Personal and Professional Development: A Report for [University Name]

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Personal and Professional Development
[University name]
Personal and Professional Development
By
[Student’s name]
[Date]
[Lecturer’s name]
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Personal and Professional Development
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................5
LO1..............................................................................................................................................5
1.1 Self-learning approaches...............................................................................................5
1.2 Learning styles of personal and professional skill development...................................7
1.3 Benefits of Self-learning....................................................................................................8
Task 2...............................................................................................................................................9
LO2..............................................................................................................................................9
2.1 Interpersonal skills versus professional standards.............................................................9
2.2 Need for professional skill development...........................................................................9
2.3 Current versus future opportunities...................................................................................9
Portfolio building:..........................................................................................................................11
Steve Brown...................................................................................................................................11
Qualification..............................................................................................................................11
2.4 Representation of personal and professional development plan......................................14
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................17
LO3............................................................................................................................................17
3.1 Important activities..........................................................................................................17
3.2 Range of learning style to perform tasks.........................................................................18
3.3 Critical reflection on self-learning against goals.............................................................19
3.4 Feedback..........................................................................................................................19
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................21
LO4............................................................................................................................................23
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Personal and Professional Development
4.1 Ways to resolve work-based issues at Travelodge Hotel................................................23
4.2 Communication at various levels.....................................................................................24
4.3 Time-management strategies:..........................................................................................25
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................28
References......................................................................................................................................29
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Personal and Professional Development
Introduction
Development of professional as well as personal skills is interrelated with interpersonal skills in
terms of soft skills, technical knowledge and communication with others. In this assignment, I
have discussed a variety of professional and personal expertise that are necessary to attain future
personal and professional objectives in an organizational context. In the 21st era of modernization
and digitalization, business organizations have also changed their way of business in the global
business scenario. Understanding of professional and personal skill development has aided me to
improve my performance scale, develop managerial and effective team management skills that I
can implement in the Travelodge Hotel in Ilford. I have evaluated various approaches to the self-
managed learning procedure in the administrative context of the Travelodge Hotel with the help
of learning tools like Kolb's Learning Cycle. Moreover, the internal issues are first identified
with SWOT analysis and later conflict resolution approaches are considered to resolve the
internal issues like excessive workloads, unhealthy competition, low employee motivation, low
staff confidence, low job fulfilment, job stress and ineffective communication between the
management-employees. In the later part of the reflective report, I have suggested S-M-A-R-T
goals for Travelodge Hotel based on the findings of goal setting theory.
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Personal and Professional Development
Task 1
LO1
1.1 Self-learning approaches
Self-managed learning: After analyzing the situation of Travelodge Hotel, I believe self-
learning approaches are beneficiary for the employees to attain the organizational as well as the
professional goals. To attain future aims, one must set his goal clearly and himself take
initiations of learning processes (Fisher, Reynolds and Sheehan, 2016). In this report, I have
mentioned my current competencies-skills and evaluated those skills against professional
standards. To interpret personal achievement goals, I have taken help of S-M-A-R-T goals.
Figure: Representation of S-M-A-R-T goals
Source: DaviD, 2016
Major objectives Details
Specific The specific goal is devoid of ambiguous or unrealistic
goals that I cannot achieve under any realistic
circumstances.
Measurable Measurable goals involve feedback from other
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Specific
Measureable
Assignable
Realistic
Time-based

Personal and Professional Development
individuals and let others know when the tasks will be
finished.
Assignable The tasks that I am going to pursue must be assigned to
someone namely groups or individuals. In the case of the
Travelodge Hotel, I was assigned to the hotel cum line
manager until the completion of my job.
Realistic Specific, realistic, time-based, measurable but difficult
goals are referred in case of realistic goals.
Time-based Time-based yet realistic goals are mentioned under
realistic goals.
Reflexive modernization theory
Researcher Jackson, (2013) mentioned that reflexive modernization approach can be utilized to
question employment goals and technological development in the realms of inter-personal
nature, environment and society. German social theorist Ulrich Beck first devised this term to
indicate the emergence of reflexive modernity in the risk-prone socio-cultural modern society
(Wibrowski et al. 2017). As per this theory, transnational forces have risen as a precaution to
prevent the world. Human-made dangers are generated by human needs and demands (Wild,
2017).
Such that in case of Travelodge Hotel, understanding of reflexive modernization would make the
individuals be more concerned with sustainability, adaptability, flexibility, technological
advancements and expansion of the resource base (Yoke and Ngang, 2017). The individuals at
Travelodge Hotel can be categorized into reflector, theorist, activist, pragmatist etc. on the basis
of personal preferences.
Effective learning approaches: An individual who is eager to develop his study skills can get
help from others. He can attend vocational training classes, seminars, conferences, research
programs etc. Other than those resources, I have taken mentoring classes from supervisors,
coaching classes from professors and attended seminars. In the 21st century, virtual education has
been beneficiary for the working professionals. I went for studying research journal from the
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Personal and Professional Development
internet, reading bulletin boards, watching social networking posts, and later on joined
newsgroups.
Lifelong learning approaches: Internship programs at industries can widen the scope of skill
development for an individual. Apprenticeships, industry-linked higher education, transfer
schemes, long distance learning process and self-directed learning are important for professional
development. The employees must be motivated that with further education one can attain higher
recognition and esteem (Turner, 2016).
1.2 Learning styles of personal and professional skill development
Learning styles: Kolb’s learning cycle
Kolb’s learning cycle is an effective framework that aims to reflect the process of a daily basis
learning experience (Oettingen et al. 2015). By utilizing this reflective observatory framework in
the context of Travelodge Hotel, I want to interpret the integrative learning process in detail.
Figure: Kolb’s learning cycle
Source: Cottrell, 2017
Major attributes Key Roles
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Stage 1: Experience
Stage 2: Reflect
Stage 3:
Conceptualization
Stage 4: Plan

Personal and Professional Development
Stage 1: Experience The hotel employees, house-staffs and even the managers need to earn
strong learning experiences from the practical and real-life scenario.
Stage 2: Reflect The thought process of the employees, house-staffs and even the managers
would get reflected in their work pattern. Through reflection, the
employees can introspect by identifying the qualities that they are lacking
and become more deliberate about their experiences.
Stage 3:
Conceptualization
This hypothetical concept of “conceptualization” is important in case of
the observers to evaluate their learning and interpersonal behavioural
experiences.
Stage 4: Plan The adopted hypotheses that are gained until this planning stage are
analyzed in this stage. The managers, as well as the employees, can
implement newly gained experiences through strategic planning.
1.3 Benefits of Self-learning
Active experimentation stages of Kolb’s learning cycle can be utilized in the practical scenario of
Travelodge Hotel to understand the potentiality among the key stakeholders and identify
strategic interpretations (Teng, 2013). Kolb's stages by reflecting on learning experiences, the
employees, as well as management officials, would become able to handle tough situations with
relevant skills (O'Dowd, 2018). By identifying self-learning approaches an individual can set
their own time table to gain interpersonal and professional skills that would help Travelodge
Ilford to elevate the market capitalization, reduce labour turnover, reproduce highly skilled
labour force and promote healthy competition with each other (Thompson, 2017). The hotel
manager must become more concerned with vocational training for labours as well as managers.
Lack of hospitality puts a negative impact on customer satisfaction (Bourn, 2018). Additionally,
feedback from others is helpful for elevating levels of inter-personal as well as professional
skills.
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Personal and Professional Development
Task 2
LO2
2.1 Interpersonal skills versus professional standards
In the competitive era of the global market scenario, optimization of interpersonal skills and
elevation of professional standards has become necessary to sustain professional growth (Assiter,
2017). Interpersonal skills such as team player skills, social skills, adaptability and flexibility
help an individual to shape his ethical, moral and behavioural structure that are of profound
interest in a customer-centric business context (Maxwell et al. 2015). Assessment of learning
skills is beneficiary for improving personal learning ability range and identifying strengths-
weaknesses. Skills like computational skills, computer language, knowledge of information and
communication technology etc. can be regarded as important professional skills (Gurley et al.
2015).
2.2 Need for professional skill development
From the viewpoint of a manager, I believe that implementation of the professional and personal
skill development program in the workplace could impact the productivity rate of employees in a
positive manner (Pulakos et al. 2015). Certain professional skills like handling of service
operations while ensuring customer satisfaction and business retention, managing customer-
centric operations and ensuring quality norms, concern wise analysis and development of reports
are f profound importance in such business scenario (Jo, Kim and Yoon, 2015).
2.3 Current versus future opportunities
Travelodge Hotel aims for higher market growth while ensuring a high level of customer
satisfaction. However, customer complaints regarding ethical and interpersonal behaviour have
severely impacted the organizational framework of the Travelodge Hotel. More recently one
customer recently mentioned that ‘day staffs were more polite and friendly than ‘night’ staffs.
Rude unhelpful behaviour reflects unsatisfied job morale of the night staffs (Gretzel et al. 2015).
Line manager, as well as I, am looking into the following issues.
The organization must categorize different roles on the basis of the result of personal assessment.
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Personal and Professional Development
Planning Organization Evaluation
Arrange a weekly-based
meeting between the mid-level
managers and workers to talk
about rotational shifts and
competencies of flexible job
routine.
Decide the roles and
responsibilities that managers
and workers are going to
follow for the next week.
Look into the chart of
operational effectiveness,
customer feedback forms and
time management data.
Evaluate the present data with
the previous data.
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Personal and Professional Development
Portfolio building:
Steve Brown
Assistant manager at Travelodge Hotel
Address : White house yard, Greater London
Mobile No : 9987988545
E-mail : [e-mail]
Career Objective:
I am an energy driven professional with 8 years of expertise in Service Operations & Customer
relationship administration and currently employed as an associate manager at Travelodge Hotel.
I want to effort in an organization with a proficient work driven atmosphere where I can exploit
my knowledge and skills; which would allow me to produce while fulfilling administrative goals.
To achieve high career development through an incessant learning process I will try to keep
myself flexible, visionary, promising, loyal and competitive with the changing world.
Academic Qualifications:
Degree Qualification Institute Year Aggregate
Graduation
Masters in
Business
administration
London School
of Commerce
2008-2010 71%
Work experience:
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Personal and Professional Development
I am currently working as an Assistant manager at Travelodge Hotel and look after
organizational development issues. I have 8 years of work knowledge in Service Operations &
Customer relationship administration in Tesco.
Areas of Expertise:
Handling service operations while ensuring customer satisfaction and business retention
Managing complaints that are lodged by customers
Concern analysis
Pareto Analysis of concerns
Monitoring CSI Score
Additional Qualification:
3rd position in Olympiad
Completed a course on Database management system (DBMS) and Oracle
Computer Proficiency:
Microsoft Office Word, Microsoft Office Excel, Microsoft Office Power Point
Database management system (DBMS) And Relational Database management system (RDBMS)
with ORACLE, Networking and used devices
Hobbies:
Travelling, Painting, Dancing, Singing, Swimming, Reading books
Personal Details:
Date of Birth : 11.04.1989
Gender : Male
Languages Known : English and Spanish
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