Personal Skill Audit and Professional Development Plan: A Case Study

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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
(A CASE STUDY ON THE ROOM ATTENDEE IN ROYAL LANCASTER LONDON)
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Table of Contents
1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................3
2. Professional developmental importance......................................................................................4
2.1 Employee and organisation benefits......................................................................................4
2.2 Skills required in the travel and tourism industry..................................................................4
2.3 Importance of professional development in Royal Lancaster London..................................6
2.4 Room attendant skills importance in Royal Lancaster London.............................................6
3. Skills and competencies and learning theories............................................................................7
3.1 Skills, abilities and competencies in room attendant.............................................................7
3.1.1 Soft skills.........................................................................................................................7
3.1.2 Hard skills.......................................................................................................................7
3.1.3 Abilities...........................................................................................................................8
3.1.4 Competencies..................................................................................................................8
3.2 Learning theories...................................................................................................................9
3.2.1 Tuckman’s theory............................................................................................................9
3.2.2 Belbin’s team theory.....................................................................................................10
3.3 Evaluation of own skills......................................................................................................10
3.3.1 Experience....................................................................................................................10
3.3.2 Observation...................................................................................................................11
3.3.3 Conceptualisation.........................................................................................................11
3.3.4 Planning........................................................................................................................11
4. Creating a professional development plan.................................................................................12
4.1 Professional developmental plan.........................................................................................12
4.1.1 Current position............................................................................................................12
4.1.2 Career goals.................................................................................................................12
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
4.1.3 Professional skills required..........................................................................................12
4.1.4 Ways to get the goal......................................................................................................12
4.1.5 Timeline........................................................................................................................13
4.1.6 Realistic strategies........................................................................................................13
5. Transferable skills in the job application...................................................................................13
5.1 CV of the employee.............................................................................................................13
5.2 Interview type......................................................................................................................14
5.2.1 Strengths and weaknesses of the interview...................................................................14
5.2.2 Obstacles and challenges in the interview process......................................................15
6. Conclusion.................................................................................................................................17
References......................................................................................................................................18
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
1. Introduction
Most of the employees present in the workplace do not have the requisite skills. As a result, their
productivity does not match up the standards as required by the company. Therefore, a
professional developmental plan is necessary so that the employees could develop themselves as
per the rules set up by the company (Grant 2017). The advantage of the plan would be that the
employees could grow in the company professionally. The assignment would be used to focus on
the professional developmental plan for the employee working as a housekeeper in the hospitable
industry like Royal Lancaster London.
Royal Lancaster London is a stylish hotel situated in Hyde's park that had been in the business
for the last 50 years. Some of the features of the hotel are a twelve-storey structure and contains
about 411 guest rooms. The hotel includes some gyms that operate for about 24 hours and could
serve about 1000 guests (Royal Lancaster London 2019). The assignment would focus on the
personal development plan so that the employee can develop its skills in the company. In
addition, a professional developmental plan would be presented that reflects the competencies
required for a housekeeper. Finally, the job interview process would be displayed in the
assignment.
Figure 1: Royal Lancaster London
(Source: Royal Lancaster London 2019)
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
2. Professional developmental importance
2.1 Employee and organisation benefits
The professional development plan helps the employees to keep their skills updated with the
standards set up by the organisation. A plan would make the employee compatible with the
increasing competition in the housekeeping sector. It is seen that the rate of change is increasing
and to match up with the pace, the skills should remain updated so that the company can be
profitable in their business operations (Hildebrand 2018). The result would be that the employee
could become more effective in their workplace and could contribute towards enhancing the
productivity rate in the organisation.
The benefits that the employees could gain from the professional developmental plan are new
skills, and with the experience, they would become more brushed up with their updated
knowledge (Trorey and Cullingford 2017). The effect would be that the employees could easily
understand the roles of themselves so that they could update their knowledge as per the
professional demands. Through the professional development plan, the employees could be able
to learn various skills, which would help them to enhance the quality of life, and as a result, they
could be more sustainable in the future. It could be recognised that the professional
developmental plan would be beneficial for the employees working as a housekeeper. As a
result, this could enhance their communication skills so they could connect with the customers
and improve their services (Dorociak et al. 2017). This would enhance the reputation of the
company, and that could help them to succeed in the professional sector. The employers would
be benefitted by it, as they have to spend less time on the employees to train them. This would
enhance the productivity rate in the hospitable sector.
2.2 Skills required in the travel and tourism industry
Every company wants to hire the employees belonging to any industry so that they have to spend
less time on the training programmes. As a result, the productivity rate could jump up and lead to
better services. Some of the skills required in the travel and tourism industry could be
highlighted under the following heads:
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
The employees should be able to organise their operations in such a manner so that the customers
do not have to face any problems in fulfilling the wants of the customers. As a result, the service
delivery to the customers could enhance that could raise the standards of the organisation.
Another skill set required in the employees is that the hired candidate should be able to
communicate with the customers effectively so that they can create connections with the
customers easily (Robinson et al. 2016). This could help them to gain the trust of the customer
leading to better business operations. In addition, the employees should be able to work any
hours so that the business of the organisation is not interrupted by their working schedules.
The most important value that should be present in the employees is the commitment towards a
particular company so that they could devote their entire time in developing the organisation. As
in the hotel, several types of people belonging to different culture tend to arrive, so, it is quite
evident that most of them would be speaking different languages (Solnet et al. 2016). Therefore,
the housekeepers should be able to possess diverse language skills so that they could regularly
communicate with the customers. This would help them to understand the problems of the
customer and address them as required. Finally, the employees working in the hotels should be
aware of the norms and regulations followed in the organisation.
Figure 2: Skills required in the travel and tourism industry
(Source: Solnet et al. 2016)
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
2.3 Importance of professional development in Royal Lancaster London
The professional developmental plan is essential for the housekeeping department in Royal
Lancaster London, which would help them to develop the skills of the employees, and that could
benefit the company as a whole. The professional development of a room attendant is significant,
as a better service offered by them would result in improved operations from them. This could
enhance customer service, and that would improve the image of the company. One of the vital
skills that the customers could have is that they would be able to know the need of replacing the
sheets and pillow covers so that the ambience of the hotel rooms is better. Such hygienic
conditions could attract customers, and this would enhance the business.
Another critical skill set that a room attendant possesses is an improved communication that
could help them to interact with the customers (CIPD 2019). This would help them to understand
the worries of these people, and that would assist in guiding this person to solve the issues. In
addition, they should be well equipped with the guidelines of the hotel so that the actions
operated by the room attendants do not spoil the image of the company.
2.4 Room attendant skills importance in Royal Lancaster London
Royal Lancaster London is a five-star hotel that offers better services as compared to the other
players in West London. It runs with the vision of customers first, which means that the entire
services would be offered to keep the customers as their focus. Moreover, the hotel had an
enormous branding power due to its 50 years in operation and the quality of services offered to
the customers (Kensbock et al. 2016). Therefore, the hotel requires those people as room
attendants that can provide first-class services to the customers. The room attendant should be
very passionate about the job and should be wholly devoted to the organisation so that they could
serve the company at any time as demanded by the customer.
The room attendant should be available at any time so that they could change the bed sheets and
even bedrooms as per the demands put forward by the customers (Knox et al. 2015). They
should be highly professional in cleaning up the rooms, restaurants and the nearby places so that
the guests could enjoy the ambience of the hotels. In addition, the skills set that are highly
demandable in the housekeeping department are better communication, good multi-tasker and
better knowledge regarding the services offered in the hospitable sector (Kensbock et al. 2017).
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
3. Skills and competencies and learning theories
3.1 Skills, abilities and competencies in room attendant
The Royal Lancaster hotel is a large organisation and therefore, the employees should be very
well equipped with a variety of skills (O'Neill et al. 2016). The skills required in the room
attendant could be classified into hard and soft categories, which could be illustrated under the
following heads:
3.1.1 Soft skills
 The employee should be very well equipped with communication skills so that he could
regularly communicate with the customers. This would help him to understand the
problems quickly and solve them as fast as possible.
 The management skills should be there so that the bed pillows, sheets could be managed
in such a way so that the customers do not find any problem in living in that room.
 The room attendant should possess excellent organisation skills like teamwork.
 The employee should be able to identify the problem individually and should possess
some leadership to solve the issue on their own (Shapoval and Pizam 2017).
3.1.2 Hard skills
 The employee should be highly proficient in other foreign languages so that he can
communicate effectively with the various customers belonging to a different culture.
 The attendant should be very proficient in handling the machines required for cleaning
the rooms so that the customers do not have to wait too much time during the operations.
 The employee should have a degree in hotel management so that the attendant is well
equipped with the knowledge required to work as a room attendant.
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Figure 3: Soft and hard skills
(Source: Shapoval and Pizam 2017)
3.1.3 Abilities
Some of the abilities of the room attendant could be understood in the following manner:
 The room attendant should have the ability to tackle the problems faced by the customer.
 The attendant should be able to work with his idea so that he does not require interacting
with the higher authority regarding smaller situations (Cottrell 2015). As a result, their
leadership and brilliant supervision could improve the productivity rate.
 The room attendant should have the ability to run the cleaning equipment to clean up the
living rooms of the customers so that the hygienic conditions remain maintained.
 Finally, the attendant should have the ability to work in flexible shifts so that the
customer services are not interrupted at any schedule.
3.1.4 Competencies
 The room attendants should have proper knowledge in handling out the issues facing
faces by the customers so that the quality of services could be enhanced.
 The attendant should be able to communicate in such a manner so that the spelling and
pronunciation become useful for the customers to hear.
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
 The attendant should be well equipped with managing the resources required in the
housekeeping department.
3.2 Learning theories
3.2.1 Tuckman’s theory
Bruce Tuckman introduced the method in the year 1965 to mitigate the problems faced in the
teamwork. The advantage of this theory is that this could be implemented in a short period. The
stages are forming, storming, norming and performing. In the first stage, a team is formed, and
the members in it should have high individualistic skills so that they could lead the team. This
should increase the productivity rate in the housekeeping department (Kiweewa et al. 2018). In
the next stage, brainstorming of ideas is done where a perfect strategy is selected and is
implemented so that the problems faced by the customers' could be solved quickly. The next
stage normalises everyone's ideas and then select a single view so that the work can be done
promptly. However, one of the bad points about this stage is that the creative edge becomes
ineffective.
Figure 4: Tuckman’s theory
(Source: Kiweewa et al. 2018)
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
3.2.2 Belbin’s team theory
Belbin’s team theory is mainly focussed on creating balanced teams by a series of activities that
could enhance the teamwork in the company. The events are classified into nine stages, which
could be explained in details (Eubanks et al. 2016). The activities include that the employees
should be able to create a team and shape it as per the demand of the housekeeping department.
There should be people who could implement some ideas so that better options could be
generated to perform the required operations. There should be people having some specialised
skills o that the right ideas could be implemented and this would enhance the cooperation in the
workplace, leading to better productivity in it (Mindtools 2018).
Figure 5: Belbin’s team theory
(Source: Eubanks et al. 2016)
3.3 Evaluation of own skills
The own skills could be evaluated by using the Kolb’s reflective cycle that had been distributed
into four stages (Husebø et al. 2015). They are mentioned as follows:
3.3.1 Experience
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PERSONAL SKILL AUDIT AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN
I think that I had a good experience in the field of housekeeping as a room, attendant. Therefore,
it becomes easy for me to understand the problems faced by the customers that are coming to my
hotel. As a result, I can manage my team so that maximum output could be delivered.
3.3.2 Observation
I have observed that my communication skill is at par with the proficient room attendees because
the vocabulary used is essential, and I have mastered it. I have tackled with various customers,
and that had earned my hotel a good reputation in its field of operation.
3.3.3 Conceptualisation
I have been able to understand the relationships between the room attendee and customer. It is
my duty to establish a good relationship with the customers so that they would visit my hotel
often. This would help in developing the business operations of my hotel, and I could build my
career graph through it.
3.3.4 Planning
I think that my experience and communication skills had been a boost for my career, but there
are specific problems I am not fully accustomed to it. I am thinking to develop my other skills so
that my hotel does not get affected by my inefficiency.
Figure 6: Kolb’s reflective cycle
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