Professional Identity and Practice

Running head: PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PRACTICE
Professional Identity and Practice
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1PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PRACTICE
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

2PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PRACTICE
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

3PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PRACTICE
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