Tehassi Hill, Chairman
Oneida Nation
Oneida, WI
oneidacasinohotel.com / oneida-nsn.gov
When our new business committee came in, we were determined to go through nation building as a part of our strategic planning. There are five basic tenants to nation building – transformational leadership, strategic outlook, strong governing systems, cultural relevancy, and sovereignty. We are looking through those five different lenses to determine how best to meet the needs of our community.
As it relates to our economic strategy, we are working to determine the long-term needs of our community regarding wages, cost of living, and so on. Our goal is to identify a family-sustaining wage and reduce reliance on tribal economic support services by providing the jobs, training, and education necessary for our families to succeed.
Our gaming enterprise has been focused on employee retention and satisfaction. We cannot have a first-class gaming enterprise, hospitality and entertainment without having employees commanding the frontline positions. It is also important to be able to retain, train, and move those employees up the management ladder if they so choose to take that direction. We have taken the time to reinvest, do surveys and look at wages and recommendations from the employees themselves. Our gaming enterprise just put up an online suggestion box for employees to utilize to suggest improvements for our organization.
Over this past year, we have transitioned from a Radisson Hotel to what is now the Oneida Hotel. That transition has come under the gaming management team in order to have more responsive customer service and meet the needs of our gaming patrons. That has been in transition for about a year now, and we are working to ensure that the necessary systems and contracts are in place, properly structured, and appropriately scaled for both the gaming facility and the hotel. We have also had a gaming expansion project on deck for a while now, so we are in the process of reevaluating how to get such a project before our general tribal council in order to gain support for moving forward with what would be a pretty major expansion to the gaming facility.
