Professional Identity and Practice: Development Plan and Reflection

This report delves into the multifaceted aspects of professional identity and practice within the context of the Travel and Tourism industry, specifically focusing on Travelodge Hotels Limited. It begins with an overview of the organization, detailing its structure, services, and target customer segments. The report then outlines the skills essential for various job roles within the hotel, such as General Manager, Executive Chef, and Housekeeper. It emphasizes the benefits of professional development, including reduced absenteeism and increased employee confidence, and explores different learning theories like Kolb's learning model and Behavioral Theory. The report also includes a self-evaluation of the author's skills and competencies as a Human Resource Manager, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Furthermore, it proposes a development approach based on Kolb's learning cycle to enhance professional growth and presents a development plan to address specific learning and training needs. Finally, the report concludes with a detailed reflection on an interview process for a Human Resource Manager position, providing a comprehensive analysis of the author's professional journey and development strategies.

PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND PRACTISE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
PART A ..........................................................................................................................................3
Overview of the organization. ...............................................................................................3
Skills required for specific job roles. .....................................................................................3
Benefits of undertaking professional development................................................................4
Different learning theories of professional development.......................................................4
Evaluation of own skills and abilities and competencies.......................................................6
Development approach to enhance own professional development.....................................10
PART B .........................................................................................................................................10
Development plan to identify need of learning and training................................................10
PART C .........................................................................................................................................12
Detail reflection of interview process for Human Resource Manager post.........................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................15
INTRODUCTION

Travel and Tourism industry include various fields such as transportation, travelling, food
service, planning for events, lodging etc. The services of this industry depends upon income of
customers. Tourism is a major source of earning income for various countries.
Professional development refers to continuous learning through different methods such as
coaching, mentoring, supervision etc. There are various formal and informal methods of
professional development. It helps in improving the skills, job satisfaction, morale of employees.
Professional development helps to improve the knowledge of teacher, educators etc. Personal
development refers to development of talent, improving quality of life of employees, building
human resource etc.
PART A
Overview of the organization.
Travelodge Hotels Limited is a type of private limited company. It belongs to Hospitality
company. It was founded in 1985 and its headquarter is in England, U.K. The owners of
Travelodge are Goldman Sachs, Avenue Capital Group etc. It operates approximately 560 hotels
in various countries such as Ireland, U.K., Spain etc. It offers services to various categories of
customers (Hildebrand, 2018). The targeted segment of customers include businessman, families
etc. The hotel provide good facilities, comfortable furniture etc. It has good environment and the
process of checking in and out of the hotel is very easy. It aims to offer quality services for the
price paid by the customers. In 170 hotels there are coffee shops, Bar Cafe etc. Travelodge
provides different types of rooms to customers such as upgraded rooms, super rooms etc. It
employs employees from diverse culture. There are full-time as well as part-time employees
working in the hotel.
Skills required for specific job roles.
Skills and competencies required for various job positions are as follows-
Hotel General Manager- The general manager of the hotel ensures that all the operations
related with accommodation, lodge etc. was running effectively. The major responsibilities of
manager are managing human resource, handling matters related with finance etc. General
manager of Travelodge must have management skills, business skills etc (Bharwani and Talib,
2017).
Executive chef- Executive chef of Travelodge is responsible for performing operations related
with food preparation in hotel, restaurant, and other places where the hotel serves the food. They

supervise chefs, employees that are working in kitchen etc. They must have managerial skills,
cooking skills etc (Chou, 2017).
Housekeeper- Housekeeper of Travelodge are responsible for ensuring cleanliness in entire
hotel. They clean rooms, beds, toilet etc. Housekeeper of the hotel must be physically fit so that,
they can easily lift heavy items (Korthagen, 2017).
Benefits of undertaking professional development.
Professional development of employees refers to providing adequate training and
development opportunities to the workers of the organization. So that, skills of employees will
improve and they will succeed in their career. Professional development of employees provide
opportunities for promotion.
Personal development include all the activities that aims to improve the potential of
employees, quality of life and help the employees to achieve the objectives. There are various
benefits of undertaking continuous professional and personal development they are as follows-
Professional development of employees through training and development help in
reducing the absenteeism of employees from their workplace. Professional and personal
development of employees help to improve the level of confidence of employees. Through
professional development, right skills will be developed that help the employees in becoming
more and more efficient.
Different learning theories of professional development.
There are various learning theories that helps in personal and professional development
of employees they are as follows-
Kolb's learning model-

David kolb has developed learning model in 1984. According to the Kolb's theory,
learning and development of employees is a continuous process that involves various stages that
helps in professional development of employees. Each stage of the model is dependent on
previous stage. All the stages help in professional development of employees. It involves four
stages and it is one of the most influencing model that helps in bringing improvement in
behavioural aspects and experience of employees. This model is mostly used by Human
Resource Department because the model facilitates learning and experience in employees
(Trorey, 2017).
Behavioural Theory-
As per behavioural theory of learning, employees of the organization learn new things
when there is a change in their behaviour. Whenever there is a change in the behaviour of
employees it reflects that, employees have learnt new concepts that results in professional
development of employees. There are various applications of behavioural theory such as
repetitive practise, bonus points, drill etc.
Figure 1 : The experiential learning cycle
Source : ( Kolb's experiential learning cycle, 2017)

Behavioural theory is based on the changes in behaviour of employees that are observable.
Learning in employees begins due to stimulus in the environment of the organization.
Evaluation of own skills and abilities and competencies.
Evaluation of Strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats as a Human Resource
Manger are as follows-
Strengths-
 Ability to organize all the activities related with human resource of the organization on
time.
 Proper time management such as arriving for meetings on time that are conducted on
regular basis.
 Appropriate development of mission and objectives and ability to use them for achieving
organizational objectives.
 Ability to manage and develop strategies for reducing the wastage of time.
 Ability of proper organization of tasks.
Weakness-
 Lack of ability to support and help others during difficult task.
 No proper use of reminders for remembering the date of attending meetings and other
functions etc.
 Need to consider various options of finding solution to the problems.
 Lack of ability to determine the efforts contributed in various task.
Opportunities-
 It is an opportunity to develop skills for cross questioning with other group members.
 Opportunity of solving issues of other team members.
Threats-
 Ability of other Human Resource Managers to divide the complex task in smaller task.
Need to work on it. Not totally sure Confident

TIME AND SELF MANAGEMENT
Ability to organize important task and allocation of task to subordinates.
Ability to support other subordinates during difficulty in their tasks.
Use of various reminders for remembering important dates such as date of
attending important meetings etc (Wolters, Won and Hussain, 2017).
Proper management of time in various task such as arriving on time for the
meeting.
Ability to decide mission and objectives that helps in achieving organizational
goals.
Ability to reduce the wastage of time while performing the tasks.
CRITICAL THINKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING
Using various approaches and options for finding solution to problems.
Ability to evaluate various alternatives of solving problems.
Ability to divide complex problems in small tasks.
Ability to direct other employees for contribution of their efforts in team work.
Ability to determine contribution of efforts in a particular task
ORAL COMMUNICATION

Able to give value to the thinking of subordinates in a Group Discussion even
when not agree with it.
Confident contribute innovative ideas in group discussion.
Ability to ask questions from other group members.
Confident in describing new theories and concepts to other subordinates and
team members.
Confident in presentation of different topics to other peoples (Brink and
Costigan, 2015).
WRITTEN COMMUNICATION
Ability to structure a task in various paragraphs and confident in using different
symbols to communicate views more effectively.
Ability to use special points while describing a particular topic.
Ability to use appropriate writing style for my topic.
Confidence in writing an assignment without any grammatical mistakes.
Ability of organizing information while writing any topic.
Ability to avoid any chance of plagiarism by using proper references.
Ability to use sources to convince others so that, subordinates will be well
informed about the topic.
Confidence in writing reports, articles and CV as per the style and format of
formal written materials.
INFORMATION LITERACY: READING

Ability of obtaining data and information from magazines, journals, from Online
sources and internet.
Proper understanding of the information to complete a particular work before
moving to further step.
Ability to convert complicated database into easy notes while working to
complete a particular task.
Ability to identify the important points that helps in representing the author's
point of view and distinguish them with the help of examples.
NUMERACY
Ability to using numerical data that will help in achieving goals and objectives of
the organization.
Able to analyse the information that is presented in tables charts and graphs etc.

Development approach to enhance own professional development.
The best personal and professional development approach among various theories is
David Kolb's learning cycle. It is the most useful learning approach that helps in achieving
learning objectives such as development of skills, acquiring work experience, improving the
knowledge of employees etc. The model helps in achievement of learning objectives.
Kolb's learning model is also helpful for human resource department of the organization
because, the experiential theory helps in supporting the learning, experience and behaviour of
employees that results in personal and professional development of workers. It also suggests
various learning that helps in achieving the objectives of training and also help in satisfying the
needs of learners. Organization can use methods like case study, simulation for development of
concrete experience in employees (Schultz, McEwen and Griffiths, 2016). Through lecture,
discussion etc. there will be formation of concepts that will help in professional development of
employees .
PART B
Development plan to identify need of learning and training.
Objective Priority Activities to
be
undertaken
Resources Starting date
of target
Ending date
of target
Improvement
in problem
solving skills
High I have to read
english
magazines,
need to watch
english news
channels,
regular
practise for
improving
presentation
skills etc.
I need to
Communicate
with other
managers for
conducting
meeting with
them to get the
guidance for
improving
presentation
skills. I have
to attend
1/ 10/18 12/ 12/18

reading and
speaking
classes.
Improving
Time
management
skills
High I have to give
priority to my
tasks. And I
will maintain a
diary to
remember
important task
such as
attending the
meeting
(Wolters,
Won and
Hussain,
2017).
I have to fully
focus on the
task which is
continuing.
Completing
the task on
given time so
that, important
work will not
become a
regular habit.
1/1/19 1/3/19
Improving
team work
Very high I have to
recognize the
efforts of
subordinates
so that, it will
improve trust.
Need to
conduct
various
activities for
improving
team work.
Consider the
importance of
team work in
achieving
organizational
objectives.
15/4/19 10/6/19
Improving co- High I have to work I have to use 20/7/19 1/ 10/19

ordination
skills
with my
subordinates
to improve co-
ordination in
activities of
the group. I
have to
implement
new methods
and process to
improve co-
ordination in
work.
various
methods of
getting
feedback from
subordinates
such as using
questionnaire,
checklist etc.
Asking the
right questions
from team
members will
help in better
decision
making.
15/10/19 10/12/19
PART C
Detail reflection of interview process for Human Resource Manager post.
After attending a mock interview to my mentor. I have been able to identify many
components and skills from myself at the time of the interview (Reid, Bimrose and Brown,
2016). I have been able to identify following strengths and weaknesses of mine after the
interview process-
 After attending the interview I can state that my communication skills have been
improved a lot due to experience of my current job.
 I have been able to know that my body language and gesture was good enough to please
the interviewer.
 During the interview process, I have been able to know about my writing skills were well
enough to grab the attention of the interviewer.