Professional Identity and Practice (Merit) ICN Assignment

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PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PRACTICE (MERIT) {ICN}
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Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................3
LO1 Describe the importance of professional development....................................................3
P1 Key benefits of on-going development with respect to the stakeholders........................3
P2 Expectations of skills with respect to the organisation....................................................4
M1 Importance of ongoing development process.................................................................5
D1 Evaluate skills that can help in meeting the expectation of the employer.......................5
LO2 Approaches for skills development...................................................................................6
P3 Skills and abilities for hospitality sector...........................................................................6
P4 Learning theories and approaches..................................................................................7
M2 Evaluation of the skills....................................................................................................8
LO3 Plan for development.......................................................................................................8
P5 Development plan that depicts the chosen skills for hospitality sector...........................8
M3 Evaluation of Development plan...................................................................................12
D2 Plan demonstration.......................................................................................................14
LO4 Determine the transferable skills required for job application.........................................15
P6 Portray a job interview for a particular role in the organisation.....................................15
P7 Application of strengths and weaknesses of the interview............................................17
M4 Evaluate the interview process with the challenges and obstacles faced....................18
D3 Critically produce a reflection of the interview process.................................................18
Conclusion..............................................................................................................................18
References.............................................................................................................................19
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Introduction
Personal identity is considered as the major aspect that needs to be present in a hospitality
industry. In this context, The Beaumont Hotel has been considered to investigate about the
hospitality they provide to their customers. In this context, a job interview for hiring a Senior
HR manager is included in this assignment. An appropriate development plan that includes
all skills and attributes of an individual is presented in this assignment.
LO1 Describe the importance of professional development
P1 Key benefits of on-going development with respect to the stakeholders
Professional development is defined as the education and training that is provided to an
individual in order to grow better in terms of their careers. The main aim of professional
development is to keep and maintain an update of the trends that helps in developing
various skills, which can be helpful while working in an organisation. According to Zaitseva
et al. (2017), the key benefits of professional development required in the learner for getting
into the business of The Beaumont Hotel are as follows:
● It helps in developing the skills and further, it provides opportunity to learn something
new. This leads to a basic satisfaction to the employees.
● It helps in improving the efficiency of the staffs with the help of various skills. In
addition, professional development helps in re energising the staff of The Beaumont
Hotel in the UK.
● It helps in an increase in employee retention for the particular organisation (Fry,
2018). Further, it helps in increasing the credibility and confidence among the
employees of the hotel.
● Moreover, it provides help in meeting up with new contacts and spread business
worldwide. In addition, qualified candidates are attracted towards the business of the
hotel.
● Eventually, it provides support in making up an easier plan for the concerned
organisation.
● Lastly, if there is a presence of professional development found in The Beaumont
Hotel, it tends to attract high profiled stakeholders (thebeaumont.com, 2019). These
stakeholders are responsible of investing into the hotel business positively.
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P2 Expectations of skills with respect to the organisation
The term ‘skills’ refers to the ability of individual has enough knowledge regarding a
particular aspect. This knowledge can be related to the acquirement of practice and aptitude
that helps them to perform well in their career (Damian et al. 2015). In addition, skills can
also be defined as the learning ability of an individual that helps in bringing out the result of a
particular training (Zaitseva et al. 2016). On the other hand, competencies are far more than
skills acquired by an individual. In this context, the learner needs to have various skills and
competencies to get fit into the hospitality business of The Beaumont Hotel. Therefore, the
skills required in the learner according to the employer’s perception are as follows:
● Research skills- The learner must possess strong and effective research skills. This
is considered as the important skill that is necessary. It will help the learner to
determine and access every task scenario and complete it with full commitment.
● Communication skills- Every individual must have excellent communication skills.
Being under hospitality industry, the employer of The Beaumont Hotel will hire
someone who has this skill present in the employee. Hence, written, speaking and
listening skills are necessary to grow a career in this hotel.
● Interpersonal skills- Working in a team and dealing with the clients with a positive
attitude is classified under interpersonal skills of the learner (Smith et al. 2015).
Hence, one needs to be comfortable with working under or in a team to build up
positive relationships with the other staffs.
● Flexibility- As per a hotel is considered, the learner needs to be flexible with time. A
hotel has rotational shift timings more than fixed timings. Thus, to be in touch with
The Beaumont Hotel flexibility is necessary. Being flexible can turn out to be a
bigger advantage in future for the learner.
● Efficient planner- As discussed earlier, working in a team is a requirement by the
employer of The Beaumont Hotel. Similarly, the learner has to be capable enough
to plan a task and make the teamwork according to it. In addition, having knowledge
of the most important task that needs to be completed earlier is the responsibility of
the learner.
● Leadership skills- Acquiring leadership qualities is a powerful skill. It helps the
learner to be able to manage the team assigned. Monitoring and guiding every
member of the team is the ultimate duty of the leader by taking on with the leadership
skills.
● Public speaker- According to the employer of The Beaumont Hotel, the learner
needs to have adequate amount of confidence so that speaking up in public is not
hard (Shamim et al. 2017). It is therefore, considered as a crucial skill because it
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requires to a lot of practice to speak in front of the audience. Here, the audience are
the staffs who are already working with the hotel.
● Creative- Creativity is another aspect of maintaining the workflow under progress.
Innovation leads to execute every task in a different manner. Thus, creativity is
recognised as one of the major skills that is required in hospitality industry.
● Technical skills- Nowadays, every organisation prefer people who are computer
savvy and technically fit for business. Therefore, the employer of The Beaumont
Hotel has kept special criteria of having an employee who is technically sound
(Brekelmans et al. 2015). Thus, the learner needs to acquire this skill to be selected
in the hotel.
● Multi-tasking skills- A person who can work on several things at a same time has
more chances of being hired. However, this multitasking must have no errors in it.
This will therefore, enable the learner to make the chances higher in getting through
hospitality business.
M1 Importance of ongoing development process
According to Seyitoğlu and Yirik (2015), a hospitality industry mainly focuses on a diverse
workforce. Therefore, they require varieties in positions of their business. Thus, the
importance of ongoing development process is as follows:
● It helps in maintaining the business standard of the concerned hotel
● Acquired skills of the employees help to attract customers and enhance their
business
● Ongoing development process helps in solving problem related to hospitality, which
are faced by the hotel
● Moreover, having a proper training before getting into work helps in being aware of
any danger that can harm business
D1 Evaluate skills that can help in meeting the expectation of the employer
According to Adeyinka-Ojo (2018), to meet the expectations of the employers of The
Beaumont Hotel, few of the professional skills that are required are as follows:
● Being flexible
● Having the ability to work as a multitasked
● Presence of excellent communication skills
● Culturally aware
● Has the ability to work in a team
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● Well trained and having basic knowledge of hospitality
● Must be comfortable in servicing the customers
LO2 Approaches for skills development
P3 Skills and abilities for hospitality sector
Hospitality sector requires that its employees have some specific industry specific skills. As
suggested by Buang et al. (2016, p.110), every industry sector requires that the employees
working for the company belonging to that industry has some specific industry oriented skill
set. This is followed in The Beaumont hotel located in London. A successful professional
career in this hotel requires the following skills and abilities:
Excellent customer service
The first and the foremost objective of the hospitality industry are to offer satisfying service to
the customers. As commented by Crawford and Dalton (2016, p.97), the employees having
the responsibility of customer handling are given the top most priority in relevance with
training for customer service. This ensures that the customers visiting The Beaumont hotel
are welcomed properly, their choices given the due respect and that they are satisfied with
the hospitality service to the extent possible.
Excellent communication skill
The employees of Beaumont are observed to have excellent communication skill in order to
interact with the customers in an effective manner. As suggested by Grobelna and Tokarz-
Kocik (2016, p.489), an in depth interaction with the customers helps the employees of an
hotel to analyse the customer demand and expectation.
Formal domain based training
The Beaumont hotel has several customer service domains, which require expert
management by the appropriately trained employees. Some of these domains include
inventory management, housekeeping, food and beverage service and kitchen. Each of this
department requires trained employees. As suggested by Kumar (2018, p.241), an
employee having a training in housekeeping may not have the required capacity for
managing the inventory service. This implies that every individual employee must have
domain specific training in order to be appropriate for a specific domain.
Cultural awareness
The hospitality sector witnesses the presence of several individuals as customers having
unique backgrounds. As opined by Metilelu, (2016, p.2), the uniqueness of the guests are
observed in their choice of hotel, food and beverage items. In this case, an employee
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working for hospitality company, The Beaumont is expected to have the requisite knowledge
about different cultures prevalent worldwide. Such knowledge ensures that customers feel
comfortable during their stay in the hotel.
Multitasking
The multitasking skill of the employees of Beaumont hotel is effective especially during their
peak season in summer. As per the viewpoint of Pham et al. (2019, p.396), an individual
having the capability of multitasking always has a better opportunity over the others in terms
of professionalism. This is because; the overall temperature of London is mild and the
surrounded by the greeneries of the parks. Thus, in this peak season, loads of discounts are
offered to the guests. This requires that the employees have a very high capability of
multitasking to take care of the several customer service oriented tasks.
Teamwork
Beaumont hotel requires the contribution of several staffs for the smooth management of its
customer services. As suggested by Sabri et al. (2019, p.20), in case of staff shortage, the
teamwork capability of the individual employees helps in the overall management of the
hospitality business. Because of teamwork, a tough task is divided into several subtasks and
their responsibility is presented to the appropriate staff.
Flexibility in work
The work schedule and nature of work in Beaumont depends exclusively depends on the
availability of the guests. As commented by SHARMA and Gursoy (2018, p.28), in case too
many guests are present in the hotel, the work pressure on the employees automatically
increases. On the other hand, as per the nature of guests, the hospitality facilities that needs
to be offered to them also changes such as food items and room services. In such cases,
the hotel staffs are expected to be flexible in their work.
P4 Learning theories and approaches
Behaviourist approach to learning
As per this learning approach, the reaction of the learner is presented in response to
external stimuli. Thus, it is the duty of the learning facilitator to provide available stimuli for
the learners’ response. These external stimuli are observed to be in several forms such as
pain, joy. These stimuli activate the emotional point of a human being for responding to the
stimuli accordingly. In Beaumont hotel providing the hospitality service to their guests, the
staffs give the appropriate reaction in response to the requests made by the guests.
Cognitive approach to learning
This cognitive approach to learning indicates that the learner requires the requisite amount
of cognitive skill to process according to the information presented by the external facilitator.
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As per this theory, in hospitality industry, the requests by the customers are needed to be
processed by the staffs as per their cognitive skill.
Humanistic approach to learning
This learning approach has the main objective that interaction between the humans at the
societal level helps in the mutual benefit of both the individuals. As per the hospitality
industry, the interaction between the staffs and the customers helps in the understanding of
the customer demands. It is assumed that the staffs are expected to utilize their intelligence
in terms of processing the order placed by the customer. This is relevant in the fact that the
staff may have to refuse a customer order in the most polite way possible in case the
ordered items are unavailable in the hotel inventory.
M2 Evaluation of the skills
The different mandatory skills possessed by the hospitality staffs help them to understand
the expectation of the customers from different perspectives. These different skills are
applied accordingly in different domains. This indicates that an individual having more than
one skill may have expertise in more than one domain. As commented by Suhaila et al.
(2018, p.10), an individual having more than one skills, are expected to have the required
capacity to multitask in a busy environment.
LO3 Plan for development
P5 Development plan that depicts the chosen skills for hospitality sector
Long term
goals
Specific career
goal
Skills Necessary
actions
Deadline
Head of Food
and Beverage
Department,
Beaumont
Excel in the
current job role
of Assistant in
Food and
beverage
department
Excellent
customer
service
 Understandi
ng of the
customer
demand
from the
customer
request
 Effective
Inventory
managemen
3 weeks
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t to keep the
popular food
items in
stock
 Serving of
the food at
the earliest
possible
from the
time of order
placing
Excellent
communication
skill
 Noting down
the
customer
feedback as
and where
possible
 In case of
any
customer-
oriented
problem,
meaningful
interaction
with the
customer to
analyze the
problem and
thereby
identification
of the
solution
 Asking the
customer for
2 weeks
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feedback for
special
personalize
d
experimenta
l services
Formal domain
based training
 Staffs
working in a
particular
domain are
expected to
have the
necessary
expertise in
that domain
 A prior
experience
in the same
domain help
in handling
of problem
oriented
scenarios of
that domain
5 weeks
Cultural
awareness
 Staffs
having
knowledge
of different
cultures
helps in the
offering of
satisfying
services to
the
customers
2 weeks
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having
different
background
s
Multitasking  During the
rush period,
staffs
possessing
the skill of
multitasking
is given the
main
responsibilit
y to handle
the rush
3 weeks
Teamwork  After a
customer
has placed
an order, it
is the
teamwork of
the entire
kitchen
staffs in
terms of
processing
the food
order,
preparing
the food as
per the
order and
finally
presenting
the food to
5 weeks
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the
customer
Flexibility in
work
 Different
guests have
different
requirement
s as per
their choice
of food
items and
timing
1 week
Table 1: Development plan in relevance with the skills
(Source: Created by Learner)
M3 Evaluation of Development plan
Skill Theory Deadline
Excellent customer service Behaviorist approach to
learning
4 week
Excellent communication
skill
Cognitive approach to
learning
3 weeks
Formal domain based
training
Cognitive approach to
learning
6 weeks
Cultural awareness Humanistic approach to
learning
4 weeks
Multitasking Cognitive approach to
learning
5 weeks
Teamwork Humanistic approach to
learning
2 weeks
Flexibility in work Behavioristic approach to
learning
2 weeks
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