Nelson College, Hospitality: Professional Identity and Practice Report

This report examines professional identity and practice within the context of hospitality management, using Hilton Hotels & Resorts as a case study. The report begins with an evaluation of the benefits of ongoing professional development for stakeholders, emphasizing the importance of trained personnel and employee interaction. It then investigates the expected skills and competencies employers seek, differentiating between soft and hard skills, and providing examples relevant to a Hospitality Manager role. The report proceeds with a self-assessment of the author's abilities, skills, and competencies for a specific job role, utilizing a skills audit and SWOT analysis. The report also reviews various learning theories and approaches, such as Gagné's theory and social learning theory, applicable to professional development, and explores how these theories can be implemented. Finally, the report produces a personal development plan (PDP) to improve individual skills, and reviews the key strengths and weaknesses of a job interview process.

Professional Identity and Practice

INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
P1. Evaluate the key benefits of on-going professional development for stakeholders within
organization.................................................................................................................................1
P2. Investigate the expected employers skills and competencies within organization................2
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................3
P3. Assess own abilities, skills and competencies for specific job role......................................3
P4. Review the range of learning theories and approaches which are used for professional
development.................................................................................................................................4
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................6
P5. Produce a development plan to improve individual skills and ability in specific job context
.....................................................................................................................................................6
TASK 4............................................................................................................................................8
P6. Undertake a job interview for any service industry...............................................................8
P7. Review the key strengths and weaknesses of job interview process...................................10
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Professional identity refers to the individual attributes, beliefs, values, intentions and
perspectives etc. Development of a professional identity within circumstances of marginalized
cultural identification creates a complex challenge (Bowen, 2018). Organization is capable of
professional development through improving the current skills of the employee. For a deeper
understanding of this concept, Hilton Hotel & Resort picked. This evaluation includes the
following topics including the significance of ongoing professional development, evaluation of
one's own skills, abilities and capability through the use of different learning methods. This also
includes the career learning program to enhance their skills and better explain the method of
hiring employees or show the performance of people during the interview process.
MAIN BODY
TASK 1
P1. Evaluate the key benefits of on-going professional development for stakeholders within
organization
Overview:
Hilton Hotels & Resorts also known as Hilton Hotels which is a multinational chain of
hospitality industry (García-Martínez and Tadeu, 2018). The organization originally was
founded by Conrad Hilton. There have already been 586 hotels in 85 countries around the world
covering six continents, and 215,623 rooms, since around December 31, 2018. That includes 66
residences with 20,264 bedrooms acquired or rented, 276 with 119,594 rooms owned, and 244
with 75,765 rooms privately owned and operated.
Benefits of on-going professional development:
Continued professional development is a dynamic process of tracking and promoting the
skills, abilities and knowledge those subscribers through formal and informal way of working,
even beyond initial training (Brooks, 2018). This is a directory about what people experience and
learn to apply afterwards. The ongoing cycle of career development permits individuals to
control their own development continuously. The goal is to help someone to document, evaluate
and discuss what they're learning from. It has some benefits which are as follow:
 Trained personnel: Ongoing professional growth is endurance and training that helps
the organization to enhance its workers' talents, capacities and companies. It helps to
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build skills for hotel workers and further assists the managers of Hilton Hotel to carrying
out daily basis operations and maintenance practices. Trained staff seeks to achieve
business priorities and targets by delivering quality resources to customers.
 Employee’s ability to interact: It will increase employee participation through the aid of
career learning services, which can help maximize productivity and performance
(Fernández-Balboa and González-Calvo, 2018). It also helps in improving individual
confidence and productivity along with overall performance.
 Encourage team members: As employees, the numerous learning and training programs
are applied to improve their expertise and skills. And the hotel employees are able to
work safely or effectively. Ongoing professional growth enables the Hilton Hotel
managers to encourage their staff to fulfil their mission or increase productivity and fulfil
company's goals.
P2. Investigate the expected employers skills and competencies within organization
There are other skills as well that a worker need who was working in a hospitality sector.
Skills are required depending upon the specific position and Hilton’s manager considers the
appropriate Hospitality Manager Position capabilities:
 Soft skills are characteristics of personality and interpersonal skills which define the
connections between a person and others (Avidov-Ungar and Forkosh-Baruch, 2018). Soft
skills are seen as an addition to hard-working experience that refers to the technical
capability of a person.
 Hard skills, such as writing, practicing arithmetic, accessing computer programs, dispute
solving, critical thinking, capable of learning and observable.
 Customer support expertise would be in persons and then have the ability to understand
customer desires or will with this knowledge, and therefore allow the employee to optimize
customer interaction by utilizing these expertises.
In the background of Hilton Hotel, the senior management required some different skills for
Hospitality Manager Role and some of them are as follow:
 Effectively communicate: These are the most useful practices for communicating with
clients in the job of Hospitality Manager (Burns and Cruikshanks, 2018). Therefore contact
is important to assess the desires and expectations of guests as they arrive at the hotel. The
management team of Hilton Hotel will make sure that this knowledge base is in Hospitality
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Manager, because they'd have to monitor all operational activities where person interacts
with several other staff.
 Problem solving skills: Hilton Hotel supervisor needed these skills for the position of
Hospitality Manager and needed this knowledge and the ability to resolve operational
problems. It allows the company to fulfil their mission by achieving their company goals &
priorities. Hospitality manager will need to fix multiple team conflicts because this
experience and knowledge is crucial for this kind of role.
The employer expects above mentioned skills and abilities in their staff or for the position of
hospitality manager. It aims to increase total productivity as well as performance that has further
enabled company priorities and targets to be accomplished.
TASK 2
P3. Assess own abilities, skills and competencies for specific job role
With the help of Self assessment for the role of Hospitality Manager in Hilton Hotel, I
required some expertise in such skills which helps me to evaluate that I am capable for this role
(Blackmore, Howard and Kington, 2018). This evaluation will be carried out with the help of
Skills Audit and SWOT analysis. It allows me to determine my weaknesses and strengths
according to this role which required some specific skills, abilities and qualifications.
Skills Audio:
Suitable skills My skill’s rating Required skill’s
rating
Improvement required
or Not
Interpersonal Skills 8 7 No
Problem Solving 6 8 Yes
Creative Thinking 7 9 Yes
Time Management 7 8 Yes
Communication 9 8 No
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Personal SWOT:
Strength Weakness
It seems to include all the key
characteristics that help me to succeed in
my private and professional career
(Carlyon, 2018). I have great leadership or
management skills and personal abilities
for the post of Hospitality Manager that
helped me to fulfil the responsibility and
role or build business strategy.
It shows a person's shortcomings that this has to
work on with this area to create a better world and
move it from obvious vulnerability to power.
People should strive to solve this weakness and
have more chances in the future. My strengths are
innovative thinking, time management and
problem-solving, for the position of Hospitality
Manager. To be able to work as Hospitality
President, I have to focus on these competencies.
Opportunities Threats
This seems to include the future
opportunities people need to understand or
improve their skill set. Obtaining skills is
beneficial for the employee to improve
their performance or effectiveness in
achieving their company's goals and
objectives. I also get opportunity for
Hospitality Manager to make
improvements as senior management as I
lead to the company's earnings.
This component represents such skills which impact
each career and its competitiveness. Thus, groups of
people need to identify and work on potential
dangers to improve their effectiveness, which
further seeks to achieve hotel goals which further
enhance business profit margins as well as
hospitality demand. Threats will fuel creativity for
the role of Hospitality Manager and individuals can
face problems in the future.
P4. Review the range of learning theories and approaches which are used for professional
development
There are several learning approaches and theories which are required by the organizations
for the personal or professional development of their employees. Some of them are discussed
below, which can be followed by the managers of Hilton Hotel for the improvement of their staff
member.
Learning approaches & theories:
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Gagné's theory: It is a professional growth concept linked to social practices that arise as
individuals are attempted to implement with lighting environments and focused on the
production of results, and also how various learning experiences should be coordinated to
produce such results (Mathews And et.al., 2018). This concept of instruction includes the
multiple guidelines to have an appropriate interpretation for the person and can be followed by
management at Hilton Hotel.
Social learning theory: It is believed that people are likely to exhibit aggressive habits
when they watch somebody else react aggressively to see if any habits are dramatically changed.
Theories of social learning stress the influence of human experience and say that people have to
learn by observing the behaviour of the individual then by seeing aggressive acts, how much
certain persons are influenced in a negative and positive way. The management of Hilton Hotel
might also pursue this strategy for the development of the hotel employees not only in
the personal and professional life. To enforce this strategy, Hilton Hotel's managers and other
key management personnel should obey the requirements and regulations of resort premises, so
that newly selected applicants can understand how the superiors are doing. Know that as well, if
they are addressing the hurdles or considering the responses to them.
Cognitive approach: This approach encourages the staff to learn and sustain for long
periods of time. It is a committed, constructive and long-lasting method for boosting the
efficiency of their workers' brains. Cognitive structure is based on those approaches to provide
useful feedback and more professional and organizational development assistance. Hilton Hotel
is willing to embrace this action approach to focus positively on the workers. Based on the
response, individual performance can be improved, this is most crucial if professional
development is to be enhanced to accomplish growth prospects.
The Hilton Hotel manager should impose the Gagne theory to include an organized learning
method (Hohenstein and Lévy-Tödter, 2020). That increases profitability or performance in
order to meet company goals and objectives.
Attention: Managers must ensure that they get input from staff before any specifics are
actually released.
Ensuring members regarding objectives: Provide full information regarding
hotel's objectives and other ambitions of everyone, as it helps a customer to accomplish their task
of attaining client goals.
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Stimulating memory for past experience: Incorporating new knowledge which has been
experienced with past learning principles is expected at this point.
Stimulation presentation: Organization must insure the learning process is always
supported with fresh knowledge.
Provide guidance for learning: The supervisor provides clear suggestions or directions for
the learning experience in each time to ensure they remain older.
Eliciting output: In this phase, the manager described personal skills that enable a firm to
recognize its potential.
Input: Managers are expected to provide regular feedback to the learning experience or to
the worker. If necessary they can improve their performance.
Performance Assessment: Managers evaluate the relative talent which attempts to define
their success.
TASK 3
P5. Produce a development plan to improve individual skills and ability in specific job context
Hilton Hotel is searching suitable candidates for the role of Hospitality manager. In order to
become capable for this role I will develop PDP (Personal Development Plan) to improve my
skills which are required to become suitable candidate for this position. Individuals improve their
skills by using personal development plan (PDP) while qualifying for particular job position.
Skills Skills Duration Evaluation of progress Evaluation or
effectiveness of PDP
Time
Management
3 months (Short
term goal)
I want to improve my time
management skills as it helps me to
finish my job on time. It always saves
too much time, which makes my
productivity which overall results
boost.
I could only be ready to construct and
sustain plans with the support of time
management techniques which
further helps in decision making
I ought to deal with the
schedule which helps me
to finish the assignment
on time. This would save
my energy and
encourages me to support
the Hotels to achieve its
goals & objectives
(Losano, Fiorentini and
Villarreal, 2018).
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process, increase competitive
capacity, control the entire
department, etc. This ability is
measured with the assistance of the
concept of Gagne theory.
Problem
Solving
Medium term
goals (6 months)
To support me from overcome
internal disputes and other
interpersonal issues which impact the
business, I will strengthen my
problem-solving skills which fix
problems in the workforce that impact
the individual performance.
Using the philosophy of cognitive
behavioural therapy training that helps
employees to manage hotel issues,
this ability may be tested. I may also
repair the issues, as well as several
other implications related to the
position of work and the client. I am
just trying to evaluate myself by the
principle of behaviour.
I may well handle all
the issues which are
important to the
development team or
guests and with the aid of
conflict resolution. This
helps us to effectively
handle all the
administrative tasks and
also aid in
making decision. After
trouble with the system
of justice, I will devise
more techniques.
Creative
thinking
Long Term
Goals (1 Year)
I will work on developing my creative
thought process, as it has helped the
Hotel Manager to perform their task.
This assists with analytical skills, task
scheduling and teamwork, solving
problems, and innovative and fresh
thoughts being addressed.
The entire capacity is tested using
cognitive teaching methodology that
I will do too well at the
business by developing
my innovative thinking
process (Sherwood and
O’Donnell, 2018).
Attempting to work less
and doing better as a
result of numerous
increases in my
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improves the efficiency of
organizational thought. It enables
learners to develop innovative and
imaginative ideas that can help the
hotel owner boost the market for their
customers.
productivity will raise
my chance of taking on
trust. It will also rising
my power of collection
and help me to solve
problems faster.
TASK 4
P6. Undertake a job interview for any service industry
It is a multi-stage review process being followed by HR manager to hire new staff for both
the position of Hospitality Manager at Hilton Hotel. Usually, the recruiting process consists of
the following steps, such as drafting a job description, posting a vacancy, arranging interviews,
having personal interview, performing individual-wide interviews, assessing applicants and
recruiting. There are several types of recruiting procedure, such as formal or informal system of
comprehensive interviews.
Interview will be done in a structured process by direct face interview with representatives
from both ends where supervisors ask the applicants several questions. Interview conducted in
the office at a given date, time and location. At the other hand, casual phase is a relaxed sitting
approach where you all sit in one position and start enjoying a beverage or lunch together. It
doesn't include the coordinated or institutional method of processing answers to meeting
questions (Sardabi, Biria and Golestan, 2018). The human resources team at Hilton Hotel obeys
the formal recruitment procedure for recruiting Hospitality Director Positions. Many applicants
apply for this job and to then a particular candidate's curriculum vitae is chosen which is listed
below, as well as more interview procedure continue with certain series of questions being asked
to the applicants coming for the recruitment process.
Person Specification
Name: Wilson John
Address: 25/75, Seven Dials, England, UK.
Contact No: + 98562202569
Email: [e-mail]
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Qualification:
 Graduate from Oxford management school
 Post graduated degree in Hotel Management from Oxford London University.
Work experience:
 Zero
Skills:
 Professional Communication
 Good listing habit
 Critical thinking
 Problem solving and leadership skills
 Management and Team building skills
After shortlist the candidate on the basis of their person specification for the role of
Hospitality manager, HR managers ask some questions for the final selection. Some of the job
interview questions are as follow:
Job Interview Questions
Question 1:
HR: Introduce yourself in few lines?
Candidate: I am Wilson John and I belong to Seven Dials, UK. I have done graduation from
Management School of Oxford and completed my Post graduation in Hostel management from
the collage.
Question 2:
HR: Have you any working experience?
Candidate: No
Question 3:
HR: Why you think, you are suitable candidate for this role?
Candidate: I am always wants be a manager of big brand hotel where i am able to show my
skills and abilities through achieving organizational goals & objectives. In addition, my skills
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meet the job responsibilities and roles.
Question 4:
HR: Tell me about your strengths?
Candidate: My strengths are effective communication, so i can relate with people and try to
understand their needs. Problem solving, creative thinking, management and leadership all are
my strengths which helps me to achieve or improve operational performances.
P7. Review the key strengths and weaknesses of job interview process
That was a genuinely great moment for me throughout the recruiting process, because it was
my very first interview I gave. But it inspires me, as I am learning other stuff for my upcoming
interview. This technique contains both positive and negative aspects which I found to be my
own strengths or shortcomings (Tinkler And et.al., 2018). This is an advantage of this hiring
process that Hilton Hotel follows the original formal meeting wherein the HR manager poses
some basic questions, and it's helpful for me to start preparing such questionnaires. Interview
framework is dependent around a single point of time and location-dependent interview
procedure that makes the candidate identify them and make them more confident when they
enter the conference room for the selection process.
Weak point of the job application process will be that, interviewer asks me the standard
series of questions, candidates already have organized their response from either the online site,
but they still ask other candidates the same questions. Large percentage of people come in for the
interview during the structured interview process, causing anxiety, tension and affects my
confidante. These interviewing questions are going to be time-consuming enough, commitment
& costly too. It is also possible for interviewers not to pick the given nominee's insufficient
capability, expertise, and potential. This is a costly procedure for the company and they just need
to look for certain applicants who have that amount of promise or it would take time and
resources to conduct the process of choosing clients.
CONCLUSION
From the above discussion it has been observed that professional development is essential
for the organizations in order to improve their employee’s performances as well as skill set. On-
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