When much of the world shut down last year because of COVID, Aristocrat allowed employees to cash in their personal time off or donate it to others.
This month, the company voluntarily raised minimum pay at all its U.S. facilities to $15 an hour. And it broke ground this month on a new 300-employee operations center in Tulsa., Okla., that will service customers in the United States, Canada, Latin America, and Europe.
While those moves might seem like routine business decisions, Deanne McKissick says they reflect something deeper: Aristocrat’s commitment to employees and customers.
“There’s a huge belief that if we take care of our employees, our employees will take care of our customers,” said McKissick, Aristocrat’s senior vice president for customer order execution. She oversees order management and supply chain operations in the Americas, but the title of her office is a subtle reminder of the company’s emphasis.
“It’s really to get everybody that’s related to processing an order to think about the customer,” she explained. “It was very intentional to get everyone to think about ‘how am I executing my customers’ orders?’”
Aristocrat is one of the top gaming suppliers in the world, with more than 6,000 employees, operations in more than 80 countries and gaming licenses in more than 300 jurisdictions. Its Class II and Class III slot titles include player favorites such as the Buffalo series, Dragon Link, and Lightning Link.
McKissick, who’s been with Aristocrat for six years after stints at Hewlett Packard and Compaq, said she saw the company’s commitments intensify steadily in that time, but especially last year.
“As we went through COVID, I think that was a crystallizing moment for all of us as a global community but also as a company,” she said. “It really became about making sure that we were doing right by our employees and their families, making sure they were safe, making sure that they had what they needed as we went through the lockdown and quarantines.”
In addition to the options for using PTO, the company continued to cover medical and other benefits for employees who had to be furloughed as the gaming industry virtually stopped. The company helped workers apply for financial aid; sponsored collection drives for food, medicine, and household essentials; provided career and emotional support; and assisted those who could work remotely, even providing monitors and ergonomic chairs when needed.
After about three months, “we had to flip it and turn everything back on,” McKissick said. Manufacturing crews returned first, but under newly established masking and cleaning protocols.
When casinos began to reopen, Aristocrat tech teams helped them reconfigure gaming floors to allow for social distancing and turning some machines off.
The new Tulsa Operations Center will offer a consolidated campus for the 300 employees of VGT Class II Innovations by Aristocrat Gaming and will house light manufacturing, a warehouse, and office space. The warehouse is to be completed in the winter, and the office space by spring.
“By building in Tulsa, it’s a commitment to stay in that community and continue to provide jobs,” McKissick said. “It is a commitment to continue to invest in the Oklahoma community and the tribal communities that reside there.”
The $15-per-hour minimum wage applies to workers in manufacturing, logistics, technical services, and general administrative support, among others. Other benefits include a no-cost medical, dental, and vision plan option starting on the first day of hire; a 100 percent 401(K) match on up to 4 percent of a worker’s pay; 12 weeks of 100 percent paid maternity leave; an adoption/surrogacy reimbursement program; gender reassignment benefits; and pet insurance.
McKissick said Aristocrat’s leadership team “all the way up to our C suite” is committed to diversity and inclusion. She added that 50 percent of staffers reporting directly to the group CEO are women, and 40 percent of Aristocrat’s board of directors are women. Both percentages are notably high for the industry.
“To me, it’s about diversity of thought and hiring people with different backgrounds, different educations, different experiences, and then creating an environment where everybody’s included and feels safe to provide their feedback,” she said.
As one step to help ensure that, Aristocrat has established several “employee impact groups” designed to assist women, people of color, LGBTQ staffers, veterans, and other groups.
“Our priority through all of last year was our employees first, then our customers, and then our business,” McKissick said. “And we’ve seen great strides come from that, because by investing in your employees and investing in your customers, your customers take care of your business.”
