Although there are a large number of casinos worldwide, it must be taken into consideration that the relevant surveillance departments tend to have low manning levels. These low staffed departments are generally inherent to the industry and is typical of most CCTV control rooms in terms of manning and staffing levels. With this comes to two headaches; career advancement and career development for surveillance operators.
Career Development: This is where I think that the USA has the greatest advantage in terms of offering opportunities for surveillance staff career development in that there is a constant source of seminars, conferences, workshops and other educational facilities. There is also a wealth of consultants, specialists, trainers and the like who are available to train and contribute to the development of surveillance staff as opposed to other countries where such educational resources are often limited and not in high demand.
With this big positive comes a negative, not all staff members are given the opportunities to attend or to better themselves from this goldmine of knowledge. The reasons are many and varied, such as restrictive training budgets, no staff replacements, costs, no appropriate training policies, etc. Other casinos offer in house training or merely send the surveillance staff to sit in and watch dealer training. This in itself is not the answer; the surveillance operator needs to be trained on a different level than the dealer.
On the staff members’ side, many do not have the ambition or personal motivation to better themselves. They see other long term operators being promoted, who are as ignorant as they are but have time in service, and so the mindset for achieving, self enrichment, adding skills and knowledge is dampened. Yes, the company does contribute towards this with their various policies, in that they don’t encourage staff to better themselves.
Many, many surveillance operators do not have current knowledge of their immediate working environment. They are not aware of issues such as new CCTV technology, new card counting camouflage techniques or where to access online surveillance enrichment courses, etc. Surveillance managers are often perceived as not encouraging and developing an environment where their staff, or rather the staff who are motivated, are able to take advantage of training and learning opportunities.
But, at the end of the day, it all boils down to self initiative and personal motivation and this is where the companies response is so vital, they need to recognise those staff who are attempting to better themselves within the industry. Recognising them can take many forms, such as; allowing them first option with promotions, unique training courses or any other opportunity which will allow them to take advantage of their knowledge and in so doing; this will have a positive impact on the rest of the staff.
Career Development: This is where I think that the USA has the greatest advantage in terms of offering opportunities for surveillance staff career development in that there is a constant source of seminars, conferences, workshops and other educational facilities. There is also a wealth of consultants, specialists, trainers and the like who are available to train and contribute to the development of surveillance staff as opposed to other countries where such educational resources are often limited and not in high demand.
With this big positive comes a negative, not all staff members are given the opportunities to attend or to better themselves from this goldmine of knowledge. The reasons are many and varied, such as restrictive training budgets, no staff replacements, costs, no appropriate training policies, etc. Other casinos offer in house training or merely send the surveillance staff to sit in and watch dealer training. This in itself is not the answer; the surveillance operator needs to be trained on a different level than the dealer.
On the staff members’ side, many do not have the ambition or personal motivation to better themselves. They see other long term operators being promoted, who are as ignorant as they are but have time in service, and so the mindset for achieving, self enrichment, adding skills and knowledge is dampened. Yes, the company does contribute towards this with their various policies, in that they don’t encourage staff to better themselves.
Many, many surveillance operators do not have current knowledge of their immediate working environment. They are not aware of issues such as new CCTV technology, new card counting camouflage techniques or where to access online surveillance enrichment courses, etc. Surveillance managers are often perceived as not encouraging and developing an environment where their staff, or rather the staff who are motivated, are able to take advantage of training and learning opportunities.
But, at the end of the day, it all boils down to self initiative and personal motivation and this is where the companies response is so vital, they need to recognise those staff who are attempting to better themselves within the industry. Recognising them can take many forms, such as; allowing them first option with promotions, unique training courses or any other opportunity which will allow them to take advantage of their knowledge and in so doing; this will have a positive impact on the rest of the staff.
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2 comments:
100% agree with author about different training which must be given to surveillance staff in the casinos
100% agree with author about different then dealers training for casino surveillance staff.And my opinion is that casino surveillance must be trained from zero especially as a casino surveillance,not be taken from live game dept.
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