Travelodge Hotel: A Self-Managed Learning and Development Strategy

Desklib provides past papers and solved assignments for students. This report details a personal and professional development plan for a hotel manager.

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Personal and Professional Development

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Contents
Contents...........................................................................................................................................2
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................4
1.1. Evaluate approaches to self-managed learning. Which approach can be more suitable for
you or your staff at Travelodge Hotel?........................................................................................4
1.2. Propose ways in which lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts could be
encouraged at Travelodge............................................................................................................5
1.3. Evaluate the benefits of self-managed learning to you as an assistant manager and the
Travel Lodge................................................................................................................................5
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................7
2.1. Evaluate your own current skills and competencies against professional standards for a
hotel manager and against organisational objectives of Travelodge Hotel.................................7
2.2. Identify your own development needs and the activities required to meet them. Which of
your skills may need to be improved? How are you going to improve or gain these skills?......9
2.3. Identify development opportunities to meet your current and future defined needs. Which
opportunities are available for you inside or outside of the hotel to improve your skill
development needs?...................................................................................................................10
2.4. Devise a personal and professional development plan based on identified needs. In this
task, you need to prepare a ‘plan’ for personal and professional development. In this plan, you

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need to mention three issues: ‘what’ are your needed skills; ‘how’ are you going to develop
the skills; and ‘when’ are you going to develop intended skills?..............................................10
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................12
3.1. Discuss the processes and activities required to implement the development plan that you
prepared for yourself in task 2.4................................................................................................12
3.2. Undertake and document development activities as planned. In this task, you should
implement the development plan you prepared for yourself and then write down how you
implemented your plan..............................................................................................................13
3.3. Reflect critically on your own learning against original aims and objectives set in the
development plan. Did you really learn new skills at the level you aim for them?...................14
3.4. Update the development plan that you prepared for yourself (covered in 2.4) based on the
feedback and evaluation............................................................................................................15
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................16
4.1- Select solutions to work-based problems...........................................................................16
4.2- Communicate in a variety of styles and appropriate manner at various levels..................16
4.3- Evaluate and use effective time-management strategies....................................................17
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................18
References......................................................................................................................................18

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Introduction
Personal development is the process of identifying own skills and talent and enhancing or
developing them to build capital and enhance the feasibility and productivity of human
resources. Professional development is more in academic context which includes enhancement in
gaining degree, attending seminars to enhance the professional learning process. This report
addresses the aspects of personal and professional development of an individual and the hotel
chosen in this scenario is the Travelodge hotel that is situated in London (Hopkinson, 2014). The
initial part of the report talks about the methods or techniques chosen to enhance the learning
process with respect to the scenario provided by the Travelodge hotel and further the various
ways have been discussed that will help an individual enhance their lifelong learning process.
After this, the advantages of the self-managed learning process has been addressed that speaks
about the personal skills and talents of an individual. This is addressed in comparison to a
successful manager at Travelodge. In the end, a personal and professional development plan has
been given that explains the activities and skills required by an individual to enhance the self-
learning process with respect to being a successful hotel manager.

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TASK 1
Article: Self-managed learning
1.1. Evaluate approaches to self-managed learning. Which approach can be more suitable
for you or your staff at Travelodge Hotel?
The self-managed learning process is done for an individual himself who takes an initiative to
gain knowledge. For a self-learning process, the individual will make a list of skills and talent he
wants to learn and concentrate on the learning process. Hence, first, the individual has to clearly
set the objectives he wants to learn and accordingly set goals an individual wants to achieve after
the self-learning process. Travelodge hotel is situated in the UK which was well-organized plans
and models to achieve organizational success. There are two programs that are initiated by
Travelodge Company that are for individuals who are 18+. The two programs initiated by
Travelodge are junior management program and GEM that involves the self-learning process for
individuals.
Travelodge also focuses on hiring individuals and providing employment opportunities to youth
largely. There are various approaches and methods that help in self-learning process they are,
strategic learning process, meta-learning, collaborative learning, motivational learning,
consensual learning, autonomous learning, etc. (Larson and Gray, 2011). The approach chosen
by Travelodge to enhance the self-learning process of the employees is motivational learning.
Motivation is one of the most important processes every organization should follow to enhance
their productivity and efficiency of the organizational. Hence, motivational learning is one of
the methods selected by Travelodge to enhance self-learning process after which the employees
will help to increase the productivity of Travelodge. In this learning process, the employees will
associate with their personally chosen objectives and sources that will help them be motivated
towards the learning process because they have customizable chosen the resources and objectives
they want to develop in. In this management process, the employees will definitely work hard
and enhance the productivity of Travelodge through motivational learning.

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1.2. Propose ways in which lifelong learning in personal and professional contexts could be
encouraged at Travelodge.
The lifelong learning process includes enhancement and development in both areas of
professional and personal context. In this criterion, the priority will be given to the ways of
enhancing lifelong learning process at Travelodge as a manager. As the manager of Travelodge
hotel, I have several roles in mind that will help to enhance the lifelong learning process in a
personal context. As a manager, one of the initial roles I would like to recognize is to know the
interests and hobbies of various employees that are a part of Travelodge and inspire them to learn
skills that they do not possess. Another aspect to be considered is a discipline which is very
mandatory in every organization without which the employees will not work efficiently and
might take their responsibilities and duties towards Travelodge very lightly (Travelodge,
2016).To maintain professional discipline an individual has to be disciplined in his personal life
too only then he will be able to bring that aspect in the company. Apart from this, as the manager
of Travelodge, I will emphasize on the employees to make them learn a new skill that they do
not possess like designing process or mechanics, etc. which will enhance their skill development
in a new area.
In the professional area, the ongoing development programs that are followed are the GEM
program and the JUMP program which should be followed by every individual working in the
company. Apart from this, in future, if there are any programs introduced before introducing the
consent of the employees should be taken and the programs should be planned to keep the
interests and mindset of employees which will be easier for them to accept programs that will be
implemented in Travelodge. The programs introduced by Travelodge should be accepted by the
employees and it should greatly motivate and interest the employee to participate in it. The
programs introduced by the company should interest the employee on their own and they should
themselves come forward and take part in this program by their compliance.

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1.3. Evaluate the benefits of self-managed learning to you as an assistant manager and the
Travel Lodge.
As the assistant manager of Travelodge the self-learning process has benefitted me in various
ways. It provides compatibility in the process because of the existing GEM and JUMP program
in which the self-learning process blends quite well because the employees get to choose their
own stream of learning hence they will really give their all in this learning process. It is easily
adaptable also because the concept of self-learning stream the programs persisting in the
company blends quite well. The self-learning process will also help me as a manager to identify
the efficient employees in Travelodge and segregate them as ‘A players’. Such employees will
show enhanced efforts of taking part in the self-learning process and will also quickly learn skills
and talent that they opted for. Such individuals will give their cent percent and prove to be self-
initiators and motivated individuals.
The self-learning process also proves to be cost effective because all the employees are taking
their own time to learn the skills they have opted for and this greatly reduces the process of
hiring trainers which is cost-effective for Travelodge. The cost is reduced when there are no
training programs to be arranged and attend any seminars to get trained (Skiff, 2019). Hence,
this also reduces the travel for training processes which proves to be cost-effective. Evidence or
example with respect to Travelodge may be the example of four season's mall which is a hotel in
Bali where the task was to teach English to about 580 employees within the company. To
achieve this, the manager developed a self-learning process where they could learn English
themselves through a self-learning process via magazines, books and training modules that
interested them.

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TASK 2
2.1. Evaluate your own current skills and competencies against professional standards for a
hotel manager and against organisational objectives of Travelodge Hotel.
As an international manager there are certain standard qualities and job roles every international
manager needs to possess. The professional standards of a hotel manager are listed below.
 A manager of an international hotel should be able to manage and plan the
accommodation facilities for their clients efficiently.
 The manager should be able to interpret the figures and values of sales, interpret and
build finance plans.
 The manager should be adept at training and recruit and treat the customers and the staff
members of Travelodge with respect.
 The manager should be able to provide excellent customer services and ensure the safety
and security of customers by various methods and techniques.
 The manager should also ensure that the laws and regulations used in the company are
abided by the employees by their own will and not forced upon.
The main vision of Travelodge is to be one among the best hotels that provide excellent services
in leisure and travel. The Travelodge Company emphasizes more on youths to provide them
employment the time they step out of school (Noe, 2010). Since the youths can catch up and
learn things faster it is easier for the company to train them in their existing programs of JUMP
and GEM which will help the youths learn skills that are required for the job profile they have
been selected for.
My current skills are nearly aligned to the standards of job roles provided above. I am an AAT
level 2 certified individual with excellent experience in professional book-keeping and excellent
customer service delivery process. The other skills in possessing are the management of finance,
client relationship and handling the administrative job role. I also have knowledge about the
financial software like the sage line 50 and VT packages. The skills that are against the
organizational objectives are the patience to deal with the employees and youths that are hired
right after school and bear with them in the training process arranged by the organization. so as

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an individual I personally think I will need to deal with the immaturity with respect to the
professional world and train these youths to be more mature and then discharge my roles and
responsibilities at Travelodge.

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2.2. Identify your own development needs and the activities required to meet them. Which
of your skills may need to be improved? How are you going to improve or gain these skills?
My personal weakness is to deal with the youths that are hired in the company out of which few
are immature and to deal with their immaturity in the professional context is my weakness.
Hence, to get over this weakness and blend with them there is a number of methods I have listed
below that will help me improve these skills (Larson and Gray, 2011).
Manager development process: this will help me to manage and learn leadership training in a
variety of ways like seminars, conferences, e-modules, etc. this process will help me learn and
develop my interpersonal research skills and focus on associating with all employees in the
company.
Personality and behavioral development: since the hotel industry is under the hospitality
industry it is essential to be polite and professional to customers at all times. This behavioral
enhancement will also help me deal and associate with the young generation in the company and
be polite to them which will enhance my interpersonal skills. Hence, these are the needs and
development areas I would like to undertake in order to develop the needs and skills I am weak
in.

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2.3. Identify development opportunities to meet your current and future defined needs.
Which opportunities are available for you inside or outside of the hotel to improve your
skill development needs?
There are a lot of development opportunities at Travelodge which will help me be a successful
manager at Travelodge. My weakness as mentioned earlier is to collaborate with the youth at the
workplace. This is to enhance my current skills and develop these skills for future development.
My future plan is to become a successful manager for which I will need to come over my
weaknesses that is to associate with the young crowd at the workplace (Kop and Fournier, 2011).
Hence, I will have to learn this quality extensively to be a successful manager at Travelodge
because the whole idea and objective of the company is only to hire and recruit young youth that
has just passed out school. Hence, it will be very essential for me to learn the skill of associating
with all kinds of employees at the workplace if I have to become successful at the post of hotel
manager at Travelodge.
To achieve this there are a lot of opportunities that are existing in the company like getting
advice and assistance from senior managers at Travelodge, extra interaction and speaking session
with the youth of the workplace and understand their mindset and attend all the conferences and
seminars designed to associate with the youth like the JUMP and GEM. These programs will
help to get a deep understanding of the mindset of youth and how their behavior should be dealt
with. There are opportunities that are also available outside Travelodge that are in the form of e-
modules, seminars, business coaching activities, team building modules, personality, and
behavioral development, etc. another way of developing my needs is to read or view the success
stories of other managers that will help me develop my interpersonal skills and behavior towards
the youth.

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2.4. Devise a personal and professional development plan based on identified needs. In this
task, you need to prepare a ‘plan’ for personal and professional development. In this plan,
you need to mention three issues: ‘what’ are your needed skills; ‘how’ are you going to
develop the skills; and ‘when’ are you going to develop intended skills?
This aspect will discuss the personal and professional development plan that will help to depict
the skills needed to be developed by me, the ways that I am going to develop the skills and when
am I going to develop these skills. There are three stages in which the personal development plan
will be put forth that is the analysis stage, the setting goals stage and personal objectives stage.
1. Analysis stage ( the required skills)
This criterion inspects the personal attributes of an individual and the skills and talent that an
individual possesses. In my case, the skills I need to develop on are to manage and associate with
the young minds in the company that has been hired by Travelodge. Only if I associate with all
the employees in the Travelodge Company I will be able to become a successful hotel manager
at Travelodge (Jarvis, 2009).
2. Setting goals ( the ways in which I am going to develop the skills)
This stage deals with recognizing the ways to achieve the goals that are set by me to become a
successful manager at Travelodge. The ways in which I am going to achieve the desired skills
that are required for me to become a successful manager are to find and match the wavelength
with the young crowd at Travelodge because they are an important part of the organization. The
main aim here would be to develop my behavioral skills and bring about personal development
overall to associate with not just young employees but all the employees in the organization of
Travelodge.
3. Personal objectives (when am I going to achieve or develop these skills)
This criterion will help to state the time that will take to develop in these skills and how soon it
can be developed to enhance the productivity of self and the organization both (Hopkinson,
2014). Before they recruit and hire the next youth batch in the upcoming year I would want to
develop my association skills and associate with the youth and understand their mindset because