Personal Skill Audit and Professional Development Plan Assignment Sample

Introduction: Personal Skill Audit and Professional Development Plan

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Personal skill audit is of the best way for every individual to identify the strengths as well as the needs, which is essential for a healthy atmosphere. It is also proving to be one of the best methods, which give a career track such as entrepreneur and manager to an individual. The personal development plan provides a means to every individual so that the individual can walk with mentor, supervisor and teacher. With the help, of them, the individual will set out the strategies outcomes, and goals of training and learning. In this project, it will be discussed about the importance of on-going professional development as well as self-directed learning to improve professional identity and career opportunities along with different learning and development. It will also discuss design a professional development plan within the specific work context as well as the range of service industry and transferable skills for the application of job.

Task 1 Explore the importance of on-going professional development and self-directed learning to enhance professional identify and career opportunities

P1 Examine the critical benefits of on-going professional development for different stakeholders within a specific organisation

Training is an application of knowledge and its one of the best processes for leaning a series of programmed behaviour. Training provides an individual with an awareness of rules and methods for guiding their behaviour. Training is practice in every organisation or a company to improve their performance. The commission of manpower service has defined training as primary planned methods to modify the knowledge, attitude, or the behaviour of skills by learning to achieve adequate performance in the activity or the range of activities. Training is a purpose of developing the individuals and satisfying the present and future needs of an organization.

Importance of training methods and hospitality for the room service staffs in theRoyal National Hotel

Training enables the employees to develop and progress the rise within the Royal National Hotel in order to increase their skills, values, earning power and job security etc. Continuous training also improves the performance of employees in the Royal National Hotel and helps them to develop their ability and skills in learning as well as adapt themselves better in the new works (Zaitsevaet al. 2016). Training is one of the best sources achieved by employees to provide the best hospitality to the customers of Royal National Hotel

Importance of training for the manager of the Royal National Hotel

According to Tapkir and Dadas, (2018) The primary purpose of essential training for the manager in the Royal National Hotels are to develop the skills, attitudes, habits, knowledge and many others through which they can achieve to assist the customers in their utmost manners. Training for the managers can also help to motivate the staff members to work harder. Therefore, the employees who understand the purpose of their jobs are likely to have more morale. Proper Training for the managers can also lead to the higher productivity to the staff's members of Royal National Hotel . The best training for the managers can help to prevent accidents to be taken in the Royal National Hotel and helps the employees to build-up confidence to assist the customers appropriately.

Importance of training for the customer service of Royal National Hotel

Providing training on the customer service of the Royal National Hotel enables the staff members to understand the impact of their employees better and improve their work performance. Specific training for the employees in the Royal National Hotel will mainly focus on the improvement of communication, better service, skills etc. Training for the customer service helps the staff member how to assist the customers properly in a well-mannered. Training is one of the best methods achieved by employees to provide the best services to the customers of Royal National Hotel .

By the above training, the stakeholders can improve their professional skills, and it will help them to grow their business and the support for the hotel. With the help of the ongoing development, it will provide the benefits like:

1. It will increase the retention of the stakeholder by which the hotel can able to get the financial support
2. It will build the confidences and credibility of the stakeholders which is one of the critical skill that is required
3. Re-energise the Stakeholder: it will help to re-energise the stakeholder, and it will also improve their belief on the business, and they can see it as a broader objectives
4. It will improve the efficiency of the stakeholder: the stakeholders who are the employees as well, they will get new set of skills by which their efficiency can grow much higher, and it will be beneficial for the employees and the hotels business.

P2 Investigate professional employer expectations of skills and competencies within a specific organisational context (Royal National Hotel)

There are some expected skills for employees that are required by a professional employer like Royal National Hotel:

Customer services: A Customer service is one of the essential functions of an industry like Royal National Hotel. Providing their best services to the customer is their primary objective to which the industry remained superior and reputed so far. An excellent customer service skill is all about getting the best training and presenting it, in their performance by serving the customers properly and offering the best hospitality, which will retain their jobs, preserved (Chathothet al. 2016).

Communication skills: In such kind of organisation like Royal National Hotel, having a good communication skill is one of the most priorities that is required by the employees. Communication skill is highly valued by most of the industries, mainly like the Royal National Hotel. It is important so that the employees can communicate and assist the customers openly in representing the business (Pizamet al. 2016).

Commitment: Commitment is essential in a hospitality industry like Royal National Hotelto determine success. To work in an organisation like the Royal National Hotel, it is very important that one should be committed to her job (Dhar, 2015).

Key competencies: Some of the key competencies in hospitality industries are summarised below:

Professionalism: Every individual working in the hospitality field of Royal National Hotelare required to meet firm norms as well as execute the professionalism behaviour. Effective communication, great services, assists the customers politely, having great hospitality etc. are part of professionalism in the Royal National Hotel (Chengand Wong, 2015).

Skill sets: Most of the hospitality industry has many kinds of sub-categories in their business types. Therefore, the skill sets are one of the essential practice done in industries like the Royal National Hotel.

Knowledge: Having the basic knowledge of hospitality in the industry like Royal National Hotel is very important, as it will be essential in doing the work better and easier. The staff members will know the protocol of rules and regulations, safety and security, work related to the business industries of the Royal National Hotel (Hertzman et al. 2015).

M1 Evaluate the importance of on-going professional development and the associated professional skills requirements within a specific organisational context

It has to be understood that professional development is important for the organisation like the Royal National Hotel as the hotel is one of the biggest hotels in the United Kingdom. Moreover, the professional skill will help the customers to provide customer satisfaction. The skills development will help the employee to tackle daily issues, which will arise in front of them. The help of the training, which can be done in the hotel itself, can acquire the skills.

The manager or other staff should have to improve their skills, and it will help them to improve their chances to get higher in the hotel industries. The skills like the communication, interpersonal skills apart from that, the competencies that are required in the industry are professionalism will help the employee to grow more, and by this, they can handle the customers in an appropriate manner. The benefits are:-

Increased Retention:With the honed skills, the employees can be empowered and will start showing their interest in their work. This helps the Royal National Hotel to retain their employees.

Confidence Building:Thorough professional development program organisation can build the confidence of its employees to complete the complex tasks.

Planning Skills Improvement:Such programs help in improving the skills and abilities of an employees and planning skills are one of them.

Reenergise Staff:Through development programmes, organisation can break the monotony of routine work. With the newly developed skills, organisation can ultimately reenergise its staff members.

D1 critically evaluate own skills and competencies to meet the employer expectation of professional skills required for employment within a specific job role

For the post of the HR manager, it is required for me to work on the gaps that I have right now. The skills like communication need to be improved. This will help me to get the job in the Royal National Hotel. I understand very well the responsibilities that come along with the post of the HR manager. I need to carry out quite a lot of task and operations. These include induction, employee motivation and loyalty, appraisal, supervision, and conflict management. I understand very well that my supervisory and planning skills are not up to the mark. Based on the information, I have to develop and prepare my professional development.

Apart from that, the competencies like the professionalism should have to be included in character that will help me to get the job. The employer also wants that the candidate should have the interpersonal skills in terms to work on this field. I have also worked on the interpersonal skill that would help me to get the job easily,

Task 2 Assess own skills, competencies and the different learning and development approaches

P3 Assess own abilities, skills, and for a specific job role

For the post of the HR manager at Royal National Hotel, it is required to have the set of skills mentioned here. The skill like the communication is required for the post of the manager in the Royal National Hotel. The communication skill will help me to communicate with the employees in case of emergencies as well as in the time of business. I have the good communication skill that will be beneficial for me to work.Interpersonal skill is very important to be an effective communicator in the industry like Royal National Hotel. Therefore, it is responsible for the general manager to keep the entire guest as well as the employees happy. The manager must be under stress and should always preserve integrity. I have a great interpersonal skill, which will benefit the industry of Royal National Hotel in various ways.

The ability which are required for the post of managers are important in Royal National Hotel such as great communication skills, good skill of interpersonal, ability to work well as a part of team, leadership skills, ability to remain calm under besides the work pressure, good literacy and numeracy skills, ability to organizational skill and many others. The best way to assess the competencies for the post of HR manager is through SWOT analysis.

P4 Review a range of learning theories and approaches used for personal and professional Development processes

There are some of the learning theories and the approaches that are used in the personal and the professional development which has been used to understand the development of the person.

The Erikson's stages of psychosocial development: the theory suggests that at each stage of the psychological development, people face a crisis in order to master one task. The one who can complete that task emerge with a sense of mastery (Dunkel and Harbke, 2017).

The other three learning theories are explained below:

Behaviourism: It explains that an individual learn from observing the transformation of other people’s behaviour. For most of the behaviourist, gaining knowledge is about gaining insight of the change in the current behaviour or transformation. The learning process begins with the stimulus from the surrounding environment.

Cognivitism: Piaget's theory of development suggests that children or a person progress in as series stages that will tell how will be the personality of that person and how they will think (Barrouillet, 2015).

Constructivism: this theory is all about creating and gaining knowledge to explore ideas. People create their own learning model in order to create and learn experience. This theory promotes gaining knowledge.

There are some of the approaches, which used for personal and professional development:

1. Working without a clear purpose: the person should always work with a clear purpose. It will allow the person to work on the objectives
2. Private learning: it is one of the important approaches that are used in professional development. Training the staffs and the individual will help to grow the business better (Michaels and O’Connor, 2015).
3. Mentoring and coaching: Also, this approach will help to develop the professional development of the employees or an individual. It will guide the person to the exact skills that are required to do his job at the organisation (Gerstenet al. 2014).

M2 Evaluate own skills and competencies and the most appropriate development approach to develop personal and professional skills for a specific job role

The skills which are important for the job of the manager in the hotel is to have the skill of handling the customer and provides the services, to have the best communication skills to handle the staff and to provide the solution for the guests who will be at the hotel. Apart from that, it is necessary to have the interpersonal skills and professionalism at work to get the job at the hotel as a manager. By using the private approach learning it can develop professional skill. The private learning will allow the employees to learn more things and to develop their skills to support the organisation.

Task 3 Design a professional development plan, within a specific work context

P5 Construct a development plan to enhance chosen skills and competencies

Main element included in the hotel management plan: In today's competitive environment, it is must require to construct a development plan for achieving growth and success in the company. An appropriate developmental plan is mainly used a communication tool in the hotel management company for obtaining finances. A good strategic plan is also required to include underdevelopment plan. Useful and constructive developmental plans in hotel management jobs required a broad understanding of various changes that take place in the market in which the company made plans for the company and the financial markets. In the development plan, all the information regarding the development plan has also been included.

Need to deliver good customer service: It is very important for the hotel management staff to deliver the excellent customer service to the customer because if the company doesn't provide good customer service to their customer than definitely, the company will the negative feedback from their customer. And due to the negative feedback, they can easily lose popularity in the market. Therefore, it is must require for the hotel management company to deliver excellent and effective customer services to the customers (Kandampullyet al. 2015).

Cultural awareness: In hotel Management Company, the employees encountered various individuals from a different religion. In order to get success, the company need to have an understanding of various nationalities and culture. Therefore, it is important for the employees to have an open-minded nature so that their customer will feel comfortable (Angelovaand Zhao, 2016).

M3 Provide a detailed development plan that applies underpinning learning and development theory

 Unique Selling Elements: The theory "unique selling elements" enhance the performance of hotel Management Company. This theory helps the hotel management company in gaining popularity in the market. Therefore, it is essential for the hotel management company to identify their three main unique selling elements. These three unique selling elements have used a cornerstone in marketing efforts. The three main unique selling elements are – famous guests, unusual elements like pet goldfish in the every hotel room and the superlatives which includes "biggest" and "smallest" and the "best" (Henthorneet al. 2016).

 Opening one home to a stranger: This theory extends different types of business in the hotel management company. All the businesses, which involved in the hotel management company, increase the performance inside the company.

Techniques used for enhancing the performance of the staff in the hotel management company:

• Training is the best way through which the employers can increase the performance of the staff members. Performance support guides the staffs of the hotel (Pan, 2015).
• It is very important for the staff members to give equal importance to each and every customer Because if the staff members treat every customer like a VIP than definitely in return, they will reward staff members with their loyalty and patronage.
• It is very important for staff members to provide excellent customer service to their client.

D2 Produce a comprehensive development plan that sets out clear and achievable targets, strategies and outcomes of learning and training

In a developmental plan, various Strategies used for the development of hotel Management Company:

Use of SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Search engine optimisation increases the importance of a website. With the use of SEO tactics, the hotel management company can easily boost their visibility on a different search engine such as Bing and the Google for attracting more visitors. Furthermore, for placing all the high valued keywords in headings, image ALT tags and headings, the company required SEO practice for use. It also helps in researching the high valued keywords which are related to the hotel management company (McIntyre, 2015).

Connect with GDS and other online Travel agencies: Online travel agents are one of the significant distribution channels of the Booking. Com, Hotels.com and the Expedia.com. With the help of these channels, the visitors have encountered many hotels and booked the room in the hotel. With the help of OTAs, mobile booking is possible now for the Hotel Management Company. With the help of the GDS (Global distributions systems), the company is also now available in the distribution channels (Roger-Monzóet al. 2015).

Working closely with local business authorities: Hotel Management Company is now working with various local authorities. They work only with those who promote their hotels as a venue for training sessions, business functions and for conferences. If the company want to succeed in the market, it is very important to distribute some of their marketing literature such as persuasive, professional and the eye-catching to the different local business authorities.

Training and development:

• Training and development increase the growth of the company.
• Various training and developmental programs in hotel management company enhance the performance of the employees.
• With the help of training programmes, various staff members have improved their skills. The various training programme has identified performance gaps in the hotel management company.

Task 4 Demonstrate a range of service industry and transferable skills for a job application

P6 Undertake a job interview for a suitable service industry role

I need a Manager for our hotel. Only for that purpose, our company has conducted an interview for the given job post. With the help of board director, lodging manager and general manager and I was a general manager, conducted an interview in the one of our hotel room. So many candidates have applied for this post. Apart from this, we will select only those candidates who already have experience in this filed.

Therefore, we conducted a mock interview for the candidates, and during an interview, we asked several questions to our candidates. What kind of questions we asked from the candidates in the interview is briefly given below:

• What is your qualification?
• Discuss your previous hotel and about your hotel's capacity? What were the expectations of your customers from your hotel?
• Suppose From tomorrow, if you start working in our hotel. What will you do for the betterment of our hotel?
• In your previous hotel how you improved their top line revenue?
• How you reduced cost and saved time at your previous/current hotel?
• Describe that time, when you have introduced new technology and policy in your previous hotel for your staff?
• How will you oversee various training for our new staff?
• How will you inspire trust and loyalty in our staff?
• How did you handle occupancy reports and staff reports at your previous hotel?
• How did you handle all the guest complaints at your previous hotel?
• Describe that time when you work jointly with all the staff of your previous hotel for improving the services which are given in your previous hotel?

P7 Review key strengths and weaknesses of an applied interview process

The employees of a reputed hotel should be able to handle the customers and their various issues. During the interview, the keys weaknesses and strengths of the candidates should be identified, so that effective training can be provided to overcome these issues.

Key strengths:

Excellent communication: To understand the problems of customers, the executive's hotel managers should have strong communication skills. Therefore, during the job interview HR team and management use GD (Group discussion) or debate to identify whether the employees are capable of managing customers and fellow staffs or not (Yooand Park, 2015)

Good knowledge: The interviews should focus on the product knowledge of the candidates. It means the candidate appeared for the manager post should have an appropriate qualification, good command over languages (English and some other local language) and few technical skills such as operating computer, which is essential in the service industry (Adeyinka-Ojo, 2018).

Patience and commitment: To handle a large number of customers, the applicant should listen to customers patiently. If they become rude, the reputation of the hotel might be at stake. They should be dedicated to their work and should able to satisfy customers and management. These two factors are very much essential for high-rated customer service and should be focused during the job interview (Hertzmanet al. 2015)

Personal traits: The reliability, flexibility, punctuality and expressiveness are some of the key traits. Moreover, the employee should be a team player to work in a professional environment. These skills can be identified by various job questionnaires (Webb, 2018).

The weaknesses:

Unfamiliar with technologies: In the modern world, all the employees should be familiar with the emerging technologies for their individual well as professional growth. Such skills included handling basic software such as MS office, excel. Moreover, the manager should also understand handling integrated databases of the hotel to maintain records. If the appeared candidates do not have such skills, they should be eliminated in the technical round of the interview.

Lack of critical thinking: Cognitive or critical thinking is necessary to deal with complex situations. If the candidate does not have enough analytic abilities, he or she would not realise the problems factors that are affecting the situation and thereby he might not be able to handle the situation properly (Whileyet al. 2017).

Behavioural issues: If the appeared candidate does not have positive and pleasant behaviour, people will not consider his decisions. The candidates should wear formals and should not be very much aggressive during the interview. Otherwise, these behavioural factors might affect the point of view of the HR management, and they will be considered rejected.

M4 Evaluate a job interview process and the obstacle and challenges to overcome

The job interview process of a manager is very critical. The manager should be expert in leading the employees and motivating them. He should have the transformational ability so that he can change the behaviours of the weak employees. However, selecting a manager requires a lengthy interview process as here the top management of the hotel critically evaluates the analytic skills and problems solving abilities of the manager. The negative traits are often exposed to complex situations. During a job interview, creating that type is the situation is not possible for HR professionals.

Moreover, the hard-working capacity or flexibility of an applicant cannot be determined during the interview process. In addition, whether the manager can adjust himself according to the situation and will follow the organisational guidelines or goal is also cannot be evaluated during the interview. The ability to handle work-pressure is also may not be identified during the interview

D3 Produce a detailed and coherent critical reflection of an interview process and own abilities during this process

In the context of manager, he should able to handle complex questionnaires of the interviewer. He must stay calm during the process. It will help him to analyse various questions asked by the interviewing employer.

Further, he should relate his industry experience and various learned skills to answer the inappropriate questions way. With the help of CPD, the manager can learn various required professional skills that are necessary during a job interview (Kakoudakiset al. 2017).

Further, the manager should show that he is interested in taking challenges and can handle complex situations. For this, he can demonstrate any real-life example or previous experience to the interviewers. However, he must study the history of the hotel management company he appeared and their expectation from a manager. It will help him to display his talent in a precise manner.

Conclusion:

Based on this project, it can be understood that the personal and professional skills are required to get a job in any sector. Moreover, an individual should always learn the skills, which is popular in the current market. There are a set of skills, which have been required, by most of the employer. Based on the skill the employer selects a candidate. With the help of the personal development plan, an individual can able to develop the skill and the competencies, which is required for the current market.It can be concluded that CPD is vital for professional development. Regular learning helps an employee to master various skills, and it will certainly benefit the employer as well. Moreover, the professional development plan helps to bridge the skill gaps, which can affect the job performance. In the process, the employee can learn how to use their experience it can be recommended that the plan which will improve the skills should be done with the help of the easy task which will help to learn the skill easily.

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