I am frequently asked why I left the East Coast and a mega-casino resort in favor of the West and a midsized casino resort. The staged tongue-in-cheek response: Oregon was as far away as I could conceivably travel from my ex-wife and still be located in the continental United States.
The reality is, as an outdoor enthusiast, Oregon offers me a wide array of beautiful and magnificent natural resources. It provides an excellent setting for raising a family and a chance for my daughter to experience the great outdoors, as opposed to Play Station and Nintendo game systems and cable television.
One of the most amazing features of Oregon’s earthly treasures is its free-flowing rivers.
These rivers are bubbling with life and dance across a full picturesque terrain; their reverent tranquility inspires one’s soul.
On a bass fishing excursion, I once peered into the water of one such river, attempting to locate footing obstacles. Remarkable findings of crystal clarity embraced amazing sights. Every detail was magnified: Each rock provided glistening reflections from the sunlight; the granulated river floor was so unobstructed that each grain of sand seemed discreet; and the fish — oh, the fish — I could actually see the river’s flow, its directional changes propelling their motion. Never before had I seen a natural eco-environment so crisp, clean and pure.
Why do I share this information? Like far too many of this country’s rivers, gaming schedules often become polluted. We stress and worry, plug and pull, twisting schedules until they become a toxic disaster. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Gaming has a natural progressive flow, and scheduling created to respect and enjoy the nature of gaming can be as clean, crisp and pure as the most beautiful of rivers.
Schedules become toxic for a variety of reasons. Some of the most common traits of a toxic schedule are over- or understaffing, improper staff disbursement, budgetary nightmares, low morale or disgruntled employees, and management becoming too appeasing (which can create a river rafting expedition of Class 5 proportions filled with intense situations). We are all well aware that gaming is not, and will never be, a nine-to-five operation, yet it seems everyone wants to live a nine-to-five lifestyle. There is a solution to these scheduling woes: creating schedules that follow the flow of gaming.
Creating a schedule to accommodate the flow of gaming will provide a solid catchall to most scheduling dilemmas and will allow for maximized guest service while cultivating a staff prepared to accommodate guests’ needs. As a dealer, nothing is worse than a shift full of dead spreads, mandatory overtime, and losing tokes because of scheduling issues and overstaffing. It is the job and duty of management to provide a solid schedule that is compressive toward gaming needs. Schedules affect the entire operation, transcending a realm of topics from guest satisfaction to dealer tokes (which ultimately affect hiring pools) to departmental budgets. Thus, time and effort spent on developing strong schedules is warranted and necessary.
Don’t be fooled, though. Once a flowing schedule is created, management can’t just put its feet up on the desk for a mid-afternoon siesta or head out to relax by the river. The flow of gaming changes, and a flowing schedule must be flexible. Seasons change in gaming, bringing forth different challenges to a gaming venue. Schedules will need to be regularly addressed as the flow of gaming changes. Much like the flow of the river, the casino’s gaming activities dictate direction for ease in our travels.
Table Game Pit Manager Helen Holman, assisted by Shift Manager Gina Rogers, have developed flowing schedule ideas that have been incorporated by our management team, thus creating our current schedule. “The formula for creating the proper schedule flow is simple,” Holman said. “Determine the necessary tables needed to be open and incorporate the general rise of gaming activity, adding a minimum of four dealers for every three tables. The optimum performance threshold for dealers is 40-minute rotations. Rotations spanning an hour or longer tend to lead to more mistakes, as the dealers have an intense-concentration job. Less than 40 minutes provides poor personnel management and prevents the dealers from building the proper rapport needed to generate solid guest relations and tokes.”
These proactive managers have agreed to share our scheduling template for review, as we wish everyone a smooth passage in creating the proper scheduling flow for your casino operation (see scheduling charts).
Jeff Murphy is the Director of Table Games at Seven Feathers Hotel & Casino Resort located in Canyonville, Oregon. He can be reached at (541) 839-1171 or jmurphy@sevenfeathers.com.
Comments
Post new comment