Professional Identity and Practice

This document discusses the importance of professional identity and practice in the hospitality sector, specifically focusing on the role of a waiter. It explores the skills required for success in the job and how waitressing can enhance transferable skills for future career prospects. The document also provides a step-by-step guide to creating a personal and professional development plan.

Running head: PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PRACTICE
Professional Identity and Practice
Name of Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

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Part A:
The Saray Restaurant is specialised in authentic Turkish cuisine, serving guests in
South-East London since 2015. The family that owns the restaurant has had more than 20
years of experience in the hospitality sector, and they pride themselves on producing
authentic dishes from the Mediterranean. The word Saray means Palace in Turkish, and that
is where the restaurant has gotten their inspiration from for their menu items. The restaurant
keeps a focus on providing top standard hospitality paired with their wonderful Turkish food.
Many reviewers of the restaurant have said that the quality of food is very good and authentic
and many have promised that they will definitely be coming back to the restaurant.
Being a waiter, regardless of what hotel one is working in, there are many basic skills
that need to be adopted to succeed in the job. One of the first things that an aspiring waiter
should know about is to have good personal presentation skills because waiters are
considered to be the face of the restaurant. It is of utmost priority that the waiter is not shabby
and not wearing clothes that are creased or stained but is maintaining the appropriate attire
and look as required. The people that come to dine at the restaurant are looking for hygienic
conditions in the restaurant, and if the condition of the person serving their food were
unpleasant then they would not want to eat the food (Volkema and Kapoutsis 2016). It is also
important for the waiter to be a people’s person so that he or she can be cordial and
hospitable while interacting with the guests. An ideal server will always use docile terms
when he or she is addressing the guests such as, ‘sir’, ‘ma’am’ and ‘miss’. The waiter should
make sure that the response to any question asked by the guests are polite, gentle and
factually correct. With a restaurant being high end such as Saray, the employer will be
looking to find profound knowledge of the menu from its servers in the restaurant. It is
important for the waiter to understand the operations of the restaurant inside and out (Omair

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et al. 2015). With this attained skill, the waiter will be able to interact freely with the guests
by engaging the guests with the true sense of the restaurant.
Waitressing can be considered one of the jobs that help the employees gain
transferable skills that will enhance future career prospects. There are many valuable skills
that can help the individual in becoming a better professional in with other careers. Customer
service is one of the most obvious trait that the waiter will get better at through their tenure at
the restaurant (Alhelalat et al. 2017). This will basically teach the waiter how to get people to
like them, and that is a great skill to have when working other jobs (Dixon, Miscuraca and
Koutroumanis 2018). The guests of a restaurant do not get to witness this, but waiters are
running around in the back of the restaurant trying to get all the orders out on time. Even
though getting food to a table may not seem like a high-pressure situation, but the fact that
the waiters still feel like it is will help them reach their boss’s deadlines in other lines of
work. The skill of being able to pay close attention to details will be helpful in all lines of
work, and that is something a waiter will develop as they are in charge of everything from
silverware to salt and pepper shakers. Along with time management skills, a waiter can also
develop a skill to be able to multitask – both of which will be helpful in enhancing further
career prospects.
Humanistic theory focuses on the individual’s inner growth capacity and self-
fulfilment with an emphasis being on the human potential. The CEO of Raytheon, Bill
Swanson had developed The Waiter Theory (Lebowitz 2015) where there is one rule that he
had mentioned which he claims that never fails. This rule states that a lot can be said about a
person through the way they treat a waiter who is serving them – a person who is nice to their
known associates but is rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. There is always an
opportunity to learn from the people that an individual crosses paths with, regardless of the
other’s income or title (Nel et al. 2018). Being a waiter can help immensely in personal

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development that can be applied professionally as well, because the waiter will know the true
scenario of how people are behaving and will be able to figure out their own ways in tackling
the situation, whether in a restaurant or in their future career opportunities. It is important for
one to have a positive self-concept so that they can be accepting and have empathy towards
people that require help. The theory of network learning is described as the process of
developing and being able to maintain connections with people, and being able to
communicate in a way that can support the learning or someone else. Social learning theory is
based on the perception that individuals are able to learn from one another through the
process of observation, modelling and imitation. The mere observation of a certain type of
behaviour and the consequences of such behaviour will lead to learning (Wellton, Jonsson
and Walter 2018). This proves very beneficial to a waiter because their job requires them to
interact with various different kinds of people and have a first-hand experience of different
kinds of personalities as well.
The following are the two models developed to self evaluate one’s hard and soft
skills:
Hard Skills
1. The level of my education is…
2. I have achieved the following degrees and certificates….
3. I have received awards and recognition for….
4. I am aware of how to operate the following machines…
5. I am able to use the following software programs…
6. I have passed the following aptitude tests…
Soft Skills
Is this true? Not
True
Sometime
s Usually Always
1. I can work well as a part of a
team.
2. I am able to resolve

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interpersonal conflict.
3. I have strong work ethic.
4. I am able to adapt to new
situation.
5. I am able to solve problems
effectively.
6. I have good attention to
detail.
7. I can look at the bigger
picture in most situations.
8. I am able to create a plan of
action.
9. I keep my commitments.
10. I am able to stay patient.
It will be useful to note that hard skills are very easily evaluated for any given
candidate, but that cannot be held true when evaluating one’s soft skills. The tables given
above are a similar example to what an achievement tasks aims to find out, however they are
not as good at evaluating soft skills because many components that are valued in the labour
market, are not being able to be captured.
A writer for the Southern New Hampshire University has come up with a plan to
create professional and personal development which I found very interesting and would like
to apply to my own personal and professional growth (2018). The first step ask the individual
to clearly define what he or she would want their desired result would be and what their
motivation for achieving that result is. The second step is to determine what the required
skills are to achieve the desired outcome; this step will require the individual to list down all
the possible areas for development to occur in. The third step is asking the individual to
perform a self-assessment of all the skills that are inbuilt in them naturally, and the one that
they want to work on. The fourth step would be to isolate one skill on which the individual
would want to focus on first; it does not matter if the skill is obvious or if it is challenging –
setting the goal is what the step focuses on. The final step is developing an action plan. By

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doing this, the individual will be able to figure out what their success will look like and be
able to put a subsequent plan in place to achieve that goal. An easier way for executing the
plan is to follow “SMART” as a method to determines the goals – an individual should make
plans that are “Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Rewarding and Time-bound” (Wallis 2018).

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Part B:
As mentioned in Part A, the first part deals with defining the results and motivations
(Wallis 2018). This step creates the vision that is required for personal development to take
place. My desired result is to be able to first, get the job at Saray restaurant and then be able
to carry out my job as effectively as it is required of me. Since my goal is not to remain a
waiter for the rest of my career life, my motivation for getting and being able to keep this job
is so that I can develop the skills like customer service, better communication and time
management from the serving job for my future career prospects. Being in the service
industry is one of the biggest positives considered by many employers as they are then able to
judge the candidate and conclude that they are able to do the job effectively. This step is very
important because it will be able to motivate me by telling me exactly why I want to improve
myself, and keep me thinking about the bigger picture in my life.
The second step asks the individual to determine what skills are required for the job
that they want at that moment (Wallis 2018). In my situation, the job I want to get is that of a
waiter at the Saray restaurant and for this, the requirement of my skills are hospitable,
knowledgeable about the restaurant and menu, being able to multitask, efficient management
of time and pay great attention to detail. This step is important because it enables me to really
put into context what skills I would be required to achieve if I want to succeed in the job, and
then I will be able to explore all the possible ways that I can achieve this development. Most
of these skills that I would require to have are ones that I will be developing by working as a
waiter in the Saray restaurant. It is going to be important to note that even though one of my
goals is to successfully land the job at the restaurant, I still need to work closely to my goal of
being able to achieve these skills because they are not going to be just handed to me once I
get the job.

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The third step asks me to perform a skills assessment of myself to figure out what
skills I have naturally, and which ones I will need to work on to be more proficient (Wallis
2018). To make it easier for myself, I will be focusing on the skills that will help my personal
development as a waiter at Saray restaurant. Some of the skills that I can say that I already
possess is being good with people and being able to get people to like me along with being
able to pay attention to detail. The skills that I will need to work on further is being able to
manage my time while also being able to multitask. This will be very difficult for me, as I am
not used to being in high-pressure situations where my full attention is required on multiple
things at once. This is all the things I would need to keep in mind once I have gotten the job,
but before getting the job, I need to focus on attaining a strong grip on the restaurant along
with its menu items.
The fourth step of the plan would require me to isolate one skills that I feel is the most
important one to focus on first (Wallis 2018). The skill that I will be focusing on first is time
management. I believe that other than being a people’s person, it is equally important for a
waiter who would be handling many tables and guests to be able to manage their time
properly and be able to prioritize which situation would require more time and which ones
can be attended to at a later time. Time management is a skill that is required by almost all
job positions; it enables the employee to be able to successfully carry out various tasks
without getting flustered and frustrated with the workload. Getting better at managing my
time would give me many benefits, not just as a waiter in the restaurant, but also in my future
career prospects.
The final step of this plan is to develop the appropriate action plan for my journey into
being a waiter at the Saray restaurant (Wallis 2018). The creator of the plan has said that it is
important for an individual to be able to determine what success for them looks like, and then
put a plan in place to achieve it. As mentioned in Part A, this step uses the method of

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SMART to develop this action plan. The first letter stands for Specific, and for me this would
entail getting a job at Saray restaurant. Second letter stands for Measurable, and this will be
done in my case through my approved position at the restaurant and a desired future
promotion to head-server at the same place which would prove my success in attaining the
skills required as a waiter. The ‘A’ stands for attainable, and I believe that my goal set for
becoming a head-server is quiet attainable because I am motivated towards it. The ‘R’ then
stands for rewarding, and I truly believe that attaining a job as a waiter and then the head
server will enlist in me the qualities I would require to succeed in my future career options,
which makes the success as a waiter will help me in my future career options. Finally, the ‘T’
stands for time-bound, which means that I would need to set certain deadlines for the events
in my life that I would want to achieve it by, to ensure that I can progress on my personal
development through my profession. For this, I am setting a deadline of one year to be a
waiter at the restaurant and after which, I would request the restaurant’s manager to consider
me for a position of head server, to reflect my performance as a waiter. I believe that it is not
always a good decision to frequently change jobs so I will plan to stay with this restaurant for
about two years, until I know that I am ready to move on to another job prospect.

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Alhelalat, J.A., Ma’moun, A.H. and Twaissi, N.M., 2017. The impact of personal and
functional aspects of restaurant employee service behaviour on customer
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Dixon, D.P., Miscuraca, J.A. and Koutroumanis, D.A., 2018. Looking Strategically to the
Future of Restaurants: Casual Dining or Fast Casual?. Entrepreneurship Education and
Pedagogy, 1(1), pp.102-117.
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Volkema, R.J. and Kapoutsis, I., 2016. From Restaurants to Board Rooms: How Initiating
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[online] Southern New Hampshire University. Available at:
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Mar. 2019].

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Wellton, L., Jonsson, I.M. and Walter, U., 2018. Making meals in small seasonal
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