MGM/Mirage doesn't need luck to hire 10,000 employees

More than 30 million visitors venture to Las Vegas each year to dance with Lady Luck. To accommodate the daily influx of tourists from around the world, the desert resort community has sprouted new hotels, office parks, strip malls and residential housing. Massive construction projects and expansive growth in the city that never sleeps has been a wake-up call for hiring directors and job placement agencies. On average, more than 1,000 individuals relocate to Las Vegas each month. Many look for employment with the city's most lucrative job source - the hotel industry. Human resources (HR) departments at these hotels are faced with the daunting task of managing the thousands of pages of paperwork required to process applications and manage employee files. On average hotels process seven to 10 documents per employee each year ranging from the initial job application to employee personal records and job evaluations.

Bellagio, an MGM MIRAGE property, has turned to electronic document and data capture technology to manage the hiring boom. The hotel recently implemented Kofax Ascent Capture to enable a completely paperless HR solution. Eventually, Bellagio human resources management system will be duplicated at the entire group of MGM MIRAGE properties nationwide.

The Problem

Upon opening in 1998, Bellagio was billed as one of the most luxurious and exclusive hotels along the Las Vegas strip. Boasting more than 3,000 rooms, 10 restaurants and bars and an elaborate casino and art exhibit, the hotel was faced with hiring 10,000 employees. Bellagio began implementing its paperless HR solution by first processing all new employee applications through electronic means. On-site PCs are used by prospective new hires to complete the hotel's application. In addition, hotel HR staff and administrators managed the sea of paperwork that followed transfer employees from existing MGM MIRAGE properties.

With several paper documents accompanying each employee transfer, the hotel would have been processing thousands of pieces of paper each week. Rather than build filing rooms and dedicate new employees to the task, Bellagio HR management chose to implement an electronic filing system combining the benefits of content capture and management technology. In so doing, HR enabled hotel executives to access employee files to add notes or reference employee information.

The Solution

With the help of Phoenix-based Western Office Systems, Bellagio implemented an effective solution to manage the ocean of paperwork for various HR applications. Soon after Bellagio's successful implementation, Western Office Systems was asked to install the same timesaving document management solution for the other MGM MIRAGE properties including Mirage, Treasure Island and Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, Golden Nugget in Laughlin, Nev. and Beau Rivage in Biloxi, Miss. However, the other MGM MIRAGE properties were faced with the even greater challenge of converting more than 25,000 existing paper-based employee records into electronic documents.

"Bellagio and MGM MIRAGE's other properties required an efficient solution to tackle the enormous task faced by HR to manage employee files, relieving the burden of shuffling paperwork in response to daily management requests for employee information," said Ray Hughes, general manager of Western Office Systems. "Our firm worked closely with the HR and IS departments to assess the company's needs and develop a clear vision of what the system needed to do. We focused on keeping it simple yet robust to streamline an otherwise complicated and time-consuming file management process."

The solution included FileNET's Panagon Content Services paired with Kofax Ascent Capture software and Fujitsu scanners, which featured Kofax Adrenaline boards to boost scanner speed and performance. The combination of Kofax Ascent Capture and FileNET content management software converts and stores paper documents in a central database enabling customer to manage and secure business-critical electronic documents and access them via a corporate intranet. With employee files indexed at a single location, the document management solution saves time and resources by allowing hotel management to access this information directly from desktop computers.

Solution Benefits

"We've been most impressed by the accuracy of documents and their immediate availability once scanned into the system," said Marilyn Mattick, Bellagio's director of compensation. "We've significantly reduced the number of hours and the amount of staff that it would normally take to manage paper-based files.

"We now have the ability to offer management access to employee files 24/7 via the corporate intranet. Managers no longer have to wait for HR to provide the files. They can go online to view specific employee records and are able to make notes directly in the file. This significantly cuts down on the time and effort it used to take department managers and HR staff to accomplish the same tasks using paper-based methods."

According to Dominick Vacca, the project manager for MGM MIRAGE, an average of 4,000 company managers have access to the system. To streamline data access, the company's IT department set up a thin-client computing system. Thin-client computers, which assist businesses in centralizing and consolidating information assets, are connected to the central server which houses the employee information database, enabling management to immediately retrieve employee files for their particular hotel.

"Management now has immediate access to information from their own computers," Vacca said. "They no longer have to send requests to HR for employee information and wait for the files to be sent to them. The new system significantly reduces paperwork on both sides and cuts down on time it normally takes HR management to process and fulfill these requests."

Based on the successful implementations at Bellagio and other MGM MIRAGE hotels, the company's executive management has decided to extend the document management solution at all MGM MIRAGE properties. The system will link MGM MIRAGE hotels and resorts for both on-site employee processing as well as intra-corporate employee transfers. In Nevada MGM MIRAGE to properties to be deployed include New York-New York, the MGM Grand Hotel and the Primm Valley Resorts. The MGM Grand Hotel in Detroit also will install the document management system.

To date, the system has processed more than 1.7 million documents and has saved the hotel chain more than $1.5 million in employee and technology costs. With the help of document and content management technology, it's a safe bet that HR management will be able to handle the expansion without a hitch.

About MGM Mirage

MGM MIRAGE is an entertainment company headquartered in Las Vegas which owns and/or operates through subsidiaries 18 casino properties on three continents, employing more than 50,000 worldwide. Each property features a wide range of renowned restaurants, world-class entertainment and shopping options. Internationally, MGM MIRAGE owns and operates the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Darwin, Australia and manages casinos in Nelspruit, Witbank and Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa.

About Kofax

Kofax Image Products (http://www.kofax.com/), is a leading supplier of both application software and image processing products for the imaging, workflow and document management industry. The company specializes in the electronic document capture market, which is essential to helping paper intensive organizations economically, reliably and securely incorporate paper-based information into their electronic business processes. It is a member of the DICOM Group plc. Kofax Image Products