Individual Reflective Essay: Internship in Hotel Chadstone

This document is a reflective essay detailing a student's internship experience at the Hotel Chadstone, a five-star hotel under the MGallery by Sofitel brand. The essay is divided into five key parts, starting with an overview of the organization and the student's role in the food and beverage department, which includes breakfast service, mini-bar operations, and dining services. The second part focuses on the student's performance, including the application and selection process, highlighting resume preparation, interview practice, and the open career day. The third part critically evaluates the induction and training processes, including the training on table setup, guest welcome, micros, and food handling. The fourth section discusses the department's objectives and their alignment with the overall business goals, emphasizing the importance of guest satisfaction, revenue generation, and service quality. The essay concludes with a reflection on the student's role in achieving these objectives. The essay provides insights into the student's learning and development throughout the internship.

Individual Reflective
Essay
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Internship plays an important role in part of individual’s life to achieve success and growth
at marketplace. This helps them to enhance their skills, knowledge and experience in particular
field to accomplish set goal and objectives. It is individual personal reflective essay which is
based on my own experience that I am gaining through my internship. I am working in food and
beverage department at Chadstone hotel in three different sections. The essay is divided into five
important parts whose is to cover overview of organisation and position, performance which is
related to placement, preparation and application and selection process. It also covers induction
and training process along with recommendation for improving process of organisation.
This is the first part of essay which covers about overview of organisation and position
held by me. I am working in Hotel Chadstone which is part of MGallery by Sofitel. It is five star
hotel which is operated by Accor with help of Sofitel brand. This is regarded as only five star
hotel outside Melbourne’s CBD. It has 250 rooms out of which 227 standard rooms, 21 suites
and 2 penthouses that are situated at 11 levels. The total size of hotel is 19,000 meter having 12
storeys. It has two different restaurants named as O Altus which is rooftop bar along with dining
in sweeping views that is situated at 12th level. On other hand, other restaurant named as Pastore
which is situated at ground floor having rooftop indoor swimming pool. It also carries treatment
rooms, yoga room, fitness light lounge and others. Hotel has carried 350 guest setting ballroom
in appropriate manner. There are nine unique meeting as well as events spaces which are made
as per request of guests or visitors. Hotel also carries art and design library having collection of
fashion, design items, books and arts and so on.
Both interior and exterior designed are made through global architecture studio and
Australian architects Bates Smart. The restaurant called Pastore is designed by EDG and building
was built through Hickory Group for 18 months. Respective hotel has received 5 stars for their
Green art and design by Green Building Council of Australia. There is space for car in respective
hotel which has 150 permanent staff along with more than 1200 employees at time of
construction. It is providing different services in terms of wifi, internet access, parking,
babysitting place, air conditioned, reception service 24*7, early check in/out, currency exchange,
laundry, porter and so on. All rooms at hotel are spacious providing modern décor with teal
colour scheme, air conditioning with LCD Television along with Bluetooth. Moreover, bathroom
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includes rain shower, luxury amenities, large vanity and others. This provides both rooftop and
ground floor restaurant for their consumers.
As I am performing my six months internship in Hotel Chadstone which is part of M
Gallery through Sofitel, Accor Hotel Group. I am working as part time intern in food and
beverage section where they have ground floor restaurant called Pastore. I am performing work
in three different profiles which comes under food and beverage section such as morning
breakfast team member in Pastore Restaurant, working in mini bar and room dining services.
Food and beverage is liable for maintenance of high quality of food as well as service, managing
restaurants, food costing and bars. At my workplace, I am learning about three different profiles
such as breakfast team, mini bar and dining rooms. Under breakfast team, I have to prepare
morning breakfast for people with help of team so that they get best services. In context of mini
bar, respective hotel has their own bar at place that provide liquor, beverages to guest and
provide facility of bars so that they can enjoy. Last is dining services when food is served I have
to dine it properly and in attractive manner so that guest enjoy their food.
This is the second part of reflective essay that focus on my performance which is related
to securing placement with preparation, application and selection process. In this I have to focus
on preparation of application to secure good placement. Before sending resume to any
organisation, I have to make it by myself an attractive resume and sent to coach at university for
getting it approval from him. After that success coach has gone through my resume and checked
it properly along with cover sheet before making submission to Chadstone Hotel HR department.
After that procedure start where respective HR department has arranged open career day in order
to recruit as well as select skilled, capable and suitable candidates for various department of their
hotel to fill vacant position. Once my resume has been submitted I received mail from my
success coach for Chadstone Hotel regarding information of career days such as time, date,
location, interview day grooming and many more. This is the great opportunity for me to get my
resume to be selected at five star hotel of Australia. For cracking career day, I have to focus on
different aspects so that I get internship opportunity at that place. Before going for interview, I
have prepared myself through watching interview and how to answer questions of interview. I
have practiced interview by standing in front of mirror to build my confidence level so that I can
crack interview in most effective manner. Moreover, I also checked interne in order to collect
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information in an effective and efficient manner. I also practiced a lot before for giving interview
at respective hotel. After performing all these activities related with interview I have to go to
hotel.
On careers open day, I went to hotel along with other university students as well as
success coach also came at place. For selecting candidates, they have their own interview process
so that they can select best one. They begin it with group discussion where I had performed
discussion with member of groups as well as faced individual interview with director of food and
beverage department. Here, Group discussion is mainly conducted by HR department of
respective hotel in order to check leadership skills, teamwork skills, personality skills so that
they can work in an organisation. They also check group activities whether employees can work
in group or not in order to attain goal and objective of business. Similarly, in individual interview
with director of food and beverage manager asked me about my skills, knowledge about field,
availability and so on. I gave my best in group discussion and interview so that I get selected in
reputated organisation. After going through all these phases of selection process at Hotel, I got
call from HR department after a week where they informed me about my selection in food and
beverage department and send attached email for part time contract. Also food and beverage
director has send mail to me as well as team that has mentioned about date of training and hotel
opening. In addition, he asked us about our suitability and availability of training dates in an
effective and efficient manner.
It is third part of reflective essay which focus on induction and training process into
organisation as well as related department that has carried out by me. The name of my
organisation is Hotel Chadstone which was opened on 1st November, 2019 where I have to
perform work in food and beverage department with opening team. For training and induction
session related with my department, food and beverage director has sent email to team and me by
mentioning their own training date and opening time and asked our concern regarding suitability
and availability for training dates. The food and beverage director has send mail where they
included that if team want to join Hotel then they will be opening food and beverage department
which is almost closed now with new zeal and excitement. I will be working for food and
beverage department so they have provided me with one week training which started at 9am and
finished at 5pm. Also they have provided us with availability form and dates to complete it and
send back to director in order to give reminder to management team.
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At time of training and induction, we asked to dress in casual and non slip shoes in smart
manner. It is of kitchen work so we moved to that areas many times to learn new things. After
that they selected me to work in Pastore Restaurant of Chadstone Hotel with breakfast team. In
this aspect, I have been providing with training regarding set up tables, welcoming guest. Our
team played role regarding how to welcome guests, allocate seats for them and introduce
breakfast buffet to guests. In addition to this, Hotel gave training for micros where they taught
how to do payment, order coffees for guests. I liked the way they providing training and
induction to us so that they we learn in proper manner and does not have to face any difficult or
issues. Apart from this, training is provided for cleaning table and provided information to
restaurant in order to set up such as setting of hot foods, cold food and areas for making coffee,
areas for allocating floor staffs, front staffs and barista. Apart from this, Chadstone has arranged
training for food handling for team so that we easily handle food department. Food and beverage
department has held session from 9:30 to 13:30 where they called heartist where they taught
about how to welcome their colleagues. Hotel will be opening as well as trails commenced will
take place on 28th October along with it will be running as functioning hotel for few days. Lastly,
we had training named as PCI which is computer based that has to be done by everyone working
in respective hotel. Such training is made in order to protect guests, hotel as well as private
information of business. This has to be done at home by using private computers such as laptop.
This is regarded as fourth section of essay report which includes information about
department objectives and their alignment with overall objectives of business. It is very
important for organisation to make goal and objective in align with business so that positive
outcomes are attained. Being the employee of respective hotel, I have to work as per need and
demand of business so that objectives are attained in most effective manner. In context of
Chadstone Hotel, department objectives are providing maximum satisfaction to guests,
generating maximum revenue for specified section and providing of best services to each and
every guest along with employees. Apart from above, there are some needs which should be
satisfied by me. These include physiological, social, economical and psychological needs of
people which should be fulfilled by me through proper working in an organisation. For
physiological needs, different tastes and varieties of food should be provided, economical needs
are fulfilled by providing F&B services at invested cost, social needs can be make provide by
giving them friendly atmosphere and lastly psychological needs through evaluate self esteem. In
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addition to this, objectives which should be fulfilled by me is to provide high quality food and
beverages, friendly as well as welcoming atmosphere, impart value for money, providing
hygienic, attentive and professional service.
On other hand, objective of hotel is to maximise marketing through providing of high
quality product and service which add value to money. My hotel is new which is established on
1st November. Main aim is setting new benchmark for luxury hotel outside CBD of Melbourne. I
have to work in proper manner so that I can advertise my hotel in front of other people so that
they are attracted towards availing products and services. My objective for hotel is to enhance
and generate more revenue. I have to work on both objectives of department as well as
organisation so that I can survive and sustain at marketplace in most effective manner for
attainment of positive results. This is possible if I work as per provided training and induction
program. This is essential for business to align both organisation as well as department
objectives so that better results are attained in an effective manner. This will help me to enhance
my own performance in terms of organisation and departmental objectives in most effective and
efficient manner.
This is the fifth or last section of reflective essay which include recommendations to
improve recruitment, induction and training process of organisation. For recruitment,
recommendation is given to firm to develop new mobile application for new or fresher
candidates in which they can upload resumes very easily. Once documents has uploaded, HR
manager has to go for it and out of those all resumes they need to shortlist suitable candidates
and conduct interview for them. This helps them in saving cost and time for conducting campus
placement or interview in other places. It is regarded as suitable way in order to hire and select
best candidates out of many. While uploading resumes, candidates has to upload other document
such as rewards, achievement certificate so that interviewer can know more about candidates
along with mentioning skills, knowledge and others.
On other hand, recommendations are provided for induction programs, where hotel has to
conduct seven days induction training for their new joiner so that they can understand each and
every thing in effective manner and work as per their norms and values in effective manner.
Induction plays an important role in attainment of business goal and objective in appropriate
manner. Induction documents should carry all elements to be discussed in report so that goal and
objectives are attained in most effective manner. Similarly, recommendations are provided to
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organisation for training where they need to set benchmark against competitors where they
should study about strategy and plan carried out by them in appropriate way and accordingly
training should be conducted. Other recommendation is to survey work force for knowing their
requirements and according to that training as well as development session has to be conducted.
It is important to make clear about mission, vision, strategy and plan, SWOT analysis of business
in advance to employees so that they work accordingly and accomplish set outcomes. The
training should be conducted in innovative manner so that employees and new joiner feel happy
to learn new and different things very easily and apply those in business.
The individual reflective essay summarised that individual should have proper knowledge,
skills and capability to perform work in any organisation, position and profile. It is personal
reflective essay of my own experience in food and beverage department where I am working as
intern in three departments such as breakfast team, mini bar and dinning service. This was my
campus selection in hotel industry where they have provided me with training, induction
programs so that I can learn more new and different things in most effective manner for
attainment of both organisation as well as department objectives. There are some
recommendations provided to business in terms of training, induction and other so that business
activities and operations are run in appropriate manner.
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