A rendering of Wynn’s proposed Everett casino.
Wynn Resorts has taken laudable steps to transform a culture that allowed sexual misconduct complaints against its founder to remain hidden for decades, women’s rights advocates and business experts say.
And while the company is making progress more than a year after casino mogul Steve Wynn became the first prominent CEO to resign over allegations of sexual misconduct in the #MeToo era, experts say the company could do more to create a new workplace environment.
Wynn Resorts faces Massachusetts gambling regulators Tuesday over the allegations against its former CEO.
The experts praised Wynn Resorts for elevating more women to key leadership posts, including its board of directors. They also applauded the company for ousting every executive who knew about allegations but failed to report them, and creating an independent committee to review sexual harassment claims led by a former Boston police commissioner.
“That sends a message that you’re not going to tolerate enablers. That being silent is going to come back and haunt you,” said Kabrina Krebel Chang, a business law and ethics professor at Boston University.
The company’s new controls are summarized in an 18-page document Wynn Resorts submitted to Massachusetts casino regulators ahead of a critical series of public hearings this week.
Under the new reforms, Wynn Resorts no longer enforces confidentiality in sexual harassment claims, meaning current and former employees can now go public with their claims.
Experts said Wynn Resorts should be commended for new efforts meant to encourage more female leaders in the company, such as launching an internal “women’s leadership council” and commissioning studies to analyze pay differences between male and female workers.
But it also should take other steps, such as making sure women have access to key “stepping-stone jobs” that can lead to leadership roles, said Jennifer Chatman, a management professor at the University of California-Berkeley business school. Women currently make up around a third of company executives, a Wynn spokesperson said.
“The hospitality business doesn’t have some of the gender pipeline inequities of other domains like high tech and investment banking,” she said. “This should be a place where women should have been excelling for some time.”
As it makes internal reforms, Wynn Resorts should make sure it’s not addressing sexual misconduct in isolation, but tackling other common workplace problems, such as racial discrimination, said Maya Raghu, of the National Women’s Law Center, which helped create a legal fund to help women litigate sexual misconduct complaints in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
Starting Tuesday, the Massachusetts Gaming Commission is holding hearings to release and discuss findings from its months-long investigation into how the company handled the misconduct allegations, which Steve Wynn has strongly denied.
The hearings have implications for the company’s state casino license and the $2.6 billion luxury resort just outside Boston it’s slated to open in June.
Wynn Resorts recently went through a similar process in Nevada, where it was handed a record $20 million fine but allowed to keep its license.
Regardless of what happens in Massachusetts, only time will tell how much the company has truly changed, said advocate Gina Scaramella.
As director of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, she was among the prominent local voices calling for the company to remove Steve Wynn’s name from its Massachusetts casino. The company ultimately did, re-christening the Everett development Encore Boston Harbor.
Since the scandal broke, Scaramella’s organization has hosted harassment trainings and helped review internal harassment policies for Wynn’s local casino staff. She said she’s encouraged by what she’s seen so far.
“I get the sense that they want to do this right,” Scaramella said. “The proof will be in how it’s implemented. We’ll be watching.”
