How MGM is Upskilling their Frontline Employees for Leadership Roles

MGM wants to provide upskilling opportunities to 82,000 employees

Most people think of Vegas as an entertainment destination, but for the casinos that are trying to attract and retain talent, it's more about competition. As Lisa Zweber-Smith, VP of Diversity and Inclusion, explains, "When you work in an environment like Las Vegas, people have opportunities to choose different employers, but they stay because you invest in them."

MGM decided that if they were going to invest in their employees, they needed to invest in every member of their workforce, not just those in managerial roles. As the largest private employer in the entire state of Nevada, and with 82,000 employees globally, that goal was ambitious to say the least.

Providing opportunities beyond the 9-to-5

While in-person workshops provide tremendous value, they only provide that value to the people who can attend them. Since the majority of MGM's employees are frontline workers, who don't always have a traditional 9-to-5 schedule, the diversity and inclusion team knew they needed to take a systematic approach that could be used by anyone at any time.

MGM needed to think about the table games operator who works the night shift, the guest room attendant who tends to rooms all morning, and even the marine biologist who cares for the animals at their Mandalay Bay aquarium.

By building their program around LinkedIn Learning, they could guarantee that the opportunities they provided could be accessed by everyone in the organization. And, with a library of 15,000+ professionally produced courses, the MGM team could be certain that there was something useful for every employee.

The program, which they called LEAD (Learning Experiences Accelerate Development), had several components that made it successful. It was divided into three tiers, with each tier progressively building on the skills that the learner would need going forward. It also included a social learning component to keep learners accountable, and it will eventually include certifications that learners can use to demonstrate proficiency in the skills they develop.

Using LinkedIn Learning to acquire leadership skills

One of the most challenging career progressions is moving from an individual contributor to a people manager, and this is even more true for people moving out of frontline roles into management. Before Renee Wainwright, currently a Business Consultant for MGM International, joined the diversity and inclusion team, she experienced this first-hand. She began her career in Las Vegas as a sales associate in a golf store. As she rose through the organization, she used LinkedIn Learning to help upskill herself. 

Renee told us, "Learning helped me shape the type of person that I wanted to be in the role that I was taking on. I've been a line level employee, a mid-level manager, and then I was an actual leader of a team. I think that I've honed my skills with LinkedIn Learning to achieve that."

Once Renee joined the D&I team, her job became to evaluate the content of the LEAD program. To do so, she needed to go through the three tiers of the program herself. 

In order to systematize how they coach learners through the transition from individual contributor to a leadership position, the MGM team built a 3-tier curriculum.

Each of these tiers is paired with a different LinkedIn Learning curriculum. For example, when Renee was going through the program, she was required to watch videos about "covering." 

The video was very eye opening and taught her that, "you don't know what somebody is going through. They may show up smiling and happy and doing a great job, but they may be having hard times. It taught me was there's room for us to be human and that we have to humanize our experience in leadership roles."

Using the content she learned from LinkedIn Learning, she was able to have a candid conversation with her mentor about the hard times she was having. They could discuss these issues openly and it led to Renee actually taking on a leadership role which she excelled at.

Applying Skills with Social Learning

As most L&D leaders know, providing opportunities is only the first step in the upskilling process. Lisa explains, "we knew giving employees the chance to practice the skills was critical." To help provide an environment for this practice, the D&I team used an online social learning environment.

Lisa explains that learners needed to, "complete assignments where they're either working with their coach to get feedback on how well they're doing or engaging with others on the social platform with insights that they're gaining. Then they go back to work and apply the skills that they're developing."

Using LinkedIn Learning also helped bring their organization closer together since learners would frequently be paired with peer mentors from other MGM properties to discuss courses. For instance, a learner from Las Vegas would need to work with a peer from Detroit, which they could easily do since both had access to the same LinkedIn Learning content.

Creating certifications for advancement

So far the program has been incredibly well received and has led to multiple graduates getting promotions. One way that the MGM team wants to formalize the process that is happening organically is by creating their own skill certifications.

Their vision is that once an employee completes all three tiers of the program, they would take an assessment that defines their level of proficiency in key skills, which can be shared during the interview process. These certifications of skill proficiency would help the hiring manager understand how well suited the employee might be for the role, as well as let them know that this candidate has taken an active role in his or her development.

The team is currently building out the certification program, but even without the certifications, the program has already helped graduates open up new career opportunities.