Award great, Peppermill says, but information is better

Peppermill Hotel and Casino became only the second company in Nevada to receive the highest honor of the Governor's Award for Performance Excellence the Silver State since the awards were instituted in 2001.

More important, Peppermill executives say,was the close look that they took at their operations as part of the application process.

The Governor's Award is a tiered system with four levels.

Peppermill had entered the 2005 awards at the highest level and won it in its first attempt.

It also received a special award for community support.

The state program is modeled after the national Malcolm Baldrige Award established by Congress in 1987 to enhance competitiveness and performance of U.S.

businesses.

Applicants are evaluated by an independent board in leadership, strategic planning, customer and market focus, information and analysis, human resource, process management and results.

To apply for the highest level is daunting.

Applicants provide 50 pages of detailed analyses of their operations and services, said Fred Schwager, a member of the board of directors at Nevada Quality Alliance, a nonprofit that manages and sponsors the award program.

But the returns are big.

"Studied programs at the national level have shown that business improvement from using the Malcolm Baldrige criterion is huge," Schwager said.

Doug Ferrari, director of corporate culture at Peppermill agrees.

Though it's tough to put in all the information together within 50 pages, it's a great process that allowed Reno's casino and hotel to take a critical look at the various areas of its operations, Ferrari said.

In fact the Nevada Quality Alliance will sum up the details of the Peppermill's performance and provide it with OFI shorthand for "Opportunity for Improvement."

"And that would allow us to continue to refine what we've already been doing," Ferrari said.

"Being awarded is nice, but what it really does is allow us to improve."

Though Peppermill executives have yet to see details, Ferrari expects that the company scored highly in guest service and amenities, employee satisfaction, innovations and strategic planning.

The company continuously gets feedback from the customers, and a California firm conducts survey on the employees' attitude and loyalty.

The research shows that the company scores 20 points higher than the national averages, Ferrari added.

In the area of strategic planning, the Peppermill team went through its new expansion plan with the board of examiners, and Ferrari believes that definitely helped it to get a lot of points.Also, it scored on innovation, being the first company in northern Nevada to bring in 100 percent coinless slots.

He said, however, the company may have scored less highly in portions of the analysis that are more commonly get the attention of manufacturing companies analysis such as reduction of defects.

Peppermill is in the early stages of discussing whether to go for the national award in the coming years.

But then it's playing against big multinationals such as FedEx and applications cost about $90,000, Ferrari added.