Reflective Report: Analysis of Assistant & Stock Management at GDK, UK

This reflective report analyzes a student's professional field experience at German Doner Kebab (GDK) in the UK, focusing on the roles of assistant and stock management. The report begins with an overview of GDK, followed by a detailed account of the student's work situation, including the hectic pace, cultural differences, and responsibilities. The main analysis delves into critical reflections on cultural aspects, organizational behavior, and professional challenges encountered. The student utilizes the Hofstede model to analyze cultural dimensions within the workplace and reflects on the challenges of individualism versus collectivism. Furthermore, the report interprets the experience, discussing the learning curve, the application of stock management skills, and the effectiveness of leadership styles. The student also addresses issues such as inadequate feedback and compensation, offering potential solutions. The report concludes with an evaluation of the Gibbs reflective cycle, summarizing the student's overall learning and career path direction.

Reflective report

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN ANALYSIS..........................................................................................................................3
a) About company......................................................................................................................3
b) About work situation and handling.........................................................................................3
c) Critical reflection on the experiences......................................................................................4
d) Interpretation:..........................................................................................................................6
e) Critical analysis of the reflective model or theory..................................................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Experience is the core symbol of what person has gained while performing any defined
task of necessary in nature. Professional field experience is focused onto the person to develop
its credential and brings into the shape of developing as a professional of own respective field of
interest (Farrell, 2019). Professional field experience is an ongoing process for each and every
person who is going through for learning any professional work as part of their career. Moreover,
reflection on a professional field experience is need to find flaws and mistakes done at time of
the experience. This self reflective assessment is mainly based on a formal work experience as of
assistant and stock management performed in the “German Doner Kebab” store based in the
UK. The purpose of this assessment is to knowledge of the firm, profile of the work done along
with techniques while in case of dealing with different cultures or organisational work settings.
Lastly, assessment will put down discussion on a reflective cycle of the Gibbs model.
MAIN ANALYSIS
a) About company
German Doner Kebab is a fast food retailer & franchise based restaurant that creates a
healthy and nutritionally approach to the traditional kebab. The store was opened its outlet in the
Berlin in 1989 and next they comes up in UK in 1991 with an intention to increase its reach of
their products. Also, firm believes in providing high quality kebabs made of quality ingredients
that are mainly exclusive to the donor kebab restaurant. They are specialised in giving training to
those people who are really an career aspirational people along with offering internship to offers
retail or store based learning to professional aspirants.
b) About work situation and handling
This section of an assessment is based on reflection in form of the first person. The
situation that is going to be described involves an analysis of my workingpre-reflective
experience in German Doner kebab as an assistant & stock management (Ensink and et. al.,
2016). I was supposed to do 35 hours working in the store on role to assistant person to maintain
operations and stock quantity adequate at time of making of the kebab. Situation in which I
supposed to work was very hectic and due to huge customer inflow, work pressure was also high.
But its simply a learning for me to grow up my ability to have patience while in situation of the
working. Moreover, I worked under environment where different set of culture, situation or

critical situations arrived at to the single time process. Due to cultural differences, I had faced
lots of the difficulties such as hesitation, lack or ability to interact with people of the
management of the store. As part of work profile, I joined as person to assist operations of the
store and lookout stock availability and informing management on the order of more material at
earlier possible. Total time allotted to me was almost 35 hours from starting of the professional
field experience till its ending (Leigh, 2016). Moreover, mine experience is made of the mixed
cluster i.e. positive or negative both. Moreover, I also done accounting of the stock purchased
and consumed at time of the production. Due to this, I got information about basic info on
recording of the data and information.
Work based situation is also hectic due to large rush of the customer at the peak time. The
purpose of mine experience was to learn work handling situation at time of the rush and peak
time. German Donor has lots of employee's in their outlet, with different attitude or nature,
which may not be suits to one specific attitude or capacity to handle. Due to the adopted culture
of the collectivism, several challenges has been realised such as mixed behaviour in comparison
to my own attitude or behaviour. There are several duties handled to me such as power to
transfer right of the material, developing plan for worker with their duties or responsibilities to
work along with al-least power to develop cost budget at time of production. Also, I was given
induction plan before starting of the field experience and I have gone through entire induction
and tasks in advance so as to prepare to perform (Kosovo and et. al., 2016). At last, I had taken
guidance of my senior or the person which I admire as a inspiration for me.
c) Critical reflection on the experiences
At the time of my PFE in the German Doner kebab, I worked a lot on experiences such as
cultural, work based, organisational behaviour, building chain of the communication etc. While,
working under all the aspects, I was prepared in advance and had done lots of research and get
outlook of cultural experience in the food retail sector. Its a serious concern for me to lookout
what amount of an experience I got and what sum of a learning I attained (Coppejans and et. al.,
2017). Thus, its necessary to have lump-sum of all kind of experiences to gather exact amount of
learning such as in what expects I am good or what are my weaknesses realised. Discussion of
the field experiences are in context of various along with the critical reflection:
Culture: While undergoes full PFE in the German Doner Kebab, there were people of
different culture, caste, creeds, religion along with eye pointing ideology which has impact own

behaviour or personal credentials to dealt with. What I noticed that peoples in kebab store works
in their own way such as belief of an individual or collectivism culture to work or perform. Also,
there purpose is also defined so I tried to respect their ideology and don't interrupt by making of
the false statement (Pollard, 2017). As assistant person, my head manager has asked to mixed in
their culture and in response, I do the same and tried to be mixed with them. Further, its better to
discuss it by using of the Hofstede model of cultural.
Individual v collectivism is one of the dimension of this model to ascertain either person
used to do and perform its duties individually or collectively manner. I realised that most of the
people used to do their respective duties in individual way and very less uses collectivism as a
reason of biases in the firm. I worked in both way and in my opinion working in collectivism
was much positives and brings learning for being equal with everyone. While doing work of
recording of the stock and material, I preferred to go for individualism cultural to do work
properly along with an agenda of clear and concise learning. Moreover, I also realised politics by
few people of the German Doner Kebab when management of a firm is looking to do appraisal
of them (Raterink, 2016). The manner in which the team had been lead or the co-workers had
reacted disabled my
progress. However, slowly I had learnt about the working culture in India and had tried to
synchronise my mentality state with that of the work culture in the country Overall, I stayed out
of such things and tried to makes focus on my work. But apart from all, I realised one positive
thing is that cultural of German Doner kebab allows everyone to get mixed and consoles for
happiness.
Work or professional: I was hired as assistant and stock management and assigned to
manages operation & lookout at the stock availability for the future. While in case of work, I
already done few assessment for role before starting of a PFE and asked few professionals to get
more learning out of this experience. When I was busy in PFE, different organisational work
issues such as not familiar with infrastructure, unaware of the stock recording trick or concept or
say skills that were appeared as surprise for me (Speth and Speth, 2016). If talks in context to
work, I was new and never as before, due to lack of training & development skills were not
responded such as interaction, speaking along with admiring focus which has put down negative
impact. Moreover, burden of the work as well as time was also less say till 40 hours. It has

created challenges for me first, development of the focus to complete and do work effectively,
second, do self-assessment as provided by head person and third reports work done on time basis
to the head of an outlet. During this PFE, challenges such as lack of focus, technical knowledge
along with lack of an accounting and recording of stock has been found as major situation which
need to be overcomes as soon as possible (Greenspon and Rodigues, 2017). Also, certain issues
such as deficiency of the skills, lack of the past exposure and less motivation in prior position to
this professional experience. Moreover, I tried out my best to deal or manages situation, which
were not even under my my control. The lack of trust shown upon me prevented me from
interacting with the team
members.
Head person has told me to go for conducting of own assessment by filling of the self
evaluation form and same will be transferred to my institution. Also, I realised that carrying out
of the own assessment is the necessary task to gather own performance along with checking
suitability for the further improvement or development.
d) Interpretation:
The experience at the German Doner Kebab had been a learning curve for me. Although I
did not
led familiarity, but somehow I managed to built my experiences on basis of working style such
as free or without any kind of hassle I managed to understand application as an stock
management personnel during my professional field experience as it provided me with the major
differences that exist between the
cultures of the people in the German Doner Kebab. In context of the leadership, I
learned effectiveness of the adoption of democratic style of the leadership. This helped me to
understand effectiveness of the leadership style and helped me in making comparison
between the different leadership styles that can be adopted by an individual. Also, I had taken
several decisions such as commitment to my prosperous learning, development of the mind to
undergo training for skills and competencies along with become enthusiastic leader or the
personality. During the term of my internship of 35 hours in German Doner Kebabs as a stock
manager I have gained professional experience in managing the stock of the company. It helped
me in sharpening my existing skills (Brockbank and et. al., 2017). I got the chance to work
independently by using my ideas and plans in managing stock. I also faced some issues during

work like the task assigned by the superiors were completed in time but the seniors did not
provided the feedback of the work evaluated by them within time. This demotivated me to
continue work with enthusiasm. The payment done by the company was less as compared with
the amount of work. This issues can be solved by communicating the problem with the officials.
This will help to get the work done noticed during right time and the interns will be driven to
work for prolonged hours. Another problem can be solved by discussing the reason behind the
less pay with the Human resource and if their answer is satisfactory then the question of
inadequate stipend will be solved (Gould, 2016). The assessment of measuring the quality of
work can also be done to satisfy the queries of the interns.
My purpose for this reflection is to identifying what I have done or what I being supposed
to learn and develops for me. To accumulate overall learning with an intention to grow self and
gives direction to the career path. Its being supportive for me to brings out an discussion of the
reflective model named as Gibbs reflective cycle to put down emphasis on reflection of self
ability.
e) Critical analysis of the reflective model or theory
Gibbs reflective cycle: This reflective model is helpful to encourages people to think
systematically about an experiences which a person had during specific situation, activities or an
activities. Its in form of the cycle of 5 stages or elements as given in diagram:

Sources: Gibbs Reflective Cycle, 2018
Description: The given experience was happened in the German Doner Kebab and I was
doing professional field experience of almost 35 hours. This happened just after my initial
contact to firm official personnel. Moreover, I was their to development of my learning as the
qualified professional to gather learning while working into the retail sector. Only I was there
along with people who working their as permanent. During that PFE, I performed role of
assistant & stock management who has assigned task to manages process of a production along
with keeping records of the stock (Rostad and Whitaker, 2016). I tried my 100 percent to do
perform all given duties or roles assigned to me. Also, other people were doing their work as the
permanent role of the work. After performing of all duties, there are several results ascertained
such as performance of all the duties or work effectively. Also, I had performed my work with
greater efficiency and productivity.
Feelings: Before starting of the PFE, I was feeling quite nervous, existed along with
balanced to perform the defined work or task. Why nervous as because of new things to do or
perform at part of the professional scale. During the process, I was feeling very much burdened,
as but I removed it with support of my dedication or being having faith in self. During my work,
it tried to put down feedback and opinion of my colleagues by sharing some set of questionnaire
Illustration 1: Gibbs Reflective Cycle

on basis of various parameter. After the complete PFE of almost 35 hours, its look like good for
me to develop proficiency of own career. As of now, situation is under control and learning from
that experience is taking a new shape or design in form of own career development. I really work
hard along with understanding scope for further career development.
Evaluation: During process of the PFE, there are numbers of the positives such as rise of
own skill such as communication, interaction, listening or speaking so as to develop competency
and ability to build exposure at the larger denomination. Also, there are several other positives
such as involvement of Smart work such as person with time effectiveness, target for which hard
is done must be specific, measurable or reliable (Rafayelyan and et. al., 2016). Negatives such as
lack of patience, trust and faith has created barrier for me undertaken PFE for some more time.
Good happenings such as lots of learning such as work based, culture or behavioural based along
with personnel satisfaction such as self direction, development of an opportunities along with
personal support for the own career.
Conclusion: Experiences described in this assessment can be become more strong, if I
would work more on development of my competencies along with knowledge of same area in
which I done in my periodic professional field experience. Moreover, such kind of development
of an exposure is necessary for me to enriched my career efficiency or growth of the self. Also, I
have done planning, in case I would faced with situation again, it would try to develop my ability
to work by undergoes a perfect training & development program for me so that further practice
would be done effectively.
Action: Furthermore, I have decided to go for training & development program in
coming time so as to develops my exponential sources of learning (Shum and et. al., 2017). Also,
I have decided to go for detailed and periodically motivation session so as to boost up my
potentials to do further job. Also, I have decided to focus on my strength and makes all around
perfect along with identification of mine weaknesses and convert it to the strengths.

CONCLUSION
From the above report, its concluded that reflection is an essential for every person to
judge skills or competencies to develop strategies or an action plan to improve work based
practices onto the larger situation or condition. Moreover, Gibbs reflective cycle has proved
essential process to put down emphasis on measuring of own potential or ability being showcase
as persons ability to do work effectively and efficiently. Also, role of cultural is important in
every organisation to build a platform where every person may feel free to share own idea or
opinion as part to deliver effective regulation.

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