BMSK4005: Professional Career Development Report and Role Play

This report presents a comprehensive analysis of professional career development, focusing on the skills and knowledge required for effective performance as a general manager in a restaurant setting. It begins with an introduction to professional development and identifies key skills such as communication, teamwork, and empathy. The report then details a self-assessment using SWOT analysis, highlighting strengths in teamwork and communication, weaknesses in time management and computer skills, opportunities for career advancement, and threats from competition and lack of technological proficiency. The report also includes a reflection on a role-play interview, emphasizing the importance of communication and active listening. Finally, it culminates in a professional development plan outlining strategies to improve time management, numeracy, computer skills, and public speaking, along with the resources and estimated timeframes for skill enhancement.

Professional Career
Development Report and Role
Play Interviewee and
Interviewer

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Skills and knowledge that contribute towards working effectively.............................................3
Reflection on role play.................................................................................................................5
Professional development plan....................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Professional development refers activities that can help people to advance in their career
(Davronov, Khalimova and Uzbekistan, 2019). This reflective study is going to discuss all skills
that are required for performing functions as a general manager of restaurant. Some important
skills that play a vital role are: communication, team working, empathy and others. It will further
discuss, effectiveness of Johari window and PDP model as how it helps in identifying some areas
of strengths along with ways of improving skills.
Skills and knowledge that contribute towards working effectively
I want to discuss my own skills and knowledge that I have and can help me out in the
future in developing career. 7 years ago when I started working with small level of restaurant in
the UK then I was appointed as a waitress. As a waitress I worked hard and helped manager in
accomplishing their goals that are:
 To develop career as an effective manager within 2 years.
 To attract and hire the best qualified employees as a general manager.
 To work under pressure and expand business within 5 years.
 To increase customers’ satisfaction and maximizing profit up to 25% as compared to last
year.
With the help of SWOT analysis, I want to analyse my own skills, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats. While working as a waitress I analysed some skills and areas where I
need to focus the most and those areas include:
Strengths: I found that I am good in team working as I worked with all other employees
and colleagues in the restaurant. This ability helped me out in increasing my knowledge and
skills to the great extent (Bharwani and Talib, 2017). I learned several new ways of performing
functions. While working in a team with other members I also improved decision making and
problem solving skills. Other skill that also helped me out in becoming general manager is
communication. I believe that as a waitress, communication is vital and this skill can make us
able in improving relationship with others and satisfying customers. My ability of being calm in
critical situations when customers do not treat in an effective manner also impressed manager
and made me able to become an effective general manager. It boosted my confidence and I
believe that it will help me out in developing career in this field.

Weaknesses: There are some areas on which I need to focus the most in order to become
the most effective and successful general manager. In the journey of becoming general manager
from waitress, increased my knowledge to the great extent. But still there are some areas and
skills that I need to improve. With the help of peers reviews and feedbacks I came to know about
all these areas and skills gaps that I have. By self-evaluation and analysis, I found that I was
lacking behind in time management skill. I found that I perform all functions with quality but as
compared to others I become unable to perform all functions in a timely manner. When I tried
then I found that if I speed up then it affects quality. For helping out manager of this restaurant in
growing business an expanding it, I need to increase this skill (Kim, Schmidgall and Damitio,
2017). Other skill gap that I also found with peer reviews and feedbacks, given by my manager
is: computer and numeracy. I find difficulties in managing online data relevant to bars,
beverages items and customers’ data. I have few knowledge about accessing computer and
numeracy and it is important for working as a general manager in an effective manner.
Opportunities: On the basis of self-analysis and experience of waitress and general
manager I found that my ability of implementing growth strategies and communication can
provide opportunities of attracting customers to the great extent. Improving revenues and
evaluation of performance of others as a general manager can also provide opportunity to
increase overall productivity and expanding business. I can also take opportunities of
developing career as I am hard working, problem solver and flexible. Career development is
one of the greatest opportunity that any employee can take (Dave and et.al., 2018). All these
identified skills can also help me out in becoming an effective manager in the future while
satisfying needs of employees and customers as well.
Threats: Due to inability to access computer, online data and numeracy skill it can
increase threat of competition. For taking competitive opportunities and being in the
competition it is important to have an ability to use advanced technology and using them in
performing functions. In the UK there are several well-known restaurants and for competing
them, it is important to focus on all skills gaps that I have identified by self-evaluation. Other
threats that can also create a barrier in accomplishing goals is delay in submission of projects
and services to customers. Due to lack of time management skill, it can create problems in
decreasing profit margin and dissatisfaction among customers. Sometimes delay in customers’
services can made me depress and frustrated. I found that when we do not complete our tasks in

a timely manner then we found problems in making a balance between personal and
professional life. It makes us frustrated that can affect overall performance (Gao and et.al.,
2018).
With the model of Johari Window, I can enlist all areas in which I am good as well as want
to improve more such as:
Arena: It consists of attributes that other
people know about us and we have also
selected for us:
 Calm
 Flexible
 Effective communicator
Blind spot: It consists of attributes that are
selected by others and not by us.
 Confident
 Trustworthy
 Dependable
 Team working
 Self-assertive and others
Façade: It refers attributes that are not being
selected by others but by own self.
 Searching
 Sensible
 Creative
Unknown: as with the name, it can be said that
it refers attributes that neither others nor us
have selected:
 Extroverted, friendly, public speakers
and self-conscious sentimental.
Reflection on role play
I want to share my experience of interview as a role play. As a role play in interview, I
found importance of communication as interviewer asked several questions relevant to my career
field. He wanted to see my confidence and the way of giving answer. From interviewer and the
way of communicating, I learned increasing importance of this skill. This skill further helped me
out in managing my work, operations in restaurant and making customers as well as employees
feel satisfied. Interviewer showed a politeness and integrity towards me that made me feel
valued. I learned the importance of understanding human behaviours and being polite while
communicating.
Interviewer asked about my past experience as well as my skill gaps. When I shared all
about my skills and weaknesses then he asked me about action plan as how I would fill skill gap
(Nicol, 2017). I did not give answer because I did not think about action plan. But at that time I

learned the importance of PDP and ways as how it can increase our skills. Interviewer supported
me and made me feel comfortable with his integrity, effective communication and active
listening skill. He understood me with my way of talking and personality and at that time I also
knew about different types of communication and importance of understanding others. I think
this interview process and role play helped me out in performing functions as a waitress and
general manager in restaurant.
When I did not given answer that time also interviewer made me feel comfortable and tried
to made me come out from fear zone. That time I learned the way of making someone
comfortable and also importance of it. It increases engagement. Overall, I can say that I learned
several things from interview process and it was effective. As an interviewee, my responsibility
was to give accurate answer by making eye contact and I tried to listen actively and maintained
eye contact. All skills that I learned from this process would definitely helped me out in the
future and developing career in hospitality sector.
Professional development plan
Professional development plan is known as one of the effective action plan as it helps all of
us and employees in improving all skills in which we are not goof. Everyone has some skills
gaps that can create some barriers in the path of success and in the future. So, they require
improving them and accomplishing all set goals. So, on the basis of above self-evaluation or self-
analysis, I can say that as a general manager and on the basis of past experience of waitress, I
have some weaknesses that I need to improve. Some main areas for which I want to develop
professional plan is: time management, numeracy or computer skill and an ability of public
speaking (Von Heupt, 2017). With the help of this plan that will help me out in suggesting some
resources and estimated time of improving skills, can definitely helped me out in developing
career.
Skills need to be
improved
Resources and activities Importance Timeframe
Time-
management
There are several tools are available in
the market that are specialized and
developed for increasing people’s time
management skill. As per the analysis, it
found that Toggl and focus keeper are
For making customers’ feel valued
it is important of having an ability
to complete all tasks in a timely
manner. BY improving this skill, I
can increase trust among
2-3 months

effective tools and online apps. These
apps can help me out in performing my
tasks in a timely manner. Also, my peers
and managers gave feedbacks and told
me that procrastination is the main
barrier of time management. So, as per
their feedbacks, I will focus on
performing all tasks by prioritizing and
reducing procrastination.
customers because it is believed
that when customers get their
services and products as per the
estimated time in restaurants then
it increases their experience and
makes them feel valued. So, I can
say that this improved skill can
help me out in expanding business
by attracting customers to the
great extent, increasing sales and
productivity. It can also help me
out in being refreshed at
workplace as when we complete
our tasks on time then we feel
refreshed and stress free.
Numeracy or
computer skills
I believe that this skill can be developed
by practicing. So, for this, I will take
online classes and will learn all about
computer and numeracy skill. By
spending time for this class, I can learn
appropriate and effective ways of
accessing computer and ways of
managing data in an effective manner.
This skill can help me out in
taking competitive advantage as it
is a part of technology.
Technology is playing a vital role
in growing business and it can also
be said that this restaurant is
expanding as a pace so, there will
be requirement of managing data
in an effective manner. This
ability can make me able to
manage data and use them when
required.
Approx. 3
months
Public speaking For this skill, I can practise of speaking
in front of mirror by assuming that
people are sitting there and listening me.
Public speaking is also important
as a general manager as it can help
me out in developing team
Around 2-3
months

Also by participating in seminars, held
by restaurants and other organizations, I
can develop this skill.
meeting of all employees. This
skill can help me out in increasing
trust and making able to all
employees in believing me as a
leader. It can boost my confidence
and helped me out in meeting
goals.
CONCLUSION
It has been summarized from the above study that communication, team working and an
ability to work under pressure plays a vital role as a general manager and waitress. It has been
discussed effectiveness of SWOT and Johari model’s effectiveness as how it can help people in
identifying their both areas in which they are good and in which they need to improve more
skills.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bharwani, S. and Talib, P., 2017. Competencies of hotel general managers: a conceptual
framework. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management.
Dave, V.S. and et.al., 2018, October. A combined representation learning approach for better job
and skill recommendation. In Proceedings of the 27th acm international conference on
information and knowledge management (pp. 1997-2005).
Davronov, I.O., Khalimova, N.J. and Uzbekistan, B., 2019. Professional development of hotel
staff as a key to improve the quality of services in bukhara hotels. Тeacher Namangan
region, Norin district school. (40). p.26.
Gao, S. and et.al., 2018. Identifying competitors through comparative relation mining of online
reviews in the restaurant industry. International Journal of Hospitality Management. 71.
pp.19-32.
Kim, M., Schmidgall, R.S. and Damitio, J.W., 2017. Key managerial accounting skills for
lodging industry managers: The third phase of a repeated cross-sectional
study. International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration. 18(1). pp.23-40.
Nicol, A., 2017. Examining the efficacy of joint investigative interview training through
analysing the quality of interview conducted with role-play actors (Doctoral dissertation,
Abertay University).
Von Heupt, N., 2017. Creating a continuing professional development plan. Training &
Development. 44(6). pp.16-17.