Harrah's Corporation Case Study: Leadership and Employee Value

This case study analyzes the challenges faced by Harrah's Corporation regarding employee motivation and customer service, focusing on an incentive plan that cost $16 million. The primary issues involve employees not feeling valued, despite strategies emphasizing employee welfare. The assignment explores alternative courses of action, such as team-building activities and challenging assignments to address these issues, and recommends recognizing individual employee contributions and providing unique challenges. The goal is to improve employee morale, motivation, and ultimately, customer satisfaction. The analysis references relevant literature and research to support the recommendations.

Running head: Case Study
Case Study
Name of the Student
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Author Note

1CASE STUDY
Answer 1: The major issues and problems of this case include the employees of the
organization Harrah’s Corporation, not feeling valued enough and the need to make employees
feel valued and cared for. Welfare of employees is at the heart of the strategies at Harrah’s
Corporation but in spite of that, in the previous quarter ending of August 2001, raising customer
service among the employees had been hard work with very little result. Marilyn Winn, as the
head of human resources had helped to execute an inducement plan in collaboration with Gary
Loveman, the President, and the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Harrah’s Corporation. The
incentive plan was intended to inculcate competitive spirit in the employees, both in contending
with casinos who were their competitors, as well as comparing with their own records of
previous performance. The second motivation was to let the subordinates know that they were
the heart and soul of the strategies implemented by Harrah’s Corporation, that even though the
company placed a great importance on customer satisfaction, the company also rewarded and
respected its employees. The challenge was to devise a plan, which would evaluate
comprehensively and recommend ways to inspire employees either through the present
inducement plan or by the devise of other plans and newly designed programs. The problem was
that the incentive plan had cost $16 million in the preceding year and now that revenues were
plummeting due to bigger financial conditions, the number seemed very high and the incentive
plan very expensive and so Marilyn Winn was wondering if these customer service payouts the
most professional way to make Harrah’s a customer-driven and service-driven company.
Harrah’s Corporation gave collective, team-focused incentives or bonuses to its employees
which was an unique idea in the gaming industry. A gain-sharing program was also introduced at
Harrah’s Corporation, which rewarded employees of the organization for improving customer
service and customer satisfaction.

2CASE STUDY
Marilyn Winn was aware of the fact that some employees got tired of working tirelessly
and getting close to reward levels and then not being rewarded. The worry was that at what stage
would an employee say, “Forget it”. Thus, the challenge was to keep the incentive plan fresh in
order that employees remain motivated, focused, and deliver their very best.
Answer 2: The two alternative courses of action that can occur to address the issues
that have been identified in the case study includes feeding the employees in order to make them
feel valued and cared for. One could bring in donuts or have a pizza party in the office by using
the money of the company. Apart from bringing people together, it will also promote and
strengthen interpersonal relationships (Roy 2017). This will also give the employees the feeling
of being appreciated and make them feel valued. Catering lunch for all the employees would also
help to boost the morale of the team and make them feel valued and cared for (Atmojo 2015).
The strength of this course of action lies in the fact that it will bring all the employees
of an organization together, and strengthen and promote interpersonal relationships. This would
lead to a feeling of appreciation among employees and make them feel cared for and valued
(Atmojo 2015). It would also boost the morale of the team. The weakness of this course of
action lies in the fact that if an employer is planning to show appreciation to one particular
person or a specific group of individuals, it can get lost in these types of celebrations. For
example, a top salesperson who has met the sales target, and a new intern who has just joined the
organization are both rewarded with the same thing. This will lead to the top employee feeling
less valued (Atmojo 2015).
The second course of action that can be taken by employers, is challenging their
subordinates and employees. Every job requires some responsibilities that are mundane in nature.

3CASE STUDY
It is the duty of an employer to balance the mundane work with exciting assignments. One
should balance out mundane assignments with assignments that are challenging in nature. When
an employer only assigns mundane tasks or tasks that are beneath the skill level of employees, an
employer tends to convey the feeling and thought that he or she does not really require the true
and real talent of the employees (Raziq & Maulabakhsh 2015). On the contrary, if an employer
assigns an employee with a challenging task, the message that the employer gives out is that he
or she trusts the employee and has faith in the abilities of an employee. The message that is sent
out by the employer to the employee is the fact that the employer trusts the employee to do a
great job and the employer is assured of the fact that the employee will do a great job (Raziq &
Maulabakhsh 2015).
To make employees feel valued and cared for, it is all right to single them out and
reward them for their achievements and accomplishments but this should be done with
something that will not be given to the rest of the team. For example, the employer could grant
an early leave to the employee or grant the employee a whole day’s leave (Ngirande &Timothy
2014).
The strength of this course of action includes the fact that employees will feel valued
cherished. They will be motivated, focused and deliver to the best of their ability.
The weakness of this course of action includes the fact that there could be a tendency
for employers to end up playing favourites. Thus, an employer should be extremely careful and
ensure that he or she does not end up playing favourites as this could lead to animosity and the
feelings of jealousy in the workplace.

4CASE STUDY
Answer 3: It is pertinent to recognize the contribution of employees individually as
they truly create a difference to the employer and the organization. It is also pertinent to
recognize the employees as individuals (Terera & Ngirande 2014). By recognizing the specific
achievements and accomplishments of employees, the message conveyed is that the employees
truly make a difference to the employer and the organization.
The second recommendation would be that the employer of an organization constantly
finds unique and new ways to challenge employees, even if that means creating new projects
tailored to suit their talents or getting to know what each employee does best and assigning and
allocating tasks accordingly (Terera & Ngirande 2014). Employees can also be given the task of
training those people who have recently joined the office (Atmojo 2015). Giving employees the
responsibility of training the new people who have recently joined office conveys the message
that the employer not only feels that the employee is doing a great job but the employer wants
the new employees who have recently joined the office to inculcate the same values, habits,
qualities, skills that the employee training them possess. This motivates employees to perform
better while at the same time making them feel cherished and valued at the workplace (Terera &
Ngirande 2014). Thus, the employer of an organization can implement each of these suggestions.

5CASE STUDY
REFERENCES:
Atmojo, M., 2015. The influence of transformational leadership on job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, and employee performance. International research journal of
business studies, 5(2).
Bhave, D.P. and Glomb, T.M., 2016. The role of occupational emotional labor requirements on
the surface acting–job satisfaction relationship. Journal of Management, 42(3), pp.722-741.
DeLong, T.J. and Vijayaraghavan, V., 2002. Harrah's Entertainment, Inc: Rewarding Our
People.
Hanaysha, J. and Tahir, P.R., 2016. Examining the effects of employee empowerment,
teamwork, and employee training on job satisfaction. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences,
219, pp.272-282.
Kianto, A., Vanhala, M. and Heilmann, P., 2016. The impact of knowledge management on job
satisfaction. Journal of Knowledge Management, 20(4), pp.621-636.
Ma, X., 2018, July. The effect mechanism of work flexibility on employee job satisfaction. In
Journal of Physics: Conference Series (Vol. 1053, No. 1, p. 012105). IOP Publishing.
Ngirande, H. and Timothy, H.T., 2014. The relationship between leader emotional intelligence
and employee job satisfaction. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(6), p.35.
Petrou, P., Demerouti, E. and Schaufeli, W.B., 2018. Crafting the change: The role of employee
job crafting behaviors for successful organizational change. Journal of Management, 44(5),
pp.1766-1792.
Raziq, A. and Maulabakhsh, R., 2015. Impact of working environment on job satisfaction.
Procedia Economics and Finance, 23, pp.717-725.

6CASE STUDY
Roy, D.F., 2017. “Banana time” job satisfaction and informal interaction. In The Anthropology of
Organisations (pp. 31-41). Routledge.
Terera, S.R. and Ngirande, H., 2014. The impact of rewards on job satisfaction and employee
retention. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 5(1), p.481.