When you spend your days helping others reach their full potential, you don’t often have the chance to reflect on your own success.
But The Ville Resort-Casino’s Learning and Development Coordinator, Bec Hoffensetz finally got her well-earned moment in the spotlight when she was named Queensland Vocational Education Trainer of the Year at the recent 2024 Queensland Training Awards.
“I really wasn’t expecting it. I was super amazed and shocked,” she said.
“It’s humbling. There are so many inspirational trainers that I got to network with at that event, and I just thought ‘No, these people are amazing.’ I guess sometimes you just don’t realise what impact you have yourself.”
Humility aside, Bec’s impact on The Ville team has been profound.
In a little over three years, she’s revolutionised training and development at the entertainment precinct, introducing a number of training programs that have not only made positive change for the business, but more importantly for its people.
“We introduced school-based traineeships, where we employ school-aged students to complete their Certificate III in Hospitality,”
“They get released one day a week from school and come into the workplace as a paid employee and learn the skills from our amazing team, and they get their certificate as well.
“We’ve had so much success from that. We’ve employed 100% of the students that have graduated. Honestly, there’s been some amazing employees from that program. If you ask any of the departments – they were fighting over some of the students when they graduated!”
“I also delivered the Certificate IV in Hospitality as a pathway for some of our people to become leaders, and then last year I developed the Leadership Excellence Program for some of our current and emerging leaders like shift supervisors.
“We had 29 participants in an 11-month program that was all about developing those soft skills, like values, people management, conflict management, and all of that lovely stuff.”
While some of us can take a little bit of time to find our passion, Bec says her love for training fell into place pretty early in her working life.
“I’ve loved training ever since I worked at McDonald’s when I was in high school,” she said.
“You go through a lot of training at McDonald’s, and you become crew trainer, and they really empower you to coach and develop others. I guess that started my love for it.”
Since then, she’s worked in a variety of roles and industries including Commonwealth Bank and for NEATO Employment Services helping people find work. But her dream role at The Ville came about almost by accident.
“When I moved back to Townsville from Brisbane, I got a job as a croupier in the casino to pay for my wedding,” she said.
“Because I’m a trainer and assessor, I’m qualified to deliver training in hospitality, business, and retail, and then having that experience in casino operations meant I knew how to deal all the table games and learned electronic gaming. So, it gave me a really solid foundation to step into this role when the opportunity came about.”
Bec says while the personal accolades like her award win are exciting, by far the biggest reward from her work is the impact she has on others.
“I really love watching other people grow. I have what I call ‘mother ducks’ syndrome’,” she said.
“I don’t have children – I have dogs. But I really feel like all the trainees are kind of my children.”
“When you train, and develop, and coach them in skills and then see them succeed and thrive in a workplace like this, that’s so rewarding.”
“The great thing about being here is that there’s been a real culture shift where people really want more development. They’re asking for more, so that makes the role really easy. You’re not forcing anyone into training.
“You can’t do anything without the people around you. I didn’t do any of this myself. So many of the opportunities that have been given to me have been because others allowed me to develop my career that way.
“I’m really lucky working in a place like this – the people really make it. It feels like family.”