Introduction
Caesars Entertainment is one of the leading gaming companies. It was established in the year 1998 as Park Place Entertainment and later re-named as Caesars Entertainment in 2004.The Company is headquartered in Las Vegas. It owns 29 properties in five countries and has about 54,000 employees. Caesars Entertainment operates as a subsidiary of Harrah’s Entertainment.
Caesars HR Contingencies plans for managers
Wide range of generalists is applying in Human Resource policies and practices. This has enhanced the key functioning of employee resourcing, employee reward, employee relations and employee training and development in a most effective manner. In order to have a better understanding of the Human Resource management in Caesars, all decisions made in Human resource Department should be questioned. For that we should have a thorough knowledge of the merits and demerits of centralized and decentralized organizations. In centralized organizations the decisions are made only in the main functioning of the decision and policy formation but in the decentralized organizations the decisions and policy formation are structured in every section or functioning of the management. ”To make organizations more competitive, Strategic Thinking and Management for Competitive Advantage examines a variety of options for growth, including alliances, acquisitions, and internal corporate ventures.” (Strategic Thinking and Management for Competitive Advantage. 2008). Human resource management functions vary from one company to another. The principles of disciplinary actions also differ in distinct manner. Drastic changes in the business environment with the ever-changing scenario with competitive criteria make the functioning of human resources mostly decentralized manner. Some of the best features include the activities like selection and recruitment, compensation packages, job resigning process, organizational change, and measuring the organizational effectiveness to attain the most desired objective of an organization. The main steps involved in analyzing a job are gaining cooperation, carrying out pre-analysis investigation, deciding the analytical approach, analyzing the job, writing the job description, and writing training and job specification. “Job descriptions are also a useful starting point for establishing feedback criteria, as are customer/staff survey findings in which expectations/needs/priorities of appraising performance are indicated or implied.” (Performance Appraisal: 360 Degree Appraisal Form Design Template Guidelines. 2008).
Caesars human resource management means developing the resources of the employees and utilizing and maintaining them with the most prompt compensation packages for their services. Human resource management is a continuous process and it enables people to gain the best human potential by attaining the best development which promotes the dignity of employment and provides opportunities for team working criteria that enhances personal development and career development. “Caesars has been steadily upgrading its tech infrastructure and revamping its systems to provide for the latest in products and applications that enhance the guest experience, grow its business and improve operating efficiency.”(Caesars Entertainment Applies Technology to Improve Financial Performance Guest Appearance. 2004). The maximum utilization of human resources is very essential to achieve organizational goals. Employee retention will enable the organization to achieve goals and losing an employee will affect the working of the organization. At present Caesars is providing necessary welfare facilities, bonuses, and other facilities to employees. It will help the organization by retaining its employees. If the company provides better facilities the employee commitment will increase and thereby it will lead to the development of the organization. A reward should be given to the most opted employee in the organization which will prove to be one of the retention strategies of the people in the organization. An employee reward system consists of an organization’s integrated policy, process, and practices for rewarding its employees following their contribution, skill, and competence, and market worth. It is within the development of a company’s reward strategies and policies and contains efficiency in the form of processes, practices, structures, and procedures which will provide and maintain appropriate types of levels of pay, benefits, and other forms of reward. “A well-structured reward strategy aligned to business goals; tailored to the needs of those employees most likely to influence the business; and which truly differentiates, can have a significant impact on business performance. With employees properly engaged, motivated, and rewarded, the business will most certainly be looking up.” (Dicker).
The most crucial aspect of a global gaming solution is the effort to create an environment representing the social, psychological, and economic dimensions of organizational behavior in the business environment. “Organizations, both large and small, need to understand that technology is a strategic and competitive asset that must be effectively managed. Business executives need to continually develop technology development strategies and improve organizational capabilities as a routine business objective.” (Lee 1991, p.749-754).
Cultural diversity within any workforce is now the norm as well as an economic necessity. Diversity and cultural diversity management interact with other organizational strategies. To fully benefit across the organization, strategies need to be well integrated and a holistic encompassing approach should also be adopted. In this way, diversity management will interlink and mediate with other strategies to enhance their effectiveness. “Having people know about different cultures will help them to be more educated and will help them to be more comfortable around people that are different from themselves.” (How to Deal With Interoffice Cultural Differences. 2008).
Employees, teams, managers, and leaders all perform better in open communicative environments. The motivation, behavior, and performance of all employees in the multicultural workplace are improved by effective people management. By removing barriers and facilitating workplace communication and by creating an open accepting organizational culture, diversity management programs can increase the productivity and efficiency of all employees. Workplace diversity provides business managers with the creative and effective solutions they need to succeed in today’s multifaceted and ever-changing workplace. With insights into the most difficult and sensitive issues managers encounter, workplace diversity offers timely, practical, and invaluable guidance. Thus diversity provokes the importance of human resource management to ensure its best with their value-added strategies.
Developing the management team and centralized process
Caesars has adopted a centralized recruitment process and development of managing the team for its efficiency. Human resources in Caesars need to implement training and development for the new system along with developing the skills of employees. That will enable them to survive and compete in the ever-changing marketplace and strategically prepare themselves for future challenges through effective leadership development programs, practices, and systems. “To end counterproductive competition among its disparate casinos, human resource management centralized recruitment, created an adopt-a-town program reaching out to struggling area communities, implemented 360-degree performance reviews.” (Ebert 2007). Training and development help the employees of an organization to have a clear picture of their work and how to develop with their motivational concepts. A good employee relation should be maintained efficiently and effectively. Employees are promoted with works and special safety and health schemes are provided for their better enrichment and researches is done for the better efficiency and nourishment of human resource management in an organization. All these processes will affect the turnover and can have a significant impact on the morale and productivity of solutions of Caesars. “Caesars Entertainment, which operates the Grand, Bally’s and Sheraton casinos in Tunica County, has a long history of supporting programs that provide opportunities for personal growth and community development,” said Jon Lucas, president of Caesars Entertainment’s Tunica casinos.” (Caesars Entertainment to Fund Hospitality Scholarship at University of Memphis First Recipient is Clarence Smith of Tunica. 2004).
The training seeks to develop a person’s behavior pattern in the areas of knowledge, skill, or attitude to achieve a desired standard or level of performance. Thus training function has become an important ingredient for sound management. Training is concerned with people, relationships, job satisfaction and fairness, efficiency and effectiveness, and organizational success. Based on these premises, the responsibilities of a typical training department are to help in preparing corporate plans, to prepare training plans and policies, select and induct trainees, identify training needs, conducting training programs, evaluating training developing training staff, and controlling training resources, etc. The training process is aimed at improving the performance of the learner as well as the organization. Various elements of the training process are stimulus, planning, planning, implementation, and post-learning evaluation. The stimulus provides the reason for learning or learning goals. Preplanning involves the identification of learning requirements or training needs, review of learner characteristics, setting learning objectives, and examining cost-effectiveness. Planning involves decisions on learning strategy, design of learning methods, and timetables. Implementation is the stage of actual training. Evaluation is the stage of assessing results. The training activity like any other business activity has to be financially justified. Therefore questions about benefits, costs, and net results need to be answered. One of the most important steps in the training process is establishing the training needs. It needs to imply that there is a weakness somewhere in the system of programming that demands strengthening utilizing training in some form or the other. A separate analysis is necessary to identify the training needs of the organization as well as the individuals. Assessment of individual training needs is done to identify the requirements of a particular job or task and to assess the existing competence and potential of the employee against these requirements. Well, planned training programs boost the morale of the employees. Training methods are instruments or techniques that are used by a trainer for delivering the training content and may also be viewed as means of communicating with a group of participants with the express purpose of enhancing learning.
The role and importance of training methods have been widely acknowledged by organizations, trainers, and even by learners. The importance of training methods lies in the creation of an appropriate learning environment, enhancing participation and involvement, promoting group interaction and cohesion, and participants’ control over the learning process. Opting for an appropriate training program is an important consideration to achieve the training objectives. Communication plays a very important part in the training. The important considerations in respect of training communication are delivery by the trainer, interaction with the group, and handling questions and feedback. A trainer should convey self-control and motivation, make effective use of notes, pay attention to the spoken words and the body language and use appropriate voice and tone for training activity. The presence of mind and sense of humor also help a trainer in making an effective delivery. However, some skeptics are still not convinced about the value of training. Organizations take it easy and depute people for training without assessing the individual needs. In some cases, it is a fashion to spend huge amounts on training as a matter of prestige. Training institutes, trainers, and participating organizations must strive to give training the respect it deserves. Planning training is a very important activity in the training process. It helps in strengthening organizational processes and enhancing productivity and effectiveness. Thus Caesars aims to enhance human resources understanding of specific organizational problems, functional interrelationships within the organization, and the problems encountered while working as a team with better training and development.
360 Degree Performance Appraisal
Employee performance may be assessed through performance appraisals at assessment and development centers through personal discussions and by administering tests. 360-degree performance appraisal is an effective appraisal system in which appraisal is done with the help of peers, subordinates, and bosses, internal and external parties, and also by self-appraisal. “Performance appraisal may be defined as a structured formal interaction between a subordinate and supervisor, that usually takes the form of a periodic interview (annual or semi-annual), in which the work performance of the subordinate is examined and discussed, to identify weaknesses and strengths as well as opportunities for improvement and skills development.” (Kumar 2005). Feedback of the appraisal will be informed to the respective employees. The appraise is also required to assess himself using the same feedback system or forms. The 360-degree appraisal is an assessment of an employee’s overall performance such as competencies, behavior, attitude, and the way of doing things. 360 PA is an appraisal system in which the assessment of an employee is derived from self-assessment as well as from his peers, subordinates, inside and outside people, and their superiors. The attraction of 360 PA is that appraise will receive feedback from people who may or may not know the appraise. This appraisal system will be useful and relevant for improvement. “Caesars Entertainment is a leading example of how customers can work in partnership with strategic providers to take performance management technology and craft and implement a vision for greater business success.” (Integrated CPM Solution from Cognos and SSA Global Drives Performance at Caesars Entertainment. 2005).
Caesar has a 360 degree PA which is proved to be successful in reducing employee turnover, increasing profitability, and overall improvement in the competitive edge. Caesars has a 360-degree feedback program for performance reviews and is essential for employees to assess their performance as well as that of their superiors. “A good review system could help to improve communications while aiding people to increase their effectiveness and to clarify their jobs and responsibilities.” (Recommendations. 2008). However, Caesar is required to make essential changes after the feedback and is important to ensure that feedback is taken by all in a positive sense. It is important to ensure that suitable and sensitive counseling is provided as part of the discussion of feedback results. Caesar is required to involve every member of the team and should be responsible for giving relevant, positive, and constructive feedback. Innovative steps must be taken to minimize the negative effect of performance appraisal. Management must not criticize employees after the feedback and should ensure that all people involved take it as a corrective measure.
“An innovative system could not only increase the performance of the staff but also help them to work together, with common goals and fewer obstacles. It could help people to comment on others’ performance and perceived problems more freely.” (Recommendations. 2008).
Conclusion
The current issue is that human resource management at Caesars Entertainment is counterproductive because of competition and difficulty in getting skilled employees which suit the organization. The diverse workgroup is another challenge to the company. To solve these problems Mr. Steve Bell has adopted several steps such as centralization of the recruitment process and centralized training. Mr. Steve Bell amended the corporate culture at Caesars Entertainment by centralization of the recruitment process and developing the management team through leadership training. 360-degree feedback method currently being used at Caesars Entertainment is beneficial to the company in many ways as it helps to take corrective measures. The main disadvantage of P A is that it is difficult to implement changes in employee’s performance and the appraisal process is time-consuming too. Mr. Steve Bell’s strategies can sustain the organization’s competitive advantage in the long term. This strategy is not a quick solution for the present problem without thinking about the future. A centralized recruitment process and centralized training are essential to cope up with cultural diversity and this is going to be beneficial in the long term. The performance Appraisal system is proved to be beneficial for reducing employee turnover and for improving performance too.
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