(Facing page) left to right: The Venetian’s Tamir
Shanel, director of food & beverage; Olivier
Dubreuil, executive chef; Pete Boyd, VP food &
beverage; Paul Pusateri, senior vice president;
and Robert Gerst, VP human resources. (Above)
left to right: Pete Boyd, Chef Olivier Dubreuil,
and Paul Pusateri.
Pinot Brasserie,
a French bistro.
Ciao, the team member cafeteria. It also serves as the site of regularly scheduled “Town Hall” meetings between Pusateri and team members.
Ciao buffet, the team member cafeteria.
|
The Venetian (Las Vegas), with its 3,014 rooms and
gondola rides along a quarter-mile waterway that weaves
and twists through an assortment of high-end shops,
opened May 4, 1999, at a cost of $1.5 billion. Less than
four years later, the Venezia Tower (connected to the
original) opened. It added 1,013 rooms: cost, $275 million.
Not content with being one of the largest resort hotels in the world,
73-year-old Sheldon Adelson, chairman of the board, Las Vegas Sands
Corp. (parent of The Venetian) and billionaire with a net worth of $20.5
billion, decided to build another tower, larger and more luxurious than the
Venezia. Currently under construction immediately north of the existing
resort, the Palazzo Resort will add 3,000 suites bringing the total number
of rooms to 7,000. That’ll make The Venetian the largest hotel on the
planet. It will house 11 more restaurants to complement the 18 existing ones.
This is all about hiring, training, retaining, and treatment of “team
members” at The Venetian. Some of this will be F&B specific, some, an
appreciation of human resources and how it has developed a system of
team member training combined with a liberal sprinkling of compassion
and understanding for human behavior that is different from other systems
presumed to work wonders with employees.
Here’s a quote from the guest directory found in every room. It summarizes
the spirit of what The Venetian is all about: “We welcome you to an experience
of impeccable service and attention to detail that has made The Venetian
synonymous with unparalleled luxury.” The Venetian is not blowing smoke.
Tamir Shanel, director of
food & beverage, and Pete
Boyd, VP, food & beverage,
talk simply, but candidly,
about team member competencies
and what it takes to
maintain those skills: the
“impeccable service, the
attention to detail.”
“Candidly” is the operative word here because, no matter where
you go in The Venetian and no matter with whom you talk, you
are privy to a forthrightness about what it’s like to work there
that not only is refreshing, but reassuring that, hey, maybe there
is something to be said about the life
of being a hotel employee: someone
who enjoys coming to work, hates to
go home at the end of the day, and,
as a matter of fact, looks forward to
returning the next day.
Shanel joined The Venetian from
the Four Seasons (Las Vegas) a little
more than a year ago. If you should
deign to suggest that standards at The
Venetian are not so elevated as those
at the Four Seasons, not only is he
quick to tell you that’s not true—that
they are essentially the same, based
on services provided to guests—but he
will scold you for the implication.
It’s not easy to find someone who
will talk favorably about the values of
a company. Most speak ill of them or
suggest they are simply token fancies like mission and vision statements companies dream up and
frame, then hang everywhere for eyes to see and common sense,
for the most part, to disregard.
Mission and vision statements ought to explain succinctly
what the hotel believes it will achieve and/or accomplish and
how it plans to do just that. Too often, hotel companies write
those kinds of statements, failing to understand what the hotel is
all about, what its plans are for the future, and how, within the
constraints of the organization, it can establish a road map, as it
were, to deal with the present and meet the goals for the future.
Very few at The Venetian pooh-pooh any of these models, each
a component of the resort’s business plan. Mission, vision, and values
are there because they make sense. They are not beyond the
realm of possibility. They are feasible
and achievable and team members
and management know that. The
spirit of these strategies is noticeable
dozens of times throughout the day
as employee works with employee
and together they bond with guests.
So when Shanel speaks about
these strategies, espousing and
trusting them, you believe him.
“There is something about the
ethics of this place that pleases me,”
says the 15-year-veteran of the Four
Seasons. “The size of The Venetian
is different from the Four Seasons—
that I will grant you. The momentum
is different, but our drive is as
powerful and strong. I did not
come here with lower expectations.”
“Sheldon Adelson put us into this marketplace as one of the
crown jewels of Las Vegas and of America,” says Boyd. “A guest who
comes here, either to stay, eat, drink, or play, expects the same
standards and quality of service they’d expect elsewhere. At our
rates and the way we position ourselves in the marketplace, they
anticipate the same standards. It’s our team members, from top to
bottom, that make sure we meet those standards.”
By the way, The Venetian is the largest Mobil 4-Star resort
in America.
Senior VP Paul Pusateri walks the length and breadth of the resort
almost every day. It takes him about an hour and a half to do that. For
you and me, maybe 20 minutes or less. But Pusateri spends time with
team members—stops and talks with them. “How can I expect them to
greet every guest and say hello (genuinely) and smile and give recognition
if, when I’m walking through, I can’t give them the same sort of recognition
and courtesies I expect from them with our guests. If I’m in a hurry
and spending only half my time walking, I think to myself, ‘I blew it.’”
Pusateri is nuts about retention: a critical component of an
employee training strategy. “Look,” he says, “It’s not only having
them choose to stay … about retaining them. It’s about what your
responsibility is to make sure they want to stay.” So he walks and
talks, and on some days it takes more than an hour and a half.
Boyd agrees. “We are asked to oversee. We need to be out
with the guests, observing their behavior, their attitudes,
observing how our team members respond to and relate with them,
checking service levels. We do this daily. If I disappear from the
floor, I’ve lost my effectiveness.”
Interesting stat: When a manager quits or is fired and you have
to hire and train a replacement, it’ll probably cost the equivalent of
one year’s salary to do that. Pusateri’s background is rooted
in foodservice (he won an IFMA 2005 Silver Plate Award for
exemplary lodging foodservice), so he shares with Shanel and Boyd
a passion for it that percolates throughout all of food & beverage,
eventually influencing the way human resources taps prospects for
F&B positions. Each of them interacts with F&B
team members, front and back. “If you are an
F&B guy,” says Pusateri, “no matter what kind of
job you ultimately find yourself in—general
manager, VP, director, whatever—you always find
an opportunity, at some point during the day, to
be in the kitchen or the dining room. It’s very
familiar turf. You do that often enough and the
chef or manager or anyone else in charge of
hiring will reference that dynamic when
interviewing prospects. HR, too, understands that
dynamic and capitalizes on it in terms of how
they recruit.”
Bob Gerst, VP, human resources, notes that
when he asks new hires (about 25 every week)
during the Wednesday orientation, “What’s the
attraction, why did you decide to work here?”
Most of the time, this is what he hears: “We
understand that the managers here really care for
their team members.”
Other responses, according to Gerst, in
order of apparent significance: “They know
someone here and they really like and respect
that person. Also, they’ve heard of the growth
opportunities with The Venetian. Remember,” says Gerst, “we grow organically. We don’t go
out and shop other properties. When you grow
like that, you have openings for thousands of
new jobs. That’s good for an employee’s career.
Lastly, our all-inclusive benefit package is very
important.”
The word gets out. “We
never have a problem
attracting candidate flow.
That’s not the issue. I get
35,000 resumes each year.
We do very little
advertising. All of the
stuff we offer here—from
a decent work environment
to our benefit package—
makes this a very
special place,” Gerst says.
Gerst tells you that no
one on the Strip offers the
benefit package The
Venetian does. Very little, if anything, is
excluded. And, for everything in the package—
401(k) excluded, for obvious reasons—
management picks up the tab.
Each of the 6,339 team members (with
more to come when the 3,000-room Palazzo
Resort opens), at one time or another during
the day or week or month, craves some
manner of recognition. It’s not just Pusateri
walking through the casino smiling, talking,
and glad-handing. It’s making sure everyone
knows what’s going on.
“The idea,” says Gerst, “is to keep all team
members apprised of what’s happening here
so they feel part of The Venetian family and
engaged as part of it. If we don’t do that, we
are ignoring them. On the other hand, to have
them understand and be aware of what’s going
on, makes them feel they are, indeed, part of
our culture.” There is an internal TV station,
there are newsletters.
ONLY NONUNION RESORT
There is also this: The Venetian is the only
resort on the Strip that is nonunion, which
might explain why security is a little more
intense than elsewhere. Although no one we
spoke to wanted to be quoted on the record,
most agreed that, in a very real sense, team
members who belong to a union have a
tendency to divide their loyalties between it
and the hotel and, because of those divided
loyalties, might not be willing to embrace
totally the hotel’s values, mission, and vision.
The incentive to improve, to do better, is not so
powerful. Unions, too, have their own spins on
mission and vision statements. They have their
own set of values. Regardless of how heartfelt
those statements and values might appear, they exist, essentially to articulate and underscore
what the union has to offer: protection and
indemnification from management abuses.
But given the benefit package, numerous
community and diversity awards won by The
Venetian, internal awards and rewards programs
that recognize outstanding
employee performance, and
pay grades and scales, there
is little a union can offer
except what we’ve highlighted.
Where there is no
management abuse, there is
no need for union involvement.
The local unions
have failed to organize The
Venetian. Their only threat?
To protest in front of the
hotel using bullhorns to
antagonize guests. That,
too, failed.
How impressive are employee
conditions, how well does the system work,
why does management exercise unalloyed
affection for and nearly unencumbered
awareness of employee concerns and needs,
why is it that Bob Gerst has little trouble
rounding up the usual suspects? Here’s a
hint of how good everything is: Employees
at The Venetian are so devoted to their jobs
that less than 19 percent quit or are asked
to leave. The industry average: 46 percent.
Is the turnover so phenomenally light
because The Venetian is such a great place to
work and that its culture extends to and
involves not only the guest but the employee?
More than that, says Boyd. “The people we
consider have very high skill levels. That’s a
given. But, at least 50 percent is the fact that
they must have a good attitude. When we
interview, we interview as much for attitude as
for skill sets. I get involved in the interview
process because I need to make sure the
person we hire will fit on the team. I don’t
need anyone yelling anywhere on the property,
yelling at anyone for whatever reason—at a
guest, another employee subordinate or
superior, a peer. We are going to find skill
sets. That’s not a problem. It’s not so easy to
combine that with a work ethic. Attitude is
everything.”
In the final analysis, team members—
assimilated into the culture of The Venetian and
made to feel an active part of the environment—
understand that whatever it is they produce,
whatever it is they achieve, causes The Venetian to
run that much more efficiently and productively.
THE PROCESS
A brouhaha brews at The Venetian. Inside one
of its high-profile departments, team members
have resorted to backbiting, ostracizing, finger
pointing, and accusations of elitism to victimize
one of their own. The principles of The Venetian,
so thoughtfully articulated in its vision and mission
statements, have been compromised. The
harassed employee, valued by management (he
has letters from VPs stating how proud they are
that he works for the hotel), has seen the writing
on the wall and, convinced—through no fault of
his own—he will be fired, resigns.
HR knows what’s going on and doesn’t like
it one bit. This is not a brouhaha brewing in
F&B, but it’s close enough that, should HR not
step in to squash it, it could have an impact
throughout the resort, perhaps shaping the
disposition and behavior of some of the team
members who find out about it. Although it is
too late to save the employee, HR becomes
involved. It will monitor closely what
happens in that department to make sure nothing
like this ever happens again.
Under normal circumstances, that sort of incident might be
swept under the rug or, for that matter, totally ignored. But that is
not how HR functions at The Venetian, or, for that matter—either
philosophically or pragmatically—it is driven to function, a drive
nurtured by conditions spelled out in its mission and vision
statements. Robust and absolute in their resolve, together they convey
the principles The Venetian and HR must preserve if they are to
maintain levels of service excellence internally and competitively, be
it at the front desk or in
the kitchen.
That this resignation
never should have
happened—the employee
in question too valuable
to let go—is moot. What
concerns HR is that, with
its tentacles everywhere
and its tight relationships
(through managers and
directors) with all team members, somehow all of this occurred
right under its nose.
It is, as noted, too late to save the employee. Yet, had he wished,
he had recourse, available to every employee. He could have taken
his case to what Gerst calls, “a peer review process.” Any hourly
employee whose work is under disciplinary review up to and including
termination can ask for a hearing before a group of three
hourly team members and two salaried. This panel listens to
the evidence presented by the
manager, it listens to the employee
disciplined (he’s allowed to bring
in witnesses and other data and
evidence to support his case).
Then, the panel decides what merit
the action has. It can uphold it,
modify it, or throw it out. “And no
one,” says Gerst, “up to and including
Bob Goldstein [The Venetian’s
president], can overturn the panel.
That’s pretty darn powerful. It
speaks of extreme fairness in our
employee community.”
“The peer review is a great
process,” says Shanel. “As an employee,
you know our system is one of trust
and of trustworthy management. You
have the option of a peer review
where, if you feel you’ve been
misjudged, you can seek a vote of
confidence from management.”
Says Boyd, “We certainly want our
team members to move in the same
direction we’re moving, and we’re
going to work with them and coach
and counsel them to get them in that direction. With the right attitude and appropriate
skill sets, coaching and counseling help.” And if
coaching and counseling don’t work and the
employee in question doesn’t seem to fit squarely
into the slot he or she’s been assigned, then—and
this is the part that smacks of Venetian “family”
and “compassion”—Boyd, or someone else in his
F&B group, will try to find that employee a
position more suitable. Boyd will be the first to
admit that F&B may have erred in placing that
person initially.
The peer review, the coach and counseling
sessions, the concern for employee considerations—
any wonder, turnover is less than 19 percent?“Food & beverage is a very risky business,” says
Tamir Shanel. “You manufacture a product and
serve it within minutes of creating it. The guest pays
for it after he has consumed it, with every right not
to pay for it if it’s no good. You have very little leeway
in terms of how you want to go about satisfying
the guest, especially here at The Venetian where
we insist on exceptional food, beverage, and service.
You cannot attain this level—this performance—
unless you are experienced and very good at what
you do. The Venetian is no place for amateurs. It’s a
place where you have to be very good at what you
do to be able to deliver excellence. So, it starts with
the chef, moves on to the service and management
teams. Everyone involved has to be at a certain level
to generate the best.”
Early on, we shared with you a quote from the room
guest directory, warning you--given the audacity of its
message and knowing what we knew--that The Venetian
doesn't kid around, or, as we put it, wasn't "blowing
smoke." Now that you've read our report, we thought we'd
repeat it here: "We welcome you to an experience of
impeccable service and attention to detail that has made
The Venetian synonymous with unparalleled luxury."
Stephen Michaelides, a frequent contributor to
Hotel F&B Executive, is president of Cleveland-based
Words Ink.
|
