Bright outlook
Bright outlook
New technologies have brought cost savings, customer service and increased employee satisfaction to the Pechanga Resort Casino
By Matt Connor
Modern technology has put a man on the moon, placed an iPod in the hands of nearly every youngster in the country and has altered significantly the appearance of Pamela Anderson and Joan Rivers. But that's nothing compared to what's going on the Pechanga Resort Casino today.
Nestled in California's Inland Empire, Pechanga is, like many casinos, using technology to bring greater efficiency and revenue to its food & beverage, HR and lodging departments. Across the casino resort, executives at the property said, technology is first utilized to provide greater customer service.
"Everything is customer service oriented," said Rod Luck, vice president of information technologies at Pechanga. "We're always looking for new ways of doing things better and ways of improving and saving dollars, while keeping the guests happy as much as we can."
Into the modern age
Luck said hotel operations at Pechanga have greatly benefited from the growth of the worldwide Web, for example.
"As far as hotel reservations, we utilize the Web quite a bit for taking reservations for our rooms," he said. "We have a site where customers can communicate back and forth with us by e-mail. So if the guest has any questions at all, he or she can contact the hotel and we can get right back to them. It makes it a lot easier for them to book rooms and access information about our hotel."
Personnel who work behind the front desk of Pechanga's spectacular hotel tower also deal with technologies unimaginable a decade ago. The 989,000-square-foot, 522-room hotel/casino, conference center and performing arts theater is located on the Temecula Reservation and like the casino and many other business enterprises on the reservation is owned by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians. Pechanga Resort & Casino's 188,000-square-foot gaming area features 3,500 slots and 153 table games. The property has seven restaurants.
"Our front desk has all the latest technology as far as information about the guests-what kind of casino player they are, etc.," Luck said. "We have automated check in and check out and a very efficient wake up service. When anybody calls from the guest room, we know exactly who they are, so we call them by name."
In the property's restaurants, which include "Blazing Noodles," an Asian eatery; "Paisano's, an Italian restaurant; and "Snack Bar," which ironically enough is a snack bar; communications technologies play a key role in enhancing customer service.
"Food and beverage has a reservation system and a seating system that allows the server and hostess to know exactly which tables are open or whether the table will be open soon," Luck said. "We also have a paging system that we give to every guest to let them know when their table is ready. The system tells us when the tables were cleaned, when the bill's been delivered and whether the guest is leaving, so we can give the guest an accurate expectation time as to when their table will be ready."
Managing employees, customers
While the Pechanga Band has utilized gaming on its reservation as an economic development tool since 1995, an expansion in 2002 brought added resort amenities like the hotel tower and a renovated gaming area. It is one of the largest employers in the Temecula area and as such has enormous human resource challenges.
One of those challenges, of course, is scheduling. Casino executives at Pechanga were able to mediate many of their employee scheduling challenges through the use of a program called CASINOpro, from a company called Opstec.
"We keep track of our busiest times and we do the scheduling accordingly," said Luck of CASINOpro. "We adjust the schedules and employees to serve the guest better. We also save quite a bit of money in labor hours in that we don't have labor that we don't need. We don't have a lot of people standing around during times when we're not busy."
Steve Cannon, who with partner Sam Maggio founded Opstec, said their CASINOpro system "serves as a data hub for all of the operating systems a casino might have. It mines all of the historical data out of all the different databases and puts it as an icon on a computer desktop. It allows you to forecast a casino's business on an hour-by-hour basis. From that forecast, profiling employees based on their skills and whatnot, it will actually build out a schedule for your entire property. It cuts down on time. At Pechanga, it reduced the time to make a schedule by something like 97 percent."
He said the program also tracks variations in employee attendance.
"If you don't have enough people trained in certain areas, it will tell you if you gave too many people off or if they're out for personal, medical or military reasons," Cannon said. "You can prioritize the different sorts of jobs that you're trying to fill. It always fills the highest priority job with the most qualified employees. So if you run out of employees or you don't have enough employees for the number of jobs, generally speaking it's the lowest priority job that doesn't get filled."
Down to details
Cannon said the front-of-house staff is geared directly to revenue on an hour-by-hour basis.
"What we do is forecast, on an hour-by-hour basis, what the week is going to look like, based on historical data," he said. "From that we lock in the spread of labor and the amount of staff we need to fill the schedule and it fills out a schedule. So what used to take 100 hours a week now takes five or six hours a week. It makes sure you have the right people at the right place at the right time."
From a Human Resources standpoint, Cannon said, CASINOpro can also be a great benefit to gaming executives.
"At Pechanga, they were taking a shotgun approach to training in certain areas," he said. "Now they can take a very strategic approach to training. They knew they were not filling a certain type of position because their staff doesn't have those skills. So then they can specifically train employees in those different areas and adjust their profiles as they become qualified and the program automatically puts them in those positions."
Though CASINOpro is currently being utilized at Pechanga's slot, table, hotel and food & beverage areas, Cannon earned his stripes at the property's casino cage.
"We started out in cage operations just because it was such a difficult area to staff," he said. "They had 11 supervisors making schedules for about 350 people. It took about 88 hours a week between them to make a static schedule. We taught the secretary for the cage manager how to use the system, and within the first week we took all those 11 supervisors and told them they didn't have to worry about schedules anymore. She now does it by herself and it takes her about an hour a week."
Far from feeling put-upon by a computer program that was designed to get the most efficient use out of employees, staffers at Pechanga, Cannon said, have welcomed the CASINOpro system, which was first installed about a year and a half ago.
"The system is not designed to ravish your labor," Cannon said. "What it does is make sure you have the right number of people at the right place at the right time. In doing so, the comments we hear from employees is that, for example, they had been overstaffed on the graveyard shift from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. forever.
"Now, because the program recommended moving people over to the swing shift, the people on graveyard are making more money because there are less people working and they're happy about it. And the people on the swing shift are fired up because there's the right number of people helping the customers so they're tipping better."
And you can't beat a good tip, after all.
New technologies have brought cost savings, customer service and increased employee satisfaction to the Pechanga Resort Casino
By Matt Connor
Modern technology has put a man on the moon, placed an iPod in the hands of nearly every youngster in the country and has altered significantly the appearance of Pamela Anderson and Joan Rivers. But that's nothing compared to what's going on the Pechanga Resort Casino today.
Nestled in California's Inland Empire, Pechanga is, like many casinos, using technology to bring greater efficiency and revenue to its food & beverage, HR and lodging departments. Across the casino resort, executives at the property said, technology is first utilized to provide greater customer service.
"Everything is customer service oriented," said Rod Luck, vice president of information technologies at Pechanga. "We're always looking for new ways of doing things better and ways of improving and saving dollars, while keeping the guests happy as much as we can."
Into the modern age
Luck said hotel operations at Pechanga have greatly benefited from the growth of the worldwide Web, for example.
"As far as hotel reservations, we utilize the Web quite a bit for taking reservations for our rooms," he said. "We have a site where customers can communicate back and forth with us by e-mail. So if the guest has any questions at all, he or she can contact the hotel and we can get right back to them. It makes it a lot easier for them to book rooms and access information about our hotel."
Personnel who work behind the front desk of Pechanga's spectacular hotel tower also deal with technologies unimaginable a decade ago. The 989,000-square-foot, 522-room hotel/casino, conference center and performing arts theater is located on the Temecula Reservation and like the casino and many other business enterprises on the reservation is owned by the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians. Pechanga Resort & Casino's 188,000-square-foot gaming area features 3,500 slots and 153 table games. The property has seven restaurants.
"Our front desk has all the latest technology as far as information about the guests-what kind of casino player they are, etc.," Luck said. "We have automated check in and check out and a very efficient wake up service. When anybody calls from the guest room, we know exactly who they are, so we call them by name."
In the property's restaurants, which include "Blazing Noodles," an Asian eatery; "Paisano's, an Italian restaurant; and "Snack Bar," which ironically enough is a snack bar; communications technologies play a key role in enhancing customer service.
"Food and beverage has a reservation system and a seating system that allows the server and hostess to know exactly which tables are open or whether the table will be open soon," Luck said. "We also have a paging system that we give to every guest to let them know when their table is ready. The system tells us when the tables were cleaned, when the bill's been delivered and whether the guest is leaving, so we can give the guest an accurate expectation time as to when their table will be ready."
Managing employees, customers
While the Pechanga Band has utilized gaming on its reservation as an economic development tool since 1995, an expansion in 2002 brought added resort amenities like the hotel tower and a renovated gaming area. It is one of the largest employers in the Temecula area and as such has enormous human resource challenges.
One of those challenges, of course, is scheduling. Casino executives at Pechanga were able to mediate many of their employee scheduling challenges through the use of a program called CASINOpro, from a company called Opstec.
"We keep track of our busiest times and we do the scheduling accordingly," said Luck of CASINOpro. "We adjust the schedules and employees to serve the guest better. We also save quite a bit of money in labor hours in that we don't have labor that we don't need. We don't have a lot of people standing around during times when we're not busy."
Steve Cannon, who with partner Sam Maggio founded Opstec, said their CASINOpro system "serves as a data hub for all of the operating systems a casino might have. It mines all of the historical data out of all the different databases and puts it as an icon on a computer desktop. It allows you to forecast a casino's business on an hour-by-hour basis. From that forecast, profiling employees based on their skills and whatnot, it will actually build out a schedule for your entire property. It cuts down on time. At Pechanga, it reduced the time to make a schedule by something like 97 percent."
He said the program also tracks variations in employee attendance.
"If you don't have enough people trained in certain areas, it will tell you if you gave too many people off or if they're out for personal, medical or military reasons," Cannon said. "You can prioritize the different sorts of jobs that you're trying to fill. It always fills the highest priority job with the most qualified employees. So if you run out of employees or you don't have enough employees for the number of jobs, generally speaking it's the lowest priority job that doesn't get filled."
Down to details
Cannon said the front-of-house staff is geared directly to revenue on an hour-by-hour basis.
"What we do is forecast, on an hour-by-hour basis, what the week is going to look like, based on historical data," he said. "From that we lock in the spread of labor and the amount of staff we need to fill the schedule and it fills out a schedule. So what used to take 100 hours a week now takes five or six hours a week. It makes sure you have the right people at the right place at the right time."
From a Human Resources standpoint, Cannon said, CASINOpro can also be a great benefit to gaming executives.
"At Pechanga, they were taking a shotgun approach to training in certain areas," he said. "Now they can take a very strategic approach to training. They knew they were not filling a certain type of position because their staff doesn't have those skills. So then they can specifically train employees in those different areas and adjust their profiles as they become qualified and the program automatically puts them in those positions."
Though CASINOpro is currently being utilized at Pechanga's slot, table, hotel and food & beverage areas, Cannon earned his stripes at the property's casino cage.
"We started out in cage operations just because it was such a difficult area to staff," he said. "They had 11 supervisors making schedules for about 350 people. It took about 88 hours a week between them to make a static schedule. We taught the secretary for the cage manager how to use the system, and within the first week we took all those 11 supervisors and told them they didn't have to worry about schedules anymore. She now does it by herself and it takes her about an hour a week."
Far from feeling put-upon by a computer program that was designed to get the most efficient use out of employees, staffers at Pechanga, Cannon said, have welcomed the CASINOpro system, which was first installed about a year and a half ago.
"The system is not designed to ravish your labor," Cannon said. "What it does is make sure you have the right number of people at the right place at the right time. In doing so, the comments we hear from employees is that, for example, they had been overstaffed on the graveyard shift from 3 a.m. to 7 a.m. forever.
"Now, because the program recommended moving people over to the swing shift, the people on graveyard are making more money because there are less people working and they're happy about it. And the people on the swing shift are fired up because there's the right number of people helping the customers so they're tipping better."
And you can't beat a good tip, after all.
