ICE NORTH AMERICA DIGITAL
TRAINING CASINO EMPLOYEES FOR THE ‘NEW NORMAL’ Industry experts discussed the road back for casino employees post COVID-19 at ICE North America Digital, and how to create an enjoyable experience for guests while ensuring the safety of all parties involved. MODERATOR DAVID NEWTON, partner, Hospitality Resources
SPEAKERS RICK FIELDS, consultant, former SVP casino operations, Mandalay Bay JULIA STEWART, founder and CEO, Alurx CHRIS SMITH, vice president of HR, Boyd Gaming DAVID CARROLL, SVP of HR, Seminole Hard Rock Support Services LLC
26 GAMINGAMERICA
DAVID NEWTON: We know that most properties are already open, so what has been your process in recalling employees and what have you learned from that process? How do you handle employees who don’t want to come back or are concerned? CHRIS SMITH: Overall as a company, we wanted to be very sensitive to our team members returning to work. We understood that because we furloughed our team members in March, they were coming back to a very different environment. When they left, no one was wearing a mask and now we’re requiring all our team members to wear one. We wanted to be very sensitive to that so we over-emphasized all the safety protocols we put in place. A lot of our conversations revolved around whether it was safe to come back, and what we were doing to protect people. We called people back based predominantly on seniority and their roles. We had cases where not everyone wanted to come back. We had some team members who resigned or stepped out and we were sensitive to that. We offered different positions and roles where they would feel more safe, but at the end of the day some people
