Travel Lodge Employee Development: A Self-Managed Learning Approach

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Personal and Professional Development
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Executive Summary
This report seeks to comprehensively study the various methods and approaches to self-managed
learning and how they can promote long-term development and learning within the organization,
Travel Lodge. The various needs for skill sets and competencies have been identified and a
development plan has been formulated to address the same along with a critical analysis. Time-
management and customer care policies have also been discussed in detail in a report analysis as
well.
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................5
Task 1...............................................................................................................................................5
The Kolb Model...............................................................................................................................6
Task 2.............................................................................................................................................10
Evaluation of current skills and competencies in the context of professional standards and
organisation objectives..................................................................................................................10
Personal development needs and the required activities to achieve them.....................................11
Development opportunities to meet the current and future defined needs....................................14
Personal and professional development plan according to needs..................................................15
Task 3.............................................................................................................................................17
Process and activities required for implementing the development plan......................................17
Document for planned activities for personal and professional context........................................17
Critical evaluation of own development according to plan...........................................................19
Updated development plan based on received feedback and evaluation.......................................19
Task 4.............................................................................................................................................21
Solutions to the underlying employee problems...........................................................................21
Variety of communication styles at different levels......................................................................23
Efficient time-management strategies...........................................................................................24
The Gibbs Model...........................................................................................................................25
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................25
Reference List................................................................................................................................27
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Introduction
Learning and development through a self-managed process is essentially a procedure whereby
one individual or a group of individuals take up the initiative to acquire the knowledge of a
subject or a topic personally. Various approaches are utilized in this regard to effective manage
the learning process and gain fruitful outcomes from the same. Self-managed learning often
comprises both of short-term goals as well as long-term goals. Multiple resources and utilities
may be required in the process, but a structured system must be maintained.
Task 1
In the context of Travel Lodge, multiple approaches can be made use of to further process the
function of self managed learning and development, which are mentioned below and are as
follows:
 Group conferences and seminars: Group conferences and seminars are extremely
important and an essential approach to the process of self-learning. Primarily, it exposes
individuals to a variety of ideas and concepts ranging across multiple perspectives.
Communications skills and personal confidence and self-esteem levels certainly get a boost
from such activities and are truly an effective approach to the notion of self-learning.
 Using online resources: Using the internet in productive and functional methods is also a
very effective approach to the process of self-learning. The internet provides a variety of
relevant information at large and within a very short period of time. Policies relating to
employee turnover, management of staff members and so on can be easily reasearched and
studied in an in-depth manner without much effort.
 Social media platforms: Platform for social interactions like Facebook, Twitter and so on
provide a brilliant means to approach self-learning and development processes, provided the
individual uses it in a productive fashion. Several people with prior experience in relevant
fields can be contacted to obtain firsthand knowledge and information. The communication
barriers are effectively destroyed thus enabling a very steady flow to further facilitate the
entire process.
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 Implementing Notice and bulletin boards: Notice boards and bulletin boards provide a
organised and structured approach to the process of self-learning whereby individuals can
write notes, maintain agendas and goals, keep track of information and so on in a
personalized manner which would make it easier for him to refer to and gather information in
the future.
Methods to encourage lifelong learning and professional development
Professional development and lifelong learning fundamentally include factors both personal and
professional in nature, and serves the learner for an entirety of a lifetime (Brockett et. al., 2018).
They are very important to sustainably grow an organisation, and it is no different in the context
of the Travel Lodge organization. The process of lifelong learning and development provides a
host of benefits and an inherent intrinsic value that stays with the individual and benefits the
organisation at large.
The Kolb Model
The Kolb Model is widely acknowledged and regarded as one of the best tools available to
facilitate the process of self-learning and development (Bergsteiner and Avery, 2014). The model
essentially postulates that individuals can gather information and knowledge through a shift in
the dynamics of their experiences and intuitive occurrences along with experimenting and
conceptualizing ideas, and utilizes the methods of realistic scenarios and observational studies to
proceed towards a problem and eventually arrive at a solution. Personally as one of the managers
in the organization, I feel that this model can be implemented to a large extent with the Travel
Lodge Hotel to facilitate the process and advance internal organisational objectives in an
efficient manner. The Kolb model has four distinct stages:
 Experience: This stage refers to the action phase where the events are carried out and has
been implemented in the first task where the self-management functions have been discussed.
 Reflection: This stage refers to the evaluation phase and has been carried out in the
development plans and charts in the ensuing tasks (Tomkins and Ulus, 2016).
 Conceptualizing: This stage refers to the solution-forming phase and has been implemented
in the formulation of solutions part in the fourth task.
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 Experimenting: This stage refers to the exercise of the conceptualized ideas and will be
implemented in coming years within Travel Lodge to reduce the employee turnover rate.
Figure 1: The Kolb Model
(Source: Created by the learner)
In my opinion, along with the Kolb model, various means could be employed to encourage the
learning process and some of them are as follows:
 Observational methods: The working methods and approaches of the employees should be
actively studied and monitored. External observation without any direct interference provides
an extensive overview of the operating procedures of the employees and staff members. I can
further transfer the information gathered from the observation procedure to the senior
management to get another experienced viewpoint on the same.
 Online resources: Functioning as a part of the management, I can certainly make good use
of online resources and publications to get detailed analyses of various managing and
planning methods, which I could further implement within Travel Lodge according to
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specific needs and requirements. While increasing my personal knowledge, the
implementation will also help me to further motivate the employees in general.
 Policy formulation: I should formulate policies during the planning stage and implement
them to assess the accuracy and importance of the policies implemented basing them on their
achieved results.
 Individual rating: As one of the managers, I should actively try to evaluate my decisions
and work policies in an introspective manner. All key points of the implementations should
be studied to establish the success ratios of the same and identify future needs and goals.
Benefits of self-learning and development
The processes of self-learning and development would have direct benefits in my context as
one of the managers at Travel Lodge. Some of them are enlisted below and are as follows:
 Betterment of personal skills: I would be able to enhance my personal skills and managerial
abilities in a streamlined fashion. This would allow me to implement more effective and
fruitful policies in the future to obtain stronger results, which are inherently more positive
and beneficial to the organisation at large.
 Possibility of promotions: Provided I can effectively show the positive results of my policy
implementations and business decisions, the management could very well decide to promote
me to a more senior position, which would have a large number of benefits in my context.
These would include monetary gains, increase in self-esteem and confidence, better quality
of life and so on (Kraiger and Cavanagh, 2014). A promotion would also give me more
important opportunities that I can make use of to further develop my career and achieve
personal objectives.
 Identifying weak aspects and drawbacks: Self-learning processes would also enable me to
identify my weaknesses and drawbacks in the context of the managerial functions (Pais and
Santos, 2014) I need to perform at Travel Lodge and therefore allow me to improve them in a
structured and organised manner.
 Achieving organisational objectives: Self-learning procedures would also enable me to
achieve specific organisational objectives like general consumer satisfaction and profit
maximisation at large along with proper management of employees and staff members; all of
this would eventually lead to an overall function of growth and development.
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Task 2
Evaluation of current skills and competencies in the context of professional standards and
organisation objectives
Every working position in every sector requires an individual to have relevant knowledge and
information about the field of work along with a specified set of skills to attain the organisation
objectives and keep up with the professional standards existing already. Functioning as one of
the mangers at Travel Lodge, my key responsibilities include policy developments for hiring,
recruiting and selecting new employees along with effectively monitoring and guiding them
during their initial stages. Naturally, I am required to be skilled in managerial activities and
functionalities to adequately perform my duties. The methods of an introspecting manner of self-
evaluation and relying on accurate feedback from senior management officials, I have
established certain qualities that still require some sort of betterment and these include
communicative process, leading capability, managing time efficiently and effectively allocating
resources to the needs of the organization.
Positive feedback from senior management officials have also thrown light on certain strong
aspects in my functioning as one of the managers at Travel Lodge, and these include assessing
employees and monitoring them, planning policies and their implementation along with general
interaction with the staff members. Business decision evaluation has also been identified as a key
area of strength in my context whereby several senior officials have acknowledged that my
performance in assessing the results of various business decisions has been satisfactory. A
SWOT analysis of my personal aspects has also been carried out in order to provide a concise
overview of the same and it is as follows:
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Strengths Weaknesses
 Assessing employees
 Monitoring and controlling functions
 Planning policies and implementing them
 General interaction with staff members
 Multilingual abilities
 Leading capabilities
 Efficiently managing time
 Proper allocation of resources
Opportunities Threats
 Obtain promotions to get to higher
positions
 Achieve personal objectives as well as
professional targets
 Boost overall performance and individual
personality
 Achieve growth in self esteem and self-
confidence
 Organizational modifications
 Internal politics
 High competing forces within the
organization
 The dynamic nature of the hospitality
industry
 Rapid advancement of technology
Table 1: SWOT analysis
(Source: Created by the learner)
Personal development needs and the required activities to achieve them
The self-assessment tools of SWOT have enabled me to identify key operational requirements
that will strengthen my position as one of the managers here at Travel Lodge and further fulfil
organizational objectives to grow personally and professionally. These are specifically the ability
to communicate in different languages with different consumers, general communicative
processes, leadership capabilities, ability to manage time efficiently as well as a structured
system of allocation of resources. To address these weaknesses, I have used the SMART criteria
in order to get a concise overview of the same, which is as follows:
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Obj 1: Multilingual abilities
Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Timeframe
The specific need
is to be able to
communicate in
a number of
languages
fluently.
It will be
quantified using
self-evaluation
measures and
feedback from
consumers and
management
officials.
It is achievable,
and language
courses along
with online
reference can be
utilized.
It is relevant as
guests from
different
nationalities
speaking
different
languages arrive
at Travel Lodge.
A minimum of
two languages
must be learnt
within the next
year.
Table 2: SMART criteria for multilingual abilities
(Source: Created by the learner)
Obj 2: Leading capabilities
Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant Timeframe
The specific need
is to be able to
lead and manage
employees under
me in an efficient
manner.
It will also be
quantified using
self-evaluation
measures and
feedback senior
management
officials.
It can be
achieved by
taking inspiration
from existing
senior managers
and learning
about past
leaders.
It is relevant as
leadership skills
are a key
component in
any industry.
Quantified
assessments must
show an
improvement
within the next
year.
Table 3: SMART criteria for leading capabilities
(Source: Created by the learner)
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