Select a Casino Table Games Scheduling Solution The

Select a Casino Table Games Scheduling Solution The right people at the right table and the right time. Info-Tech Research Group Inc. is a global leader in providing IT research and advice. Info-Tech’s products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with Info-Tech's products and services combine actionable insight and relevant advice with ready-to-use tools and templates that cover the full spectrum of IT concerns. © 1997 -2019 Info-Tech Research Group Inc. Info-Tech Research Group 1

ANALYST PERSPECTIVE Maximize your table-games revenue and increase dealer engagement. Workforce scheduling is incredibly complicated but often goes underappreciated. The scheduler has the thankless task of satisfying the demands of the business, the constraints of labor laws, and the preferences of the employees, all with very limited workforce resources. Many properties are still using spreadsheet templates that are time consuming and leave employees dissatisfied. A good scheduling solution can help the scheduler accurately predict the workforce demands on an hour-by-hour basis and minimize over and under staffing. These solutions also add self-service features to accommodate employee preferences and increase engagement. Scheduling for table games adds the complication of dealer skills and proficiencies, and a separate solution for table games may be necessary. There’s a silver lining here: accurate, data-driven scheduling for table games can actually increase revenue from one of the casino’s most valuable departments. Mark Maby, Senior Researcher, GHRC Practice Info-Tech Research Group SAMPLE Info-Tech Research Group 2

Our understanding of the problem This Research is Designed For: This Research Is Designed For: This Research Will Help You: üCIOs, VPs of IT, and IT directors üUnderstand the workforce scheduling market of today, specific to the challenges of scheduling for table games. üFollow best practices to prepare for and execute on selection, including high-level requirements gathering and vendor evaluation. This Research Will Assist: This Research Will Also Assist: This Research Will Help You: This Research Will Help Them: üOperations managers üSchedulers üCasino executives üPlanning and analysis üDecide whether or not to deploy scheduling system. üIdentify whether to implement a separate scheduling system for table games. üConduct scheduling requirements gathering. üUnderstand your regulatory, procedural, and technical requirements. SAMPLE Info-Tech Research Group 3

Executive summary Situation • Your organization is in the midst of a selection process for a workforce scheduling solution. This may be a tightly focused initiative or part of a larger human resource information system (HRIS). Either way, there is a need to disambiguate the market and arrive at a shortlist of vendors. Complication • The hospitality industry runs 24/7 and casinos need to create systems for complex scheduling, changing labor regulations, and unique policies. • Dealers and supervisors for table games have specific skills and proficiencies. Older systems with cumbersome processes do not effectively deal with the challenges of scheduling for table games. 1. Business volumes can inform the optimum number and arrangement of table games. However, IT can expect pushback from operational managers who feel that the forecasted solution rubs against their knowledge and experience. 2. Cost consciousness is a top priority for casinos. Even though a workforce planning strategy requires investment in operational capabilities and applications, reducing inefficiencies should show tangible and intangible benefits in the long term. Resolution • In today’s market, casinos need a robust scheduling solution that increases employee engagement and maximizes revenue • • while still managing the shifting landscape of labor regulations. Casinos place themselves at risk if they use older manual systems like spreadsheet templates. These solutions cannot respond to the changing labor requirements nor can they use business-volume data to optimize table games revenue. Depending on your organization size, project scope, and budget, a scheduling solution will be an investment. Ensuring your team understands roles and responsibilities prior to implementation will help ease the transition into this new system. Use the accompanying Vendor Landscape to evaluate the leading products in the market space according to the needs of table games at your particular property. SAMPLE Info-Tech Research Group 4

Scheduling table games at Foxwoods CASE STUDY Industry Source Gaming Info-Tech Interview Challenge Solution Results Foxwoods is one of the world’s largest casinos. Located in Mashantucket, Connecticut, it has over 300 poker and table games, over 5, 500 slot machines, and 7, 500 employees. It experienced typical challenges for operating its table games. It needed to schedule dealers based on skill level, table and skill rotation, and relief patterns. Poker was scheduled separately and incorporated seniority in scheduling. While these challenges are common across casinos, the sheer size of Foxwoods’ operation pushed it to seek out a robust rules-based scheduling solution. Foxwoods spent over six months working in a lab environment to test the solution under different variations and iterations. Historic data needed to be integrated into the system and tested for different realworld variations. This step was essential to minimize disruption and maximize confidence in results. It was able to test in the new system in parallel with the old system in order to demonstrate that the schedules were robust and accurate. Other integrations needed to be tested: with HR to identify whether an employee that been terminated or not, and with time and attendance to incorporate sickness and lateness data. By putting the solution in the lab, the schedules were more accurate and acceptance was higher upon implementation. It also gave Foxwoods the opportunity to customize the system for specific needs. This included a graphical interface to save and apply demand templates for seasonal date and specials events. It also created an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) application, to enable employees to interact with the system over the phone. Employees can now conduct switch-shifts and request PTO (paid time-off), and the system effectively handles the complicated scheduling demands of both table games and poker. SAMPLE Info-Tech Research Group 5

Before you go down this path, consider these key questions. Drivers • • What is motivating this initiative? Are organizational changes driving the need to explore a new solution? Goals and strategy • • Is there an existing plan to revise scheduling at the organization? Will the solution need to align with organizational or HR goals and strategy? Existing solutions • Which departments employ schedulers and what scheduling solution or solutions are they using? • • Is the solution for table games or for all of hospitality? Will scheduling be centralized or conducted at the department level? • Have you assessed needs, gaps, and expectations for the scheduling solution before exploring the market? • Is the organization prepared to run the new solution in parallel with the old solution(s) for a period of 3 -9 months? Project scope Needs, gaps, and expectations Implementation SAMPLE Info-Tech Research Group 6

Understand the essential features offered by different scheduling solutions Scheduling • Scheduling challenges for hospitality include: o o Planning multiple shifts across a 24/7 property Complying with labor regulations that restrict when an employee can work and for how long Dealing with dual-rates of pay when one employee works in multiple roles or on days with different pay rates Creating a schedule with enough flexibility to accommodate employee requests and last-minute changes Demand-based scheduling • An effective schedule strikes a balance between customer service and cost of labor • Demand-based scheduling looks at historic data to determine the optimum number of people for a given day o Metrics include historic schedules, headcount, volume of play, tables open/close o This data can be broken down to 15 -minute increments and represented in graphical reports • Schedulers like to use this data when planning: how many employees, what skills, and where they are needed Forecasting • Using the advanced, non-linear analytics, a modern forecasting solution can generate the optimum schedule to generate the greatest revenue at the lowest cost for the casino o Celayix and Fourth have hospitality forecasting solutions excluding table games o Tangam Gaming and SAS are forecasting solutions for table games that integrate with your existing scheduling solution o Mizzi. Soft’s scheduling solution for table games includes a forecasting module SAMPLE Info-Tech Research Group 7

Scheduling for table games involves very particular challenges. Scheduling for table games is a challenge because the dealers, supervisors, and breakers will be skilled at different games with varying levels of proficiencies. Different skills and proficiencies also affect different rates of pay. Dealers will also want to maintain each of their different skills. It’s important to have flexibility when scheduling table games because which tables are open has a direct effect on the revenue the casino generates. Union and other labor regulations VIP Supervisors Tipping and Poker Breakers Proficiency Dealers D Black Jack Craps Baccarat 1 s Poker B Tips can be pooled across dealers, creating another complication to scheduling for table games. Poker is often scheduled separately because poker tips are pulled from a percentage of the pot and not from individual players. Skills Multiple shifts across one or more 24/7 properties SAMPLE Info-Tech Research Group 8

An effective scheduling solution for table games will integrate with HRIS architecture and sources of business workloads Employee Self -Service HRIS/Payroll Employee and Supervisor Leave Manager POS Hotel System Workload Generator Table Games Yield Mgmt. Floor Planner Roster Scheduler Workforce Management Pit mgmt. Time and Attendance Required capability of the table games scheduling solution SAMPLE Casino Mgmt. System Dealer or Supervisor Info-Tech Research Group 9

A global perspective of casino challenges expands the opportunities to enhance scheduling practices Best practices arise where the need is most acute Workforce challenges North America Key factors • A shrinking labor pool • Slots as the primary revenue focus • Complex tipping environment • Smaller properties than in Asia Standard practice • Scheduling at the departmental level • Emphasis on slots over table games • Some demand-based scheduling but little use of forecasting Asia and Australia Key factors • Complex labor laws • Table games as the primary revenue focus • Larger properties, with more than 250 tables per property in Macau SAMPLE Standard practice • Centralized scheduling • Maximized use of table games through both demand-based scheduling and forecasting analytics In Australia it costs $125 to open a table on weekends, making business analytics a necessity for decision making. Macau’s casinos are some of the largest in the world, but they are hampered by the country’s labor laws where the island’s population has only 1. 8% unemployment (Macau Daily Times). Effective workforce management is crucial. Most North American customers prefer the people close to the action handling the day-to-day schedule and it is only the largest customers who find efficiencies in centralized scheduling. Based on Info. Tech’s survey, 18% of respondents use centralized scheduling. Info-Tech Research Group 10

Casinos need to comply with changes in scheduling laws and maintain records for an audit or dispute Fair Scheduling Laws • The US is undergoing dramatic changes of its laws that will affect union and non-union organizations alike. • New fair (or predictive) scheduling laws are being enacted throughout the US and Canada, at both the state and municipal level. • These laws are intended to give employees more predictable schedules to improve their work-life balance. Legislation trends • Advance notice of shift schedules. • Compensation for last-minute changes. • Last-minute changes need to draw from voluntary standby lists. • Employees must have a period of rest between shifts. • Protection to request changes without repercussion. What this means for IT • A robust scheduling solution must accommodate any legislative constraints. • IT must provide a tool with robust auditing and logging. Without evidence the court will side with the employee. SAMPLE A manual scheduling solution will no longer meet a casino’s workforce scheduling requirements. Info-Tech Research Group 11

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