Reflective Journal: LCBS5059 Internship Experience at Burger King

This reflective journal details a student's professional field experience at Burger King in Leicester, UK. The student, with a finance background, worked as a cashier, gaining practical experience in a fast-food environment. The journal explores the application of theoretical knowledge, focusing on the gap between academic finance and real-world operations. The student discusses the development of essential employability skills like communication, problem-solving, and teamwork. Using Gibb's reflective cycle, the journal describes the experience, feelings, evaluation, analysis, and conclusion. The student reflects on their responsibilities, communication skills, teamwork, and cultural diversity within the organization. The journal highlights the importance of time management, dispute resolution, and the development of a strong work ethic during the internship, emphasizing the valuable skills and insights gained through this experience.

Running head: REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
REFLECTIVE JOURNAL
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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The aim of this reflective journal is to discuss my professional field experience of
working in the reputed company named Burger King situated in Leicester, United Kingdom.
This company is the second largest fast food hamburger chain in the world and creates scope
for the growth of the stakeholders like the permanent employees as well as of those who are
assigned as the inters here. The company provides scope for the interns to learn the skills
needed for employability in one hand and give them in hand experience of working in the
business organizations. The company understand the importance of the internship process in
the service sector that gives opportunity to increase the sources of fresh ideas and diversity in
the organization.
My experience of working in the organization has been fruitful because the skills I
have developed through working in the internationally well-known company like Burger
King are unmatched. The staff who are already working there are very helpful and guided me
to understand what I lack in work in the organizations in reality. Io have a finance
background for which I was placed as the cashier in the company. As Burger King is a huge
fast food chain, I was responsibility to cater all the needs of the company that was very much
different from the retail, manufacturing or any other type of organizations. In this
organization, I did not get much time and financial aid of this internship but what I have
learnt from this corporation is their style of management and serving their customers. The
chance to get paid as an intern cashier was a huge thing for the fresher for me and I got the
scope to match those operations of the company with what I have learnt in my course. As
mentioned before, I have studied finance management in the business organizations but only
had the theoretical knowledge about the operations of the company. All the theories and
academic knowledge I have gained in the business finance course detailed the actions and
decision making capabilities of the companies in any situation but in working with this
particular company I found that the situation in reality is more problematic. There is a huge

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gap between the academic knowledge of finance and working as the cashier in the huge
company like this in reality is extensive.
Playing the role of cashier in the production team is a great experience that I have
enjoyed. This is due to the fact that gained a huge scope to learn some very important
employability skills like communication with the employees, mitigating the problems with
the customers regarding payment, answering them, collaboration with the finance team,
learning technological systems that the international companies like Burger king uses to
automate some of the processes and self-management skill. In addition to all these, I have
also learnt the problem solving skills from the other employees work in the corporation for a
long time. The process of taking initiative and manage the others at the time of emergency
and organising everything to solve problems more quickly.
In order to share my experience I think the use of Gibb’s reflective cycle can be
mentioned. In this regard, the six factors of Gibb’s reflective cycle can detail my
understanding of this internship experience. The important steps of this cycle are Description,
Feelings, Evaluation, Analysis and Conclusion. If I want to describe the experience in one
word, o can say that this field experience of working with Burger King is inspirational. My
job as the cashier in the branch were as followed-
 I used to greet customers who were buying our products
 As the company provides self-service, I used to guide the customers to choose
from the variety of products
 I used to scan and register the purchases of the customers
 Accepting payments from them and providing receipts or bills of purchase
 Wrapping the purchase of the products or providing scope for self service
 Answering customers’ questions and providing them information that seek
about the products or services

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 Helping the customers to sign up for the store rewards and credit cards
 Counting money in the register at the beginning and end of the definite shifts
 Attending meetings of the intern employees
 Communicating over phone.
The second factor of Gibb’s reflective cycle is Feelings. In this regard I can feel the
growth process in which I was assigned. In this process I felt myself to be empowered while
communicating with the peers or colleagues as well as with the customers. As I have detailed
previously that most of the responsibilities of a cashier like me was associated with the
customer, therefore I had to communicate between with them. In the company like Burger
King there is no scope for the employees to remain silent and avoid the problems. Rather they
need to be ready all the time to communicate information of the operations to the customers
and other who seek information. I have developed my communication style and abilities
through utilising the opportunities of seeing my seniors to communicating with the
customers. I have listened them to communicate with the clients while managing the
customer service in one hand and taking orders. I have learnt that if I want to develop my
communication skill, then I have to learn to listen properly to the others. It can be the senior
employees who are working for long period of time in the organisation or most prominently
the clients with whom I will be communicating. If I am not listening what is being told to me
or asked, I will not be able to provide perfect information to the customers.
In the course of business finance I have learnt that that there are different types of
communication in which the written, verbal and nonverbal communication process. These all
have their places in different layers of the entire communication system. Now when I am
placed as the intern in the Burger King I have found that different types of the
communication system are used in different situations. As there is no difference in the
communication style of the store manage, production manager, sales manager and their team

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members in terms of communication with the customers as well as of other stakeholders. This
means when I am playing the role of cashier I must know the communication process with
the customers as if I am a customer support team member. This is the reason why I have
learnt how these employees communicate smoothly under pressure. The process of written
communication in the production department of Burger King has showed me how I can
communicate with the other employees of my same designation, communicate with the
higher management system or for that matter with the customers who are not satisfied with
the payment system. I have worked in the cash and I have learnt to send specific and precise
message to maintain a smooth coordination with the team.
Through this internship in Burger King I have also learnt that there is a huge scope of
learning teamwork skill. I have felt that in any sector of business, there is a need for
collaboration which is only attend by the team work. This is a process of increasing
productivity in one hand and diversity in the workplace that increases scope for problem
solving. While working as an intern in Burger King as cashier I worked in the finance team
that mainly operates in the management of cash in every possible way. This is one of the
most important department in any types of business organizations. In this regard proper
collaboration and conflict resolution become mandatory thing. I have also felt that through
proper collaboration of the employees in any team the productivity increases as the scope for
creativity of working out any situation.
Working together in a team can raise enthusiasm for all the team members and bring out
more ideas to Foster team and individual knowledge. From this team working framework in
my internship I have learnt about different skills needed for being employed in in an
internationally reputed company be it in any sector. We worked in a team where the ideas
were visible as well as tangible for everyone and the interns like me know the effort we are
making for the growth of the company. In addition to this I have also felt that the workload

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which often presses the employees to work hard and often work can be reduced practically.
This allows the employees to take responsibility of that part of work which he or she can do
best. This leads to have an error free project in one hand and the work gets shared everybody
proportionately. Sharing the workload in the team have encourage to me to try new things
and learn from others. Here the team manager knows the strengths and capabilities of the
team members and assign tasks according to their abilities. This makes people more accurate
in their strong points which can be seen by the others and they also feel to do that work
similarly. Achievement of the goals becomes easy in this way and the workers enjoy their
tasks without thinking them as burden.
The cultural diversity which is one of the most important factors in in this competitive world
of business can also be leveraged when the employees work in a team. This gives new
perspective to the team members because file setting goals and actually acting upon them the
team members go through group discussions and long interactions among one another. This
give them the chance to know no other team members properly and get new perspectives.
Diversity in the team can help each of the team members to analyse various situations from
different points of views as individual employees have their own thought process and
problem solving abilities (Nash et al. 2018). This is how the team members solve problems
and develop a positive work culture by learning new things from one another.
From the teamwork process in my internship course I have understood my personality
type. The way I have communicated with my team members and sought information for
doing tasks have revealed that I have a unique personality type. While interacting with others
in the team I have found I enjoy sharing my emotions and knowledge with others. I see things
positively around me and feel that negative situations can be avoided if there is no place for
miscommunication our misunderstanding among the team members. I have also found while
working in a team that different people who excel in different areas may work together if

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positive work culture and patience have. The whole team can we benefited from the creative
thinkers who help to find out innovative ideas to solve problems and make the team more
productive. I have realised that different personalities in the team members help building a
positive work culture in the organisation and directly contribute in the productivity. Finally I
have realised that when people work collaboratively the risk taking mentality increases. For
successful operation of the business the teams at to perform higher than expected there must
take risks to push the limits of the team members. I have developed strong work Ethic while
operating in the finance team as intern from DMU and will be thankful to the organisation of
Burger King to let me become a part of their employee framework.
While working in the organisation have also developed my time management skill
and dispute resolution. As I have mentioned earlier that I was in finance team and responsible
for managing cash therefore I had to learn communication with the customers and calculating
their cash in a proper way. This means that as I am not handling the cash only but also
handling the problems of the customers coming for self service. In this regard I had to work
efficiently because the crowd used to increase in the peak hours (Grant‐Smith and McDonald
2018). As an intern I had to prove myself to be efficient in handling cash because I was the
cashier. Therefore I learnt to do multitasking. In addition to this I also had to serve the
customers as effectively as others do. In doing so I found that my time management skill has
increased. I used to procrastinate long period of time regarding my Course work and finishing
my assignments when I was in the university but in case of practical work in such a reputed
organisation for the second largest fast food Giants in the world I had to perform better and
there is no scope for procrastination . previously I could not do multitasks but while operating
as casual in the branch I could manage the cash effectively in one hand and guide the
customers to choose from the products I have gained positive review from the customers and
it is a great thing to be an intern (Shade and Jacobson 2015). Initially I could not work fast is

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the actual employees over there but with time I had learnt how to manage all these at a time. I
used to provide support to the customers in my table timely and calculate their cash
simultaneously.
In doing such multitasking, I have faced different issue growing to engulf my abilities
as the cashier. Initially I faced disputes among the team members as well as the customers.
Therefore I was responsible to act carefully that the customers are not unhappy with the
service and prices of the product are properly calculated. I have miscalculated several times
and came to face dispute by the manager. Initially I used to feel nervous in such situations but
gradually I developed capability to understand the pattern of the work and no miscalculation
took place. From the customers also I have heard derogatory comments but with patience i
could solve such problem.
Performing as the intern in in one of the branches of Burger King I have also
developed the decision making skills which has I think will help in the long run. The aim of
internship is to teach the students the real world practices of theories and studies which they
have learnt in classes. In this regard I can say that I have been supported by the seniors and
the management of the organisation where I was working as intern in a great deal. Basically
the interns in learning to work in organisations are not paid therefore the aim to learn as much
as they can do. In many cases I have faced the situation where I felt that the employees
actually working in the organisation are avoiding doing works and putting all the
responsibilities upon us interns but I was totally wrong. The learning process in in internship
is to gain experience from practical working. In this case my seniors and team members used
to allow me to make decisions individually so that I can solve issues with my analytical
power and creative thinking. In such case the decision making used to be the choice of
communication to the team members and the customers (Knott 2019). My seniors used to you
put me in the problematic situation and observed my in the store. They used to check my

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responsiveness to the situation and how much I am capable to adapt with the situation. In
such case my technological skills for finding data and sharing information with the customers
used to be noted show that my managers can measure my effectiveness and decision making
power. It is true that if I am not facing challenges I will not be able to develop my skills
therefore it is the process of learning by self and growing accordingly (Ripamonti et al.
2018). Through this process of internship I have found myself and identified different layers
of my personality through which I could understand my weaknesses and limitations. This is
the process which every interns must be following so that they can transform their
weaknesses into strengths.
In addition to this I have also developed some of the leadership and management skill
from other team members. The skills possessed by the greatest leaders of all times in the
business sector have always inspired me and when I started to work in the actual workplace I
found some of the very important similarities. The leadership and management skills that I
have pointed out in me is the motivational ability. As I have mentioned before I have a
positive mindset that attracts the others towards me. The thinking of wellbeing for others
head created a positive and dependable image in the organisation during my internship for
which I was preferred by the seniors and the management. The honesty and dependability
along with passion for work had overwhelmed my seniors and I was given chances to
communicate more with customers. it is true that the responsibilities of the cashier is not to
handle customers but through this internship I have gained knowledge about the problems for
which the finance team often face issues in the organisational scenario. Within few this I was
able to develop an image of Trust associated with me for which the other interns working
with me in the same workplace started to follow my ways of communication and actions.
Therefore I can say that my internship was very successful in Burger King and I have gained
a real world knowledge of working in a reputed organisation practically.

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Therefore, it can be concluded that internship is a process of supporting the inner
abilities of the students to be successful in their lives. The studies they complete in the
universities though different courses are not able to share knowledge properly but through
practical work in the real world scenario bridge the gap in the learning process. Hence this
internship will definitely help me in the career as finance team manager. Backed by this field
experience, I hope I will be getting a very good placement in future.

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References:
Grant‐Smith, D. and McDonald, P., 2018. Ubiquitous yet ambiguous: An integrative review
of unpaid work. International Journal of Management Reviews, 20(2), pp.559-578.
Knott, M., 2019. Intern Or Employee in Disguise: The Rise of the Unpaid Internship and the
Primary Beneficiary Test. Mo. L. Rev., 84, p.177.
Nash, J., Kamel, T.C., Sherer, J. and Nauer, K., 2018. Implementing a perioperative nursing
student summer internship. AORN journal, 107(1), pp.83-90.
Ripamonti, S., Galuppo, L., Bruno, A., Ivaldi, S. and Scaratti, G., 2018. Reconstructing the
internship program as a critical reflexive practice: the role of tutorship. Teaching in Higher
Education, 23(6), pp.751-768.
Shade, L.R. and Jacobson, J., 2015. Hungry for the job: gender, unpaid internships, and the
creative industries. The Sociological Review, 63, pp.188-205.