Golden arches,
golden opportunities.

It's not just a job or a business, it's a calling, many say.

As McDonald’s seek to add to their nationwide staff numbers of over 10,000 people, three show how the company has shaped their lives.

Dave Howse says he got more of a university education at McDonald’s than he did at university.

That might sound a little like a dig at universities but, when you realise that Howse is now Managing Director of McDonald’s New Zealand and their 170-plus outlets, it makes more sense – and is a vivid illustration of the opportunities that can spring from even a humble job at McDonald’s.

Howse got his start as a teenager and remembers his first task well: cutting tomatoes. This story looks at the different people who come to McDonald’s for different reasons. They may end up in different places (professionally and geographically) – but all credit McDonald’s with giving them something they previously didn’t have.

There are three broad categories of people who pass through the golden arches with a career in mind, rather than a burger and chips: those who start small but find a big career path; those who work for a time but leave to go somewhere else – imbued with professional skills that serve them well; and those who enter as a part-timer and end up being much more than that.

The MD.

You could call Dave Howse’s a rags-to-riches story. That’s because he first joined McDonald’s over 30 years ago, as a schoolboy in search of more laughs: “I was working part-time in a supermarket. Some of my mates were working at McDonald’s and they were having way more laughs; a much better time. So I joined too.”

That fun and humour element is still very much a part of working at McDonald’s, he says. “People working there develop friendships and even relationships.”

He should know – Howse met his wife Prue at McDonald’s. She worked for the company for 25 years and, in what sounds like the beginning of a script for a coming-of-age movie, they met when Howse was working in the kitchen and Prue at the drive-thru.

“I became really passionate about McDonald’s and working there,” Howse says. “In the beginning, it was a great, fun place to work and I was constantly given more responsibility than a 16 or 17-year-old theoretically should have.”

“I was leading six or seven people and it was a fantastic experience for me, taught me a lot in a short time” he says.

“It’s not like I was at McDonald’s exclusively; I started university and began an economics degree. I was working at McDonald’s part-time and then more and more. It got to the point where I had to make a choice. I was becoming fully engaged at McDonald’s and they wanted to make me a full-time manager.

“So it dawned on me - I was getting more of a university degree out of McDonald’s than I was in university.”

So Howse went full-time: “I decided I was going to give it a red-hot go; that was going to be my career. McDonald’s were already teaching me so much about leadership and management, it was very persuasive to be pitched into that much responsibility that quickly – I was learning life skills I could never have learned at university.”

When you talk to people who are working or have worked at McDonald’s, that same sentiment keeps cropping up. McDonald’s aren’t just looking for casual staff, even though they are a mainstay of the industry – they want people who can lead others and build a career either as franchisees themselves or in McDonald’s corporate ranks.

Howse puts it this way: “If you have the energy and the motivation, McDonald’s will give you the opportunities.”

Again, he should know. His start came in his native Melbourne in 1984 and, over the years, he worked for a franchisee, rising to General Manager of his four restaurants. In 1999, he moved into the corporate side of McDonald's and, after various roles, was offered a job in New Zealand in 2006 as Director of Operations.

Then came the travel – he accepted a position in Sydney, before heading over to Johannesburg in South Africa for two and a half years as Senior Director of Operations there – and he jokes that he’s the only McDonald’s person he knows who has worked in the Tri-Nations (the rugby competition involving New Zealand, Australia and South Africa).

Then it was back to Sydney and another role before, in 2016, he became New Zealand Managing Director in charge of McDonald’s 170-plus outlets and over 10,000 staff.

Now, as McDonald’s seek more staff, Howse views his own beginnings as proof that anyone with the right outlook can join the famous brand and discover a career they didn’t know they could have: “Everyone comes to McDonald’s for whatever reasons,” he says. “You could be a student who really wants the flexible hours to fit in with your study.

“You could just want to work in McDonald’s for your own reasons, just as a holiday job. We don’t mind that – we find those people tend to be high-energy individuals who either come back time and again or they discover, like I did, that the company will put many, many opportunities in front of you.

“Looking back, I don’t think I was the best employee to start with. I can remember clear as day cutting those tomatoes on my first day, wearing my paper hat and the uniform. On Saturdays, I was in the kitchen, cooking fries, with the franchisee riding shotgun in the beginning, making sure I didn’t set the place on fire. But that same franchisee was amazingly supportive – exposing me to his business and his world.

“And that’s what happens”.

The Fledgling Flight Attendant.

Generation Z – the ones born roughly from the mid-1990s to 2012 – make up roughly a third of the workforce globally and probably more than that at any one time in the McDonald’s workforce.

They are characterised, Howse says, by wanting to work for an inclusive employer, with fair representation for everyone, and a firm eye on work-life balance though they are more competitive than the millennials – the group who precede them in the workforce.

“They are genuinely trying to get ahead in the world,” he says, “and they look for a company that is trying to do the right thing when it comes to sustainability, equality and opportunity.”

Enter Jade Garrett-Nunn. Just 18 and in a gap year after leaving Papatoetoe High School, she is representative of many of the young people who work at McDonald’s.

She is deciding whether to train as a flight attendant – particularly now there are clear signs of the travel and tourism industry getting back on its feet – or whether to begin a university interior design degree course.

But she is also an illustration of the very thing that attracted Howse to the company and kept him there: fun and opportunity.

“I haven’t made up my mind whether to do interior design or to train as a flight attendant,” she says. “I’m doing a gap year mostly because, when the pandemic struck, the timing in trying to be a flight attendant didn’t seem quite right – it was hard to see what would happen in the future.

“But I also love the idea of interior design. When my mum was selling her house recently, I did all the internal planning and making sure everything was set up for the real estate agent and so possible buyers would see it looking its best.”

Garrett-Nunn has a third option: McDonald’s. “My experience there has been great – there are so many friendly people and the skills and knowledge I have gathered already has been fantastic. I have learned so much about leadership and customer service and they are already talking about me becoming a Crew Trainer and then a Manager.”

However, fun has also been a big factor in enjoying her work, as it should be for an 18-year-old. Garrett-Nunn has worked through some of the intense periods of the pandemic – like the intensity of the days when lockdown restrictions were eased to allow takeaways and the queues of cars waiting for drive-thru became well-known photographs.

She was also present for those rare moments when there were no customers in McDonald’s restaurants: “It was strange but it was good too…there was a lot of joking and laughs when we were down to just drive-thru and we all pitched in to help prepare food – and we played a lot of music and even had some dance sessions in-store.”

Garrett-Nunn says customer service skills have been the biggest single advance she’s made so far, particularly if she becomes a flight attendant: “There was one episode where a customer tried to come in without a vaccination certificate. Things got a bit tense as we explained that it would not be fair if we let them in without a certificate.

“So we stuck to our rules – but we managed to advise them that they could go through drive-thru without a vaccination certificate. That’s what it’s all about, really, finding options, finding ways to give the customer what they want.”

She says she will almost certainly return to McDonald’s, even if just for holiday work if she is in tertiary education – and that is another characteristic of working for McDonald’s…those who come back.

The Assistant Restaurant Manager.

That’s where Tiffani Waghorn comes in. She is Assistant Restaurant Manager at one of McDonald’s South Auckland outlets, starting there in 2014 as a Year 13 student in a holiday job to pick up some extra money. She stayed on.

She is also living proof that other companies regard McDonald’s training as a desirable asset. “I ended up being asked to do a lot for an 18-year-old and was trained up to take over departments like health and safety, crew training and product quality. She undertook McDonald’s management training and loved it.

“But I felt, after a while, that I’d had my go at McDonald’s,” she says. “I wanted to move on, to try other things – so I did.”

It was a bit of an eye-opener. Waghorn moved into retail at an airport store, managing the operation there. Straight away, she noticed the difference.

“When I was being interviewed, I noticed how much notice they took of the fact I had been trained by McDonald’s,” she says. “It was clearly an advantage to me.”

Then she found out why. The store had none of McDonald’s clear, structured approach to business or everyday operations. She left and took up another position in one of a chain of natural cosmetic, skincare and perfume stores. That too did not measure up to McDonald’s.

She decided on a complete change of career, aiming to study midwifery – but a close family member became sick and she shelved her plans.

“That family member passed and I found myself waiting for the school year to start again so I could start training as a midwife,” she says. “So I found myself back at the same McDonald’s where I started – and I thought I would go full-time and just see how it went.”

It went exceedingly well: “The first day back, I felt like life was back to normal. I was kind of…home.”

Now Waghorn is planning a career path, aiming to be a Restaurant Manager and, while she is not thinking of being a franchisee yet, hasn’t ruled it out either.

“I can see real potential in McDonald’s for me; they set things up so well and there are so many pathways to take.”

Her one and only problem is that her McDonald’s restaurant already has a Restaurant Manager, whom she likes enormously. The franchisee owns two stores and Waghorn similarly has a soft spot for the franchisee.

Often moving up the McDonald’s ladder means having to shift stores but Waghorn loves it where she is and hopes not to have to move – and maybe be in charge there one day.

Now 25 and with a young daughter, she knows how much she’s learned in a short time: “I think the biggest thing I’ve learned is about business. I look at some of the results and go, ‘Wow, these are really, really big numbers we are achieving and we learn so much about sales, communications, customer service and costs’.

“I haven’t found this level of satisfaction or knowledge anywhere else – and that has to be good for you.”