Harrah's Question

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Harrah’s question: Why did Winn worry about “quick quits”? How did the program work and what were the possible drawbacks? From the article Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc.: Rewarding Our People (Delong & Vijayaraghavan, 2003) we learn that the company’s new program for lowering turnover focused on three groups: finding people appropriate for the job, the socialization process around bringing new employees into the company, and the long-term maintenance of employee motivation and performance (p. 4). The “quick quits” were the employees leaving their job at Harrah’s within the first 90 days of their employment. According to Loveman, the company’s COO, Winn needed to focus her program on the high turnover the company had, which was “sky high”. Loveman pointed out that it was very important to make people stay with the company, since making customers happy was dependent on that: “I can’t’ deliver great customer service unless I have a stable workforce”. The overall program seemed to have worked. According to the article, the goal of lowering turnover was to be brought down from 45% to under 38.5% within one year. This goal was attained since the average turnover was 34% the following year (p. 4). The first measure for lowering turnover was to find the right employee for each job at Harrah’s, and consequently the hiring standards were changed. Harrah’s started using questionnaires and standardized tests together with the traditional interview. The “director of assessments”, who held a PhD in psychometrics, interpreted and evaluated the tests results. The purpose of the standardized interviewing was to make the hiring process more objective in choosing the best person for the job. At the manager level, Harrah’s wanted managers who have “a visceral understanding of who the people are in this business, relate to the management and employees at all levels, and be good
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