Discuss about the Perceptions of Hospitality Tourism and Events.
Management is a process of controlling or dealing with the things or people. Accounting, finance, marketing, production, etc. departments’ activities are supervised and controlled by the management (Chinomona & Surujlal, 2012). Apart from these functions, controlling, supervising, management of business, monitoring and evaluation are certain steps in the process of management which are executed in order to analyse the performance of the business as well as to determine the gap between the expected performance and actual attained outcomes. In this assessment, I would share my opinions and experience which I faced under my internship training of management in Hunky Dory Restaurant, Ringwood, Australia. Hunky Dory Fish & Chips is a family business of fishermen since 1927. After 90 years of fishing on the Greek Islands, Hunky Dory restaurant was established in 2004 as a family business. The primary aim of this restaurant is to offer traditional fish and chips along with varieties of seafood options. I was an intern at the Hunk Dory Restaurant assisting the management in identifying the gaps in customer service, strategy to retain customers and to ensure that best quality food is being served to the esteemed customers.
Under this report, several aspects of my duties will be represented along with my experience in the restaurant. I faced various challenges and opportunities during my tenure at the restaurant which will be discussed in the following parts of the report. Report will focus on the background and core functionalities of restaurant. Along with this, list of tasks will be discussed which I performed during the whole internship period.
Hunky Dori Restaurant is an Australian chain of seafood restaurants. It is satiated at all top locations such as Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, South Yarra, Richmond, Highett, Moonee Ponds, Ringwood (Eastland) and in Burwood East (Burwood One). Greg Robotis is the founder and current managing director of Hunky Dory Restaurant. According to him, Hunky Dory serves mouth-watering dishes which attracts and retain its potential and target customers. In order to enhance organizational image in the Australian market as well as to expand in the international market, organizational main focus is on food quality, customer satisfaction and retention of customers. Currently, Hunky Dory Restaurant is serving Aussies only while as per their future objectives, soon it will be expanded at international level in order to make an effective image in international market as well as to enhance its revenues and profitability (Freeman, 2010).
Hunky Dory is a family business which was established in 2004 after inspiring with fishing for almost 90 years. Aim of this restaurant is to offer delicious and healthy seafood. In order to enlarge its customer base, Hunky Dory Restaurant has enlarged its product offerings. From deliciously grilled fillet of Whiting or Salmon to Greek salad and brown rice, there is something always available for everyone. The vision of organization is to make and serve delicious dishes of fish and chips where customers could dine in and enjoy well with a glass of beer or wine. This is because, in traditional times, fish and chips were treated as take away food items. Apart from this, the organization performs its operations in order to stand on the peak position by serving delicious, fresh and tasty meals to the target audience (Hunky Dory Fish & Chips, 2018). Thus, it was a prodigious opportunity for me to work with a great restaurant with effective customer centric approaches.
I was the part of management team in the restaurant and as discussed earlier, I was interned as an assistant of the management team in order to improve customer service, quality of food delivered to the potential and target demographics, as well as to cope up with the suppliers so that product offering could be maintained. Along with this, I was also assigned with the duty to identify the gap between the service offered to the customers and their expectations. As management is a crucial department for every organization in every industry, my role was to assist the management team in order to review and analyse the challenges faced by the organization as well as by the clients. I was asked to report the manager of the restaurant who was responsible for controlling and managing all the activities in accordance with the attainment of organizational desired goals and objectives.
Apart from this, Hunky Dory Restaurant in Ringwood was following the organizational structure under which each function of the organization was grouped into division. Hunky Dory Restaurant was following the below mentioned divisional structure:
At the initial period of my internship days, my supervisor provided me training in relevance with the duties which I need to perform. The training period was for almost 40-50 days. After that period, I was asked to report my supervisor who was liable to report the above level managers regarding my performance and the duties executed by me. After a certain time period, I was getting involved in the environment of Hunky Dory Restaurant and the major reason behind this was the behaviour of people working around me. Apart from this, all the employees at the workplace were very cooperative which helped me to complete my internship in an expected manner along with adequate knowledge which was required to complete my management degree with good grades.
Organizational culture incorporates values and behaviours that “contribute to the psychological environment and unique social of an organization”. Organization culture of Hunky Dory Restaurant at Ringwood branch was quite innovative. I felt a strong positivity in the workplace and this was due to the strong beliefs, collective values of employees, and efforts invested by each member to attain organizational desired objectives. The day when I met Mr. Greg Robotis, managing director of the restaurant after one month of my internship was very special and inspiring for me. The reason behind this was his thoughts which were very inspiring and motivating. This is the necessity for every organization because until and unless positivity and motivation will not come from the top management or higher authorities, attainment of desired goals as per the expectations is not possible. Further, I realised another positive thing about the restaurant which was internal as well as external communication system implemented within the workplace. This was so effective and result oriented through which information could easily be transferred to an end. This is also necessary because the restaurant is included in the service industry and the communication system adopted by the Hunky Dory Restaurant was quite effective as well as impressive. I realised that with the help of this communication system, any restaurant could enhance its productivity, reliability as well as brand image amongst the potential customers and primary competitors. With the effect of the communication system adopted by the restaurant, I moulded my skills so as to match up with the requirement of the system so that I could execute my duties in an appropriate manner. While managing the work, I realised that the policies adopted by the Hunky Dory Restaurant in relevance with the communication mediums are effective enough to reduce the challenges and issues which generally a restaurant faces like scheduling, staffing, order, reservations and inventory management (Aggett & Busby, 2011).
A strict hierarchy was followed in the Hunky Dory Restaurant of managers, supervisors and individual contributors work together like clockwork to ensure smooth running while confronting the challenges of the food-service industry. Tasks which were assigned to me was handling daily operations, managing the staff, approaching and communicating with suppliers, developing and maintaining customer relations. Execution of these duties is necessary in order to operate in an adequate manner along with the attainment of desired goals and objectives such as attainment of customer satisfaction in all facets as well as to optimum utilisation of available resources within the restaurant in order to enhance productivity and for the purpose of maintaining the acquired position in the competitive business market. My supervisor used to conduct meetings at regular intervals to keep every member of the operations on the same page. Another agenda of these meetings was to detect the challenges and issues faced by the employees while performing their duties. This is necessary for his terms because if he found victim areas where chances of arising problems are high, he can proactively find the solutions to challenge those issues.
The management skills I learned in my studies and those executed by the managers of restaurant is quite different. I found various complications while applying studied management skills in the practical life. The skills which I learned in my management studies are planning, organising, and coordinating, directing, oversight. In regards to the Hunky Dory restaurant, skills required were excellent customer service skills, flexibility to work in dynamic business environments, effective interpersonal skills, communication skills, problem-solving, interactive and teamwork skills (Drucker, 2012). When I realised the requirement of these skills, I asked my supervisor to provide me training so that I could learn them in order to perform as per the expectations of restaurant as well as to attain organizational desired goals and objectives. While learning the managerial skills, I found the difference between the skills which I learned in studies and the skills of managers of Hunky Dory Restaurant. I was engaged to resolve the challenges faced by customer in relation to the service, food quality and time consumed for serving the food on the table. Along with this, my supervisor asked me to maintain effective customer relations so that potential customers could be retained for a longer period of time. The training provided by my supervisor in relation to executing the assigned duties in an appropriate manner was very crucial as well as effective. The training helped me to mould my basic learnings and principles into considerations for the restaurant. It helped me improve my skills as well as to cope up with the managerial requirements.
Front line supervisory function is a crucial aspect in terms of restaurants. My supervisor was used to perform this function. Under this function, he used to manage all day-to-day activities along with managing the opening and closing time of restaurant. Supervisory positions are generally split between the front- and back-of-house areas. In this function, my duty was to ensure that best food quality is being served to the clients as well as the wait time between placing order till reaching the order to their table is not high.
In a restaurant, number of roles and functions needs to be performed for attaining customer satisfaction. Along with this, there are various external and internal factors which affect organizational performance. I learned this thing when I was attending training sessions provide by Hunky Dory Restaurant. I realised that a versatile, efficient and effective manager for a restaurant is essential for managing the restaurant work appropriately. The major functions which a restaurant manager needs to perform are handling daily operations, maintaining balance between customers’ demands and employees’ desires. In between the training sessions, trainers conducted a sudden activity in order to enhance my knowledge and skills. The primary agenda of conducting this activity was to build up confidence, enhance communicational skills so that I could mould myself as per the restaurant industry’s requirements. The major requirements of restaurant industry are greeting clients in polite manner, adherence, and time management and maintain effective relations with customers as well as with suppliers in order to attain sustainable development and growth for the restaurant. The name of the activity was ad-hoc speaking in which I participated in relevance with matching organizational requirements. Under this activity, trainers collected certain paper chits in a bowl and asked all interns and trainees to take out any random chit from the bowl. Every paper chit had a topic inside on which we need to speak in front of all available people at that time. Main aim of this activity was to analyse mine and other trainees’ confidence level, hence, this activity could also be known as confidence test. After evaluating each trainee’s capabilities, trainers designed appropriate training sessions. This activity helped a lot in terms of evaluating my own confidence level along with this; it also helped me to enhance my skills and knowledge which holds vital place in effective execution of my role.
The learning sessions which I attained in Hunky Dory Restaurant helped me to understand professional life. The best thing I learned and liked about this internship was professional environment, people, atmosphere of the workplace. Organizational culture of Hunky Dory restaurant was unique and this made me fond of it. It could also be considered as the best thing which I liked about my internship. There were various new experiences for me because it was first phase to enter into a professional environment. The theories and skills which I learned during my professional studies could be executed and applied to a limited extent but after working with Hunky Dory restaurant for a certain period of time made me believe that practical experiences are more important and effective in terms of enhancing one’s knowledge and experience.
The training provided by the restaurant helped me a lot to complete the internship and it also helped me to develop myself as a part of professional world. I learned various things during internship days at Hunky Dory Restaurant. During training, I learned STAR method in order to tackle real-life problem which mainly arises in restaurant industry. It is a method which is generally used by job interviewers in order to analyse and gather every type of relevant information regarding job. While performing the duties of assistant manager, I handled approximately three to four duties which holds effective place in the restaurant industry. I adopted and implemented the STAR methodology in relevance with gathering all relevant information which is required to be capable enough for performing the assigned duties. This method is also adopted by interviewers at the time of analysing the requirement of the job and it includes situation, task, action, and result (Belbin, 2010).
I faced an unexpected situation during internship days under which I implemented this method to determine all possible ways to tackle the situation which was initially out of my control. The situation was a guest was served with inadequate food quality and major fault which was detected was at the end of suppliers. Another fault was detected at the end of cook because he did not check the quality of fish before making it as final dish and when it was served to the guest, he noticed the bad thing about the dish immediately. As soon as possible, guest found something uneven about the food served to him, he started screaming and calling manager. At that time, I was on the floor with all managerial responsibilities. I went to the guest and start analysing the methods which were taught to us in training sessions. Trainers were aware of these types of situations; hence, they taught us various solutions which could be given at that time. Training and the situations already discussed helped me a lot to tackle the practical situation as well as to provide all possible solutions to the guests. In this practical situation, I applied STAR method, under which I analysed the situation, and targets the situation in relevance with analysing all possible solutions and this step is included in the task section. Further step is known as action under which the most appropriate solution needs to be selected and applied in terms of providing the most adequate solution to the customer. Then the last step comes which is result, after application of adequate solutions, outcomes originated from the actions taken will be evaluated on the basis of organizational objectives.
In every workplace irrespective of its environment, you will found one or two unethical elements which think that management and all other people of the organization are against. This leads to generation of negativity within the workplace and ultimately it arises conflicts and disputes. The same situation I faced at the workplace of Hunky Dory Restaurant, there were two supervisors who always think that management forms policies and execute operations considering organizational interest only and employees’ interest is always being ruined. In order to strengthen their opposition team against management, they always try to convince other people. Both of them tried on me so that I could favour them but as soon as I denied for standing against the management, they started bullying me at workplace, they used to criticize my work and so on. These activities made me demotivated for a certain period of time but as soon as I started concentrating over my work and towards learning unique methods to enhance my skills and knowledge, it helped me to grow and prosper in an adequate manner.
The internship which I had with Hunky Dory Restaurant was quite effective for me because it helped me to experience all those situations which every professional need to bear in his entire working life. Along with those situations, I also learned the most appropriate solutions for those situations which make me feel fear-free as well as quite experienced candidate. I faced certain personal challenges like in the initial period; I was having tough time to gather much information and the methods to tackle various situations at one time. But with the flow of time and as soon as I started getting involved in the situations to analyse its root cause as well as to determine its impact over the organizational performance, I realised the significance of the learnings which I had during internship days and I believe that these experiences will help me a lot attaining the desired goals and objectives in my life.
Hunky Dory Restaurant is a great place to eat, drink and enjoy. Along with this, it is famous for its food quality, customer retention policies as well as for its precious services rendered to the customers. Working with the restaurant made me very effective to tackle every situation in a positive manner in future as well as they also help me to enhance my efficiency and productivity as well. The way organization helped me to enhance my productivity and efficiency, in the same manner, my precious contribution has also helped the organization to overcome the detected challenges and issues by me. I found my internship very challenging and interesting as it helped me to gain enough information which has enlightened my career growth. Along with this, the knowledge which I got from the training provided by the experienced members of the Hunky Dory Restaurant has helped me to enhance my capabilities. It has totally changed my career’s direction, the skills which I learned during my graduation days and the knowledge which I obtained during my internship days made me a better professional person. Different ways of effective customer service, dealing with various types of customers, dealing with suppliers, etc. are certain crucial highlights of internship.
References
Aggett, M. and Busby, G., 2011. Opting out of internship: Perceptions of hospitality, tourism and events management undergraduates at a British university. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sports and Tourism Education (Pre-2012), 10(1), p.106.
Belbin, R.M., 2010. Management teams. Routledge.
Chinomona, R. and Surujlal, J., 2012. The influence of student internship work experience on their self-improvement and professionalism in Sport Management: sport management. African Journal for Physical Health Education, Recreation and Dance, 18(Issue-4_2), pp.885-899.
Drucker, P., 2012. The practice of management. Routledge.
Freeman, R.E., 2010. Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Cambridge university press.
Hunky Dory Fish & Chips, 2018. Our Story. Accessed from https://www.hunkydory.com.au/ [Online]. [16th April 2018].
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