Case Study
Wind Creek Hospitality
Creating a unified and inspired employee culture
Challenge
Wind Creek Hospitality was on the brink of a major growth plan. With 600 employees in three locations, the company was looking to move its casino and hospitality operations to new, higher-end facilities in Atmore, Alabama.
The company was concerned about attracting new talent of the right caliber and inspiring existing employees to provide a level of service consistent with the upgraded facilities. Succeeding in these areas was crucial to their growth plan.
WCH lacked a cohesive employee culture. They needed to unite an extremely diverse group of people in the service of guests with relentless standards of excellence never before demanded by the organization or expected by its customers. WCH engaged Lapin to design its growth strategy and create a unifying force for its leadership and employees.
CEO and President
Insight
To define this new unifying force, Lapin began by conducting numerous interviews with senior employees to probe and articulate the distinctive reason for WCH’s existence. What could this group of people do for its customers, employees, and communities that no other business could do in the same way? The answer to this question became the WCH Purpose Statement:
To provide guests, especially women, an escape from their ordinary world into our exciting fantasy world of play, chance and possibility.
We discovered that women had been frequent and repeat guests to WCH and provided more than half of its revenue. Furthermore, we believed that both men and women would spend more time there if the women especially, felt a sense of connection and importance while on the properties. This would give WCH Strategic Distinction as no competitor that we knew of, placed women at the center of their customer experience design. Lapin also developed a values-based leadership philosophy which became the foundation of HR policy and of leadership development. WCH’s strategic distinction integrated with its values-based leadership also provided employees with a clear direction uniting them in a shared mission and that reduced the friction.
Action
- Created an Expectations Guide built on the values-based leadership philosophy to provide further clarity about both employees' and managers' responsibilities.
- Through the guide, amplified feelings of employee security to reduce fear and any anxiety, and improve consistency and fairness. This further bound employees in common purpose. Inspired employees to focus on the care of all guests especially women, making their routine tasks more personal, human, meaningful, and satisfying.
- Created a level of employee happiness that had not existed before. This happiness immediately translated into customer experience and a richness of culture within the organization. It became responsible for attracting and retaining talent.
- Distilled WCH's purpose into a powerful tool to create passionate employee enthusiasm for the companies' values.
- Trained hundreds of leaders and managers at WCH's existing and newly acquired properties, aligning and inspiring them to the WCH purpose-driven strategy and values-based leadership philosophy.
Impact
Today, WCH employs more than 2,000 people in six locations, and its multicultural workforce is aligned. Collectively and individually, WCH employees contribute to a satisfying, vital purpose that goes beyond serving drinks and dealing cards, and touches deeply on the humanity of the people they serve.
The results of Lapin’s purpose-driven strategy and values-based leadership development at WCH, speak for themselves. Since 2007, WCH has increased annual revenue by 734% in an era of economic uncertainty and volatility. A purpose-driven strategy creates Distinction and leads to sustainable growth.