Meet Becca, HR Business Partner at Good Group Hospitality

Oct 17, 2023

Meet Becca McBride, HR Business Partner for Good Group Hospitality NZ, and this month’s Employee of Choice as nominated by Good Group Hospitality NZ! Becca comes with a wealth of international experience, bringing us insights into her own journey and the wisdom she’s found along the way. 

 

Tell us a bit about yourself – how did you get into hospitality? And how did you find yourself in your current role? 

I've been in hospitality since I was 14 back in Scotland - starting off in a cafe for a couple of years whilst still at school, before moving into a bar. A short break working for an insurance company for 2 years made me realise where my passion lay. 

Over the years, my experience has predominantly been bar focussed. I ran the bar, functions, and events at a rugby club where I come from in Scotland, before heading overseas to Australia where I expanded my knowledge in cocktail bars. Upon arriving in New Zealand in 2015, I began my Good Group career at Harbourside Ocean Bar Grill where I started as a bartender, before quickly progressing to bar manager, and then on to the floor as a duty manager. 

After a few months on the floor, I was offered the incredible opportunity to move to Queenstown for a Venue Manager role, with the opening of White + Wong’s. It was a challenge as it was my first VM role, but it was an amazing venture, creating a fantastic team and learning so much along the way. After a year, it was time to move back to the big smoke to open our next, and biggest, White + Wong's, on the rooftop in Westfield Newmarket. 

Having survived the Covid years here and creating one of the top hot spots in Newmarket, I decided it was time for my next challenge and to take a step off the floor. I was offered the opportunity to stay within the group and move into an HR role based in head office. This was something I had never thought about doing before. It is an amazing opportunity to develop within the company and learn something new, whilst utilising my skills and knowledge from the 8+ years in Good Group to help others grow and reach their potential.

 

What do you love most about working in your venue?

I love the growth that Good Group offers – as I’m sure you can tell from my personal experience with moving up the chain of command! I’m very passionate about creating a great culture, and that is something we pride ourselves on – caring about our people. When we find those hospo-born superstars, we hold on to them, and it is amazing to see how much people can achieve within our group. Being a continuously growing company, the opportunities for development are endless! Having now opened venues in Sydney and Melbourne, and soon-to-be Canberra, we have had some staff moving over to Australia to undertake more senior roles. Good Group have proven to be a very stable company to be employed with. Taking hospitality seriously, but not too seriously to forget how to have fun!

 

What skills have you developed since working in hospitality?

The main one would be confidence. When I was at school, I was very shy, not even able to do a class presentation. Whilst working in a rugby club, as I’m sure you can imagine, meant I had to step out of my comfort zone massively to control the rowdy lads! Then throughout the years, I have slowly built up more and more confidence and self-belief to be where I am today. 

Now running trainings and staff inductions for Good Group, I have proved to myself I am capable with public speaking (albeit there’s still a way to go!), and leading workshops, which makes me proud of what I have achieved personally. 

 

What are you looking to improve in the future? 

I am very interested in learning more on the immigration side of things, which constantly changes. Since I've been through the visa process multiple times myself, I understand how confusing and frustrating it can be at times. I'd love to get a handle on that to help our amazing international people who work in our venues stay.

 

What advice would you give to someone considering a career in hospitality with Good Group?

Hospitality is an amazing industry to work in. With Good Group, there are so many different restaurants, positions, but everyone still has the same goal in mind. 

No day is going to be the same. The buzz that you get from a busy service is like no other, to then sit down with a drink after the service with all your colleagues – (even if you had a disagreement during the middle of the service!) everyone just forgets about it and moves on.

From dealing with different personalities and different cultures, it shows that hospitality is an amazing industry to help you understand how different everyone can be. Your management style [changes] - the way you speak to one person won’t work but it will work for the other person. It is about adapting different techniques in dealing with different people. 

At Good Group you make little pockets of family from your team – friends from all over the world and friends you’ll keep for a lifetime! 

 

What changes in the hospo environment/culture have you noticed over time?

After Covid we have noticed a lack of international high-quality talent coming through. Without the working holiday visas we were previously used to in hospo, a lot of the jobs are with younger inexperienced individuals. Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing calibres there as well, but we just miss the multi-cultural environment!

In terms of clientele, our lunches have been a bit quieter due to a large volume of corporates working from home now, but we definitely still make up for that on our packed evening shifts! 

What do you love most about working in hospitality?

Hospitality is all about the people - from the person who just walked in through the door for the first time, a returning customer, or the staff. It's about building those relationships and enjoying hearing about different people’s take on things; hearing their life stories...it’s all about the people. 

When you think about hospitality, you think of happy people laughing, ‘cheersing’, eating whilst the staff hustle and bustle around. That's really the culture that Good Group promote, if we have happy staff, we’ll have happy customers.

*Images from White + Wong's Newmarket