University Workplace Experience Reflection: Analysis and Action Plan

This assignment presents a student's reflective journal documenting their initial experiences in a new workplace. The journal details the student's feelings, challenges, and observations over several weeks, including the initial excitement, the support received, and the eventual experience of cultural discrimination. The assignment then analyzes the journal entries using Gibbs' reflective cycle, exploring the description, feelings, evaluation, analysis, conclusion, and action plan. Furthermore, the assignment applies Rolfe's reflective model, dissecting the experience through 'What?', 'So what?', and 'Now what?' questions, and discussing the impact of the experience on the student's professional development and future approach to similar situations, emphasizing the importance of communication and conflict resolution in the workplace.

Running head: REFLECTION ON MY EXPERIENCE IN WORKPLACE
REFLECTION ON MY EXPERIENCE IN WORKPLACE
Name of Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Part A: Journal of the past for weeks

2REFLECTION ON MY EXPERIENCE IN WORKPLACE
It was my first day of work in
Australia so I woke up early in
the morning because I was
excited and tensed at the same
time as I did not know much
about the Australian people
and culture.
Uncertainty
I was greeted and got a warm
welcome in the office as I was
new to the place and that made
me feel very good.
Love and affection
I was explained my job role
and the task that made me feel
confident about the job
because I knew what I was
expected to do and other
information was given to me
on the first day.
Confidence
After returning from office I
had to prepare my dinner and I
Helpless

3REFLECTION ON MY EXPERIENCE IN WORKPLACE
was feeling so tired after
returning from office that I
started missing my family as I
had to do everything by
myself

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At night when I was laying on
my bed I spoke to my parents
for hours before sleeping
because I had changed my
country and was far from
them. I discussed everything
about my entire day and what
all happened with me
Loneliness
The first few weeks was just
normal like any other
workplace but it was in the
fourth week when I started
feeling that I was
discriminated by the people in
office because of our cultural
differences
De-motivated
However, I had made a few
friends in office who helped
me in discussing about the
topic with the HR.
Confident

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The HR made sure that other
people were informed about
my culture and so she
conducted a meeting for our
team.
Hopeful
The HR and other colleagues
helped me face this situation
of discrimination but it had a
negative impact on me and
affected my productivity
because I felt like I was not
getting the support that was
needed in the work
environment. Due to
productivity I had to attend
sessions with supervisors
where they continuously asked
me about the causes.
Hopeless

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Part B: Analysis of the Journal in part A
Introduction
Journalizing helps in improving personal and professional development because we keep
a track of our activities and decisions that have been taken by us in a given scenario. This helps
in analyzing our decisions later on depending upon the results and it helps us in case we are
faced with similar situations in future. By keeping a track of our daily activities, we can find
remind ourselves of all the situations we have gone through and it can help us in being hopeful.
This process improves our self-awareness of various issues that we are dealing with. It helps in
improving our approaches towards various problems and other issues in our life. We can identify
our strengths and weaknesses and we can take actions to overcome the same. By reflecting on
our experiences our cognitive behavior changes and is broadened. We learn from your
experiences and apply the same in future scenarios.
Gibbs reflective cycle
Figure 1: Gibbs
Reflective Cycle
Source: (Husebø
et al., 2015)

7REFLECTION ON MY EXPERIENCE IN WORKPLACE
Description
My experience of the workplace during the first few weeks was normal but in the fourth
week I felt I was being subjected to discrimination1. Few of my fellow colleagues helped me
during that situation and helped me t discuss the same with the HR. HR also helped me by
conducting a meeting with my entire team to explain them about the cultural differences and the
need for support in the team for improving the efficiency of the team work. However, these
incidents had an impact on me and has negatively affected my productivity.
Feelings
Before joining the company and the job I felt very excited as I was hoping to meet new
people and I was also excited about my job that I was going to do. As I have shifted from another
country I also felt sacred many times regarding everything and I also felt hopeless because I did
not have my parents with myself to help and support me and I felt I could not tell them
everything I was going through that even worsened the situation. I had never thought I would be
discriminated because of cultural differences that made me feel lonely initially. I found it very
difficult to share my feeling with others and as a reason I felt depressed in many situations.
However, I eventually made friends in my workplace who gave me mental support and my HR
also helped me during this phase and that made me feel cared for. During the experience I felt
very helpless and was de-motivated because of the various incidents. Many times I felt like
returning back to home such that I would not have to face such situations. When finally my
colleagues and HR helped me in this situation I felt confident and I felt like I could face this
situation.
1 Husebø, Sissel Eikeland, Stephanie O'Regan, and Debra Nestel. "Reflective practice and its role in simulation."
Clinical Simulation in Nursing 11, no. 8 (2015): 368-375.

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Evaluation
The worst part of the experience was that I felt lonely and depressed in many situations
because I was new to this place and I was being ignored by others in my team because of my
cultural differences. The good part of the incident was that I learned to be patient and to be
confident during situations like these. When my HR finally conducted a session for our team, I
felt I was cared for in the organization and in that session I discussed about the problems I was
facing with others. Therefore I understood that communication helps in solving various problems
as communication during the session helped us in improving the workplace scenario.
Analysis
I feel that I should have discussed about the discrimination I felt in the workplace with
the team members in the beginning such that the matter would not have extended so much and
my work would not have been affected negatively have I communicated about my issues with
my team and team leaders properly. The session with the HR went properly and finally ended in
better understanding and communication between the different members of our team. My
contribution to the experience was that finally I spoke about the challenges I was facing in the
meeting and initiated the communication and that helped us as a team in reaching an agreement.
Conclusion
I did not speak about the challenges directly t the group initially because I am new to this
place and I apprehended many things that stopped me from communicating with the team
members. If that could have been done, the scenario would be different and this incident would
not have affected my work negatively. I learned from this experience that it is very important to
communicate with team members in order to achieve some common agreement and if a person is
not communicating effectively with others in the organization it can lead to misunderstanding

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and various other problems that ultimately affects the productivity of the individuals and of the
communication.
Action plan
In case I am faced with a similar situation in future, I will communicate with the entire
team about the problem I am facing and encourage others in the team to do the same.
Part C: reflective model
Figure 2: Rolfe reflective model
Source: (Bisson, 2017)

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Rolfe reflective model
What
In this phase, we reflect on our experiences. I am a person who values equal treatment if
all in every fields whether it is in workplace or any other situation. I treat all the people I know
equally without showing any form of biasness against people2. In the incident mentioned above I
was subjected to discrimination at my workplace due to my cultural background. This incident
was against my value because if I treat people with equality I also want to be treated without any
biasness. In the initial weeks of my job, I did not feel any issues but by the end of the third week
people started commenting on me and my culture. I felt I was ignored by the group an that made
me feel neglected and I did not share my emotions with anyone that negatively affected me and
my work.
So what
In this stage, we reflect on the meaning of the experience. The incident is important to me
because it taught me how to be patient during various situations and that keeping quiet about the
challenges we are facing will not solve our challenges, we need to communicate about problems
to our team openly and to team leaders such that we can reach some agreement properly. This
incident was a vey important part of my life because it has affected me in many ways. My
productivity was negatively affected because of the treatment I was getting on my workplace and
that depressed me. I was called by my supervisors to discuss about the reasons for my lower
productivity and I could not discuss about the same to them because I thought that it will be
taken casually and so I decided to keep quite. However, I had made some friends in workplace
who advised me to discuss the same issue with my HR such that I could solve the problems. The
2 Bisson, Mark. Coach yourself first: A coach’s guide to self-reflection. Troubador Publishing Ltd, 2017.

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HR helped me with my issue by carrying out a meeting for the entire team. I understood in this
experience that communication skills play a major role in solving various problems. Through this
experience I gained many skills such as- team work, overcoming communication barriers and
improving communication skills.
What next
In this stage, we discuss that if we are faced with similar situations then how will we
approach the situation. In future if I am faced with such a scenario in my team or if I feel that
others are facing some similar situation I will encourage people to carry out open communication
and I have suggested my group to conduct regular meeting where we all can discuss about any
issues that we are facing. This will help all of us in understanding each other better and will help
in creating a cohesive team. Through this experience I have gained communication skills, have
become more patient and many other. These skills and knowledge can help me in facing similar
situation in future. I have gained conflict resolution skills through this experience and if in future
my team faces any conflicts I can help them in resolving conflicts. In case, there are any issues of
workplace discrimination or any other ethical issue in the organization, I will immediately
discuss about the same matter to the team. I will first communication about the issues that is
being faced by me and I will encourage others to discuss about the same such that we can solve
the problem. Effective communication between the team solves half of the problem and I will
suggest the organization to carry out various brain storming activities such that each individual is
motivated to speak on various issues. After the meeting was over and we all discussed about the
various problems that was being faced by us, it helped to improve our groups problems solving
ability and coordination ability because through pen communication trust is developed in groups.
As has been explained by Tuckman’s theory, group development goes through four main stages-