.
Then Tuesday, MGM Mirage Chief Executive Jim Murren spoke with Fox News. He was less critical of the president but said Obama needs more focus on job creation.
Harrah’s Entertainment Senior Vice President Jan Jones said today’s teleconference wasn’t just a response to Wynn and Murren, but a reaction to those who question the need for the federal stimulus and its role in protecting jobs.
“State government in Nevada would not be operating if it weren’t for the money that came into the state budget from the stimulus,” Jones said. “The number of jobs that have been protected because the government can still operate, that is a direct result of the stimulus.”
Aside from the money Nevada received from the stimulus, the cancellation of indebtedness provision and Travel Promotion Act were important additions that helped the gaming industry, Jones said. She credited Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid with both.
The cancellation of indebtedness provision allows companies to restructure their debt and delays tax payments tied to capital gains.
“For Harrah’s Entertainment, that allowed us to protect 31,000 jobs in Nevada alone. This piece of legislation allowed Harrah’s to work to restructure to make sure we kept our employees employed,” said Jones, a former Las Vegas mayor and current member of the governor’s Spending and Government Efficiency Commission.
Station Casinos Chief Development Officer Scott Neilson said his company hasn’t been able to take part in the debt cancellation provision since Station is currently in bankruptcy proceedings, but said the legislation will allow the company increased flexibility as it restructures.
“Even though a lot of the companies in the Nevada economy trying to work through this [bankruptcy] process right now might not have been able to take advantage of this provision yet, I think that they will and I think you’ll see a lot of companies benefit greatly,” he said.
Chris Najbicz, vice president of West Coast operations for Hilton Hotels, said he stands by Harrah’s and Station Casinos on the stimulus.
“We really do endorse the importance of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in saving a multitude of jobs throughout the state of Nevada and believe it’s been very helpful to the Las Vegas business community in general,” Najbicz said.
Jones said some Nevadans haven’t made the connection between the stimulus and Las Vegas job creation in the state. The state’s unemployment rate last month stood at 13.3 percent.
“When we have been so positively impacted, I felt it was wrong for it to be continually mischaracterized,” Jones said of the stimulus. “I think sometimes people forget what the reality is.”
Almost every profession has some level of training required for a new employee to become proficient and contribute to the overall mission of the business. Some training may only require a few hours (if you are caulking windows) while others may require several years (if you are a physician within a particular specialty area such as oncology). Regardless, training is always required.
Where some challenges arise are with new college grads that are “paper ready”, but may not have the technical skills. This is particularly challenging in a clinical setting such as nursing. And when there is a high-demand for this particular profession, it makes it even more challenging.
The health care industry recently realized that as we have the second highest nursing shortage in the country, our new grads are not finding jobs. Nursing jobs are out there….but only for a nurse that can hit the floor running (or I guess I should say nursing). So in the meantime, the production of skilled professionals seems to be working, bu the intake is not. And if we do not correct the problem, Nevada will become an exporter of talent. We cannot afford to do that.
So a group of health care leaders have been getting together to try and solve this problem. What it will require is a bridge solution. That bridge is nothing more than a financial bridge. We need to find someone to fund that nursing new grad to go from ‘paper ready to clinically ready.’ It will be a challenge, but at least we know what the problem is.
As most of you know, Recruiting Nevada has been working on a recruiting solution for Guest Room Attendants (GRAs). There is an acute shortage of GRAs in Las Vegas with nearly every hotel and casino constantly recruiting. Add in the fact that GRAs have been leaving Nevada, with the creation of well over 2,000 new housekeeping jobs in Las Vegas with the opening of CityCenter, Westgate Tower at Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Hotel expansion, we have a ‘Perfect Storm.’
These are the exact types of problems that Recruiting Nevada likes to solve. Our solutions have proven themselves time-over with recruiting solutions for nurses, doctors, teachers, engineers and even forensic scientists. We have yet to find a talent shortage where we cannot make a profound impact.
We are on the final development stages of our Guest Room Attendant sourcing engine. The solution will deployed across the entire Recruiting Nevada Network, delivering the highest volume of interested candidates, both skilled and in need of training, to our hospitality partners. Here is an example of what the sourcing tool will look like:
Interested applicants will be directed to this form via dozens of different marketing campaigns including home page take-over ads, online display ads, featured job postings, ads on Google, Yahoo, MSN and the likes as well as print ads in various Greenspun Media Group publications. Without letting the ‘cat out of the bag,’ here is a sample of what a home page take over ad will look like:
We are still looking for a few more beta-clients for our initial testing. If you have an interest, contact me directly. The benefits of being a beta client are:
Are you tired of conducting employment background checks? Most are. Have you seen your fair share of resumes with overly inflated credentials? Most have. Degrees and certifications that look fabricated? Certainly.
Imagine how many times we, as employers, replicate the same background checks. There is a lot of duplicated efforts and there has to be a more streamlined approach of managing this.
For years I have been brainstorming what would be the ultimate solution. I have held it tight, because I thought that one day I would assemble a team to develop it and this ’solution’ would be my next entrepreneurial venture. Now that I am a permanent part of the Greenspun team, I am focusing my energies on our core product – recruitment marketing solutions.
I have share this idea with many colleagues and all seem to think that it is a great idea. But just as I am, they are all focusing on their core competencies during these economically challenging times. So rather than let a good idea sit on the bookshelf, I would rather put it out there and maybe, just maybe, someone will take it and run. I am confident it is a winner. So here it is…..
Imagine if we had an Employment Bureau that verified employment backgrounds just as we have a bureau that certifies credit? There are three prominent credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. They are trusted bureaus that lenders go to to verify our credit worthiness.
Now, isn’t employment data as easily verifiable?
Think about it: Past employment, education, certifications…heck, even references. How many times do we, as employers, duplicate each others efforts. Wouldn’t it make sense to have a centralized (and trusted) database of this information? Really, one call to a university can verify if someone truly has their masters in business administration. And the same goes for employment.
Now for an ‘ease of use’ standpoint….. a jobseeker could simply provide a name and social security number to an employer that wants to pre-qualify the candidate, just as a person provides to a mortgage broker, credit card company or bank to pre-qualify for a loan. Elongated applications would go away. Applicant Tracking Systems could be simplified. It would make it easier and better for the jobseeker and employer.
Now imagine, if that same bureau could document and penalize candidates for falsifying applications. Maybe I have gone to far with that statement. But nonetheless – this type of solution would be simple to develop and deploy. But it would require employers unifying to ask for it and adopt it. That is where the challenge would exist.
So…….there you go hopeful, idling and wannabe entrepreneurs. This is a business that needs to be developed. I am confident you could be successful with the venture.
We would like to welcome Tamya Lemke to the Recruiting Nevada family. Tamya joined us a few weeks ago and will be assisting us while Chelsey Kuzyk is out on maternity leave (I think they are putting something in the water here). Tamya will assist us in managing accounts and developing new business. Many of you already know Tamya, so feel free to give her a call at (702) 948-2786.
I have had the pleasure of working with Tamya over the past few years on the Southern Nevada Medical Industry Coalition (SNMIC) Recruitment Task Force. In her previous role as managing director of the Las Vegas office of JWT Inside (Recruitment Advertising Agency), Tamya and Recruiting Nevada shared many of our health care clients….so her transition onto our team will be an easy one.
With over 10 years of recruitment advertising experience, as well as experience in hospitality marketing, Tamya is a perfect fit with our team. She is one who ‘gets it.’ We have been very fortunate to have built a team of professionals who understand not only recruitment advertising, but what makes campaigns successful in Las Vegas and Nevada.
We look forward to Chelsey returning from maternity leave in a few months to make our team whole again. And with Chelsey and Tamya working together, we will certainly be able to handle any recruitment advertising needs our clients have.
Workforce shortages are very costly. They contribute to the largest line item of nearly every P&L (profit & loss) statement – Labor. Yet, many times we never take the time to understand the true “cost” to the organization. We focus on filling the positions so we can remain operational, and never take the time to understand the short and long term affects of ignoring the root cause of the shortage.
If you asked any gaming executive where their greatest turnover is, indisputably the answer would be “housekeeping.” And the largest volume of jobs (approximately 20% of all jobs within a hotel/casino ) are in housekeeping. So when you add up the financial impact of this “churn”, it grows exponentially.
The “short term” expenses that add up rapidly are both ’soft and ‘hard’ expenses. They can be grouped into a few categories: pre-departure, coworker burden, selection and sign-on. Here is a great white paper, titled Calculating the Cost of Employee Turnover, that Recruiting Nevada released several years back when we were tackling Nevada’s nursing shortage. There is a worksheet on the last page that will help determine what the actual cost of turnover is. It is a great resource that we have used many times over.
To share some of our findings from the nursing shortage case study - the cost of replacing a nurse was approximately $77,000 or nearly 1.5 times annual salary. Some of the area hospitals were experiencing turnover rates above 20%, which is nominal compared to what I have heard GRA turnover is. So when you take a nursing workforce of several hundred, calculate the annualized turnover and multiply that by the cost-of-replacement, the financial impact quickly creeped into the millions. And this was for one hospital! Add up the 14 hospitals we were working with and we were looking at a $100+ million problem.
I suspect the problem is much worse with the GRA shortage. First off, some properties would love to have a turnover rate as low as 20% (I have heard of some with over 100%). So for practical purposes, let’s stick with 20%. Arguably there are more than 12,000 GRA positions in the market. I think the Culinary Union has over 12,000 GRA members. And to be conservative, we will use a cost-of-replacement of 1x annual wages. So here are some very rough numbers:
12,000 x 20% (turnover) = 2,400
2,400 x $27,000 (estimate 1 yr. wages) = $64.8 million
$64.8 million is a big number. So using very, very conservative numbers – this is clearly a huge problem. If we were to increase the turnover rate to 25%, it would impact the number by an additional $16.2 million (you can see how the number grows exponentially).
So – that gives us an idea of the ’short-term’ expenses. And fortunately, these can be corrected by an increased supply chain and improved retention rate, both at the property level and industry level. Note: It will require an industry correction to solve the shortage.
Unfortunately, there have been some long-term costs that can never be reversed. These long-term expenses typically come by way of increased wages caused by the strain of the workforce shortage and/or the overall damage done to the image of the profession. In the case of the GRA shortage – probably both.
It is difficult to measure the financial impact to the image of the profession. It can be done over time, but initially it cannot. However, the increased wages can easily be measured…..Taking a look at the 2002 collective bargaining agreement, GRA wages were increased $3.32 per hour over a 5-year period. Using the same 12k (member) number above, there is an $82.9 million annual impact from these wage increases.
So cumulatively, it is nearly a $200 million annual problem for the gaming industry. That’s a lot of money…money I bet the gaming industry would love to have back in their pockets right now, all things considered.
Personal note: Thank you to all that have been confidentially commenting on this series and providing me with real ‘intelligence’ on the problem. Together, we will solve this workforce shortage and keep Las Vegas the premier vacation destination.
For some reason the Guest Room Attendant (GRA) has been branded as a ‘back-of-the-house, non-tipping position.’ This is absolutely incorrect.
First off, the GRA is far from ‘back-of-the-house.’
The GRA is a front line employee who interacts with hotel guests each and every day whether management wants to accept it or not. The fact of the matter is – it happens. And many times, GRAs interact with guests more than the beloved concierges do. Why? Because they are easily accessible and perceived by the guest to be ‘unbiased.’ The GRA is often the first hotel employee a guest sees in the morning and the simple question of “Where is a good place to grab a quick breakfast,” or “How do I get to your (fill in the blank) restaurant?” are answered. I would call this front-line.
Secondly, GRAs are tip earners.
Yeah – they do not earn as much as a cocktail waitress, bartender or valet, but they do earn tips. Pretty much everyone I know tips their GRA a few bucks each night or leave the loose change from their fun-filled night of gambling on the nightstand as a way of showing appreciation for keeping their room in order. I am sure the tip volume varies from property to property and even city to city. But GRAs do make tips.
So why have we branded the GRA position as a back-of-the-house, non-tipping position? I don’t get it. This very well may be the fundamental problem that led to the stereotyping of GRA jobs being for Mexican women. If the average Joe (or Josephine) knew that they could contribute to the overall guest experience and earn additional income (tips) by doing so, the GRA position would be a much more appealing job. More applicants would apply and we would not have the critical shortages that we have in this profession.
Recruiting Nevada’s goal is to help change this. We feel that we can:
Again, this is an open case study that we will be sharing with our readers as we make the journey. Thank you for all of the feedback from last week’s post. We will figure this out together.
This is Part 3 of a series on the Housekeeping shortage.
As promised in last week’s post on un-stereotyping of jobs, I want to take a deeper dive into one profession – the Guest Room Attendant or GRA. The GRA position has traditionally been filled with Mexican females. Why? I am not certain. My best guess is that it was considered, or branded, an unglamorous job that did not pay well and was not appealing to the average person. And the Hispanic woman was targeted as an easy demographic to attract to the profession. Right, or wrong – that is more than likely what happened.
Today, the employment market is much different. The GRA position is still not a very glamorous job, but the pay has changed. Today a GRA can make $12-15 per hour depending on where he or she works. This is not bad pay. All things considered, it is great pay when you do not have a job. On top of the hourly wage, GRAs typically get full health care benefits – something many working class are not afforded or offered anymore. Although being a GRA is still grueling work, it is still a gateway into other professions within a hotel or casino. Hotels and casinos do a great job of promoting from within. It just requires 6 months of employment before one can apply.
Considering 20 percent of all positions within a casino or hotel are in the housekeeping department, there is more of a chance for a jobseeker to get this position than most others (especially the glamorous cocktail waitress, bartender or valet parking job that most want).
However, housekeeping positions are considered to be one of the most challenging recruitments for any casino or hotel. Each new property struggles to fill these positions and there has been a shortage as far back as I can recall. Why? Again – because it is not a glamorous job and the public perception is that these jobs are only for Hispanic women.
So, how do we change this? Marketing, awareness and most important – education. We must un-stereotype the position, demonstrate a promising career path in or beyond housekeeping and market the job as an entry-level job that will ‘get a foot in the door’ of some of the best companies to work for in Las Vegas and Nevada.
So how does that get done? We will figure that out in the months to come. I will begin to blog on this topic regularly as Recruiting Nevada takes on this challenge. If you have any feedback along the way, please provide it. I value all that I have learned from our clients, both past and present, on this critical workforce shortage. And it is from your willingness to share your knowledge that we will solve this shortage.
Stay tuned!!!!
