Personal Professional Development For ICT Integration

Self-managed learning for Personal Professional Development

Describe about the Personal Professional Development for ICT integration.

Self-managed learning is a challenging process for an employee. It is crucial for the employee to develop himself/herself through managing personal and professional goals. The organizations can arrange for many self-managed learning trainings. It will help the employees to grow in their career. In this particular assignment, it can be observed that, the authors is appointed newly as an assistant manager in Travelodge Hotelin Ilford.So, this assignment will focus on the self-managed learning and developmental progress of Travelodge hotel and it will also provide the opportunity to a learnerto become an effective and confident self-directed employee.

Self-managedlearning refers to various ways, which are utilized by individual to gain the knowledge from their work or their surroundings. As an assistant manager of Travelodge Hotel, Self-managed learning is very necessary, as it will help to gain more knowledge, which is closely related to the goals and needs of the hotel (Moon 2013).This self-managedlearning will not only help theauthor as assistant manager, but also it will help to modifyin developing personal knowledge in his career. For example, Travelodge Hotel is awell-established hotel. So, as anewly appointed assistant the goal will be to increase the sales of the hotel and to make the profit out of it. These skills in self-managed learning will help to achieve the target (Busse et al. 2014).

The best way to improve self-managed learning is to notice the present business, analysis the problems and to do the research and competitive analysis of the business environment. There are many approaches associated with this, which are described below (McLeod and Julia 2014):

Seminars and Conferences:

The management of the hotel should arrange for certain seminars and conferences for the employees. The management of the hotel has to be aware of the fact that all the employees must attend theseseminars and conferences. These seminars and conferences can be based on customer satisfaction, hotel etiquettes, communication skills, leadership principles etc. (Lam et al. 2014). These approaches will help the employees to obtain insight and to gain more knowledge.

Internet:

The internet is a very crucial tool for the employees, who want to obtain self-managed learning. A versed knowledge could be achieved through the internet since it is a great source of all kinds of material which provide useful information about hotel, travel and tourism industry all over the world. Productive information achieved over the internet, can be implementedandtransferred in the work experiences (Calderhead 2012).

Evaluation of Approaches to self-managed learning

Social Networks:

Social networks such as twitter, Linked In, Facebooketc.allow the people to communicate freely. There are various people in the social media. These people come from various backgrounds and have various experiences to share. Along with the managers, the employees can adopt the positive attributes through sharing their experiences with different people and they can implement these attributes in their work along with their personal lives (Gamrat et al. 2014).

According to author seminar and conferences are the most suitable approach fir the employees in Travelodge hotel. This approach is completely based on learning process(McConnell et al. 2015). Through this approach, the staffs will not only learn new thing, but also they will meet various peopleface to face. It will enhance their work experiences.

Lifelong learning can be encouraged in personal and professional development through various ways, likeskill assessments, customer feedbacks etc. The management can arrange for assessment tests on newly learned skills among the employees. It will encourage the staff members to know their capability. Through customer feedback system both the management and employees can judge themselves in their learning. As an assistant manager, the author can encourage the professional and personal development of the employees through SWOT analysis (Galvin 2014). SWOT analysis refers to analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of a particular individual or organization.Theopportunities and strengthswill help to ensure the success. The threats and weakness will motivate the employees to improve themselves so that they can give their best service in the future. Based on this, the manager can arrange for Self-reflective learning. It will improve the personal developmental skill and will be beneficial to make the right decision(Pallisera et al. 2013).

The employees of this hotel will enhance their learning and work experiences through this self-managed learning. Team work will be developed through this learning, so that the work can be done more efficiently and it gives rise to high quality of work. The main aim of the hotel industry is to satisfy the people. So, it is very necessary for the employees to build an effective verbal and non-verbal Communication skill (Gribble et al. 2014). This self-managed learning will help to acquire the communication skill. To increase the business of this hotel, it is also necessary to provide the best service to the customers. This learning process will enhance the knowledge of customer satisfactionfor the employees along with the assistant manager. Self-management learning helps to learn decision making skills. For example, in Travelodge Hotel, many incident may come, where, the assistant manager needs to take urgent decision. In certain cases, the situation may come, when the assistant manager may not be present. Then the employees should have the capability to take the decision in absence of assistant manager. Automatically, it will improve the image of the Travelodge hotel. Through this training the employees of the hotel can offer batter customer care, which will help to retain the customers and as well as it will attract more customers (ZakareviÄÂius and ŽuperkienÄ— 2015). Along with these, the employees and manager will be experienced with high ethics. The work ethics will help to continue the responsibilities of the workers in an accountable and transparent manner.

Proposed ways of lifelong learning

Evaluation of personal competencies and skills involves the making of a chart, which audits the capabilities of an individual. So, to evaluate the personal skills, as an assistant manager, the author should maintain the chart. The chart includes certain criteria’s, like, things that he/she can do well, things that need to be practiced, and things which cannot be done completely (Leong et al. 2014).For example, as an assistant manager the main aim of the author is to maximize the sales, meet the targets and make the profit. So, the author needs to review the past history of the hotel and list out the present facilities of the hotel. Along with the Travelodge hotel, the author needs to focus on other hotels’ information. From this review, the author can make a chart of the present facilities and drawbacks of Travelodge hotel.

The next step is to identify the things, which are need to be modified to a certain degree through the present skills. It also includes new implementation plan of certain projects, which can be profitable for the hotel. For example, after reviewing the author realized that, Travelodge hotel needs to focus on the entertainment activities, like conducting a small tour or dance performance or music performance. Based on that the implementation plan will be prepared, which will be interacted with all other staffs of the hotel. The staff members will be motivated to make this plan successful and alsonecessary changes will be made to structure thisplan (Russell and Korthagen 2013). The last step is the successful implementation of the plan or make a conclusion out of the evaluation. As an assistant manager,it will inspire and motivate the whole team to provide the best services to the customers.

The activities and the developmental needs, which are required to meet the target are performance and communication skills.For professional perspective, it is very necessary to have good communication skills. Good communication skills refer to both written and verbal communication. It is also important to have problem solving skills in the hotel industry. Problem solving skills will help to save a large amount of profit for the organization and it will also help to maintain the harmony in the work place (McBrien 2015). This problem solving skill will also improve the customer satisfaction services in this Travelodge hotel, which is very necessary for this. As the assistant manager, the author also need to focus on delegation of duties. The perfect delegation will result into completion of a work with minimal time. Assistant manager also has to emphasize on organizing skill. This skill will help to ensure that all the planned tasks should be executed to improve the future of the hotel. Other skills like, innovation and creativity will help the hotel to give a competitivelook (Brody and Hadar 2015). For example, as above mentioned that Travelodge hotel is focusing on implementation of certain entertainment activities. So, to make it successful, as an assistant manager needs to focus on organizing skill, performance skill and communication skill.

Evaluation of Benefits

The major strengths, which will help to achieve these developmental needs are given below:

Quick learner:

The ability of quick learning will help the author to adjust with the work environment easily and the author can take the responsibility of his new role as an assistant manager (Johnson and Golombek 2016).

Self-motivated and Determined:

Theself-motivationand determination enable the author to hang on a spirited fight in the face of difficulty because of the burning desire to overcome and succeed challenges. In order to develop himself, this attribute of being determined can enable the author to take advantage of existing opportunities (Cox et al. 2014).

Hardworking:

The hardworking nature of the author is the greatest asset to achieve the goals (Mitina 2015). The author also needs to excel by giving the opportunities and explore the existing opportunities.

Intelligence and Self-confidence:

Self-confidence is very crucial especially to explore the unknown circumstances. The key factor of self-development is Self-confidence (Narayanasamy and Penney 2014). To seize opportunities, which are being chased by so many people, self-confidence is very necessary.

Team player:

The author has the capability to work as a team. Being a team player, the author can get various innovative ideas from his colleagues (Mumford 2013). It will help to perform the work more efficiently. So, moreover the goal will be achieved as a group, not as an individual.

Communication skills:

The author has effective communication skill, which is very necessary in this industry (Zepeda 2012). As an eloquent communicator, the author can fulfil the desires of the guests of the hotel.

The following weak points are:

Missing deadlines:

The author faces trouble, whole meeting the deadline of any task. It occurs because of excessive workload and underestimation of time required for completing the task. Therefore the author may be victim of planning error. To achieve the performance goals, the author needs to learn time-management skills. While planning workload, one must ensure that they deal with hard task first and leaving easier parts to complete later. It helps save final moment of nervousness and it will enable the author to accomplish the work in the right time. Another approach that can be taken is to set our own due dates before the actual due date. One can also make a resolution to try their best to respect customer’s deadlines so that customer loyalty is maintained (Albion et al. 2015).

Impatience:

Another weak point of the author is being impatient in the meeting (Hiver 2013). It is very tough for the author to stay in the meeting for so long hours.

Evaluation of current skills and competencies

The Travelodge hotel has many developmental opportunities. Certain opportunities are supportive management system, great foods, comfortable lodging system, amazing hospitality etc. To meet, current and future needs, it is necessary to advance those systems with the time (Reeves 2012). The main aim of the hotel industry is to satisfy the people. So, it is very necessary for the employees to build an effective verbal and non-verbal Communication skill. It is very important for this hotel to be upto date with the competitors. For, example, the skill which should be developed was modifying the entertainment department of the hotel through arranging some entertaining program. So, to achieve this target, there are many available opportunities which are present inside the hotel, like management, hospitality etc. The outside opportunities are arrangements of good music troop or dance troop, which can entertain the guests of the hotel (Moon 2013).

A professional development plan or apersonal development plan is a documented strategy that specifieson the goals, which will be achieved. It is generally prepared under the guidance of supervisor or a mentor. This plan should have a time frame, in which, the objectives should be achieved.The plan is described below (Busse et al. 2014):

The needed skills	The way of developing the skills	The time to develop intended skills
·         Communication skill ·         Organization skill ·         Leadership skill ·         Time management skill	These skills are present in the assistant manager. But to achieve targets, it is necessary to modify these skills. So, these skills can be developed through various training session, meetings and more work performance.	These intended skills will be developed at the time of implementation of new project, to achieve the target and overall to make more profit for the organization.

After making the developmental plan, it is necessary to implement this plan. So, the required activities and precesses are described below (McLeod and Julia 2014):

Step 1: Reviewing the required components:

The common goal in the professional and personal development plan is to make the growth of the organisation in both cases. As an assistant manager the author can take his past and present work experiences. He also can take the help of his seniors (Lam et al. 2014).

Step 2: Clarification of the goals:

The author should ensure that the proposed goal should be S.M.A.R.T, means Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. The goal should be specific. For example, in this case, the goal is to implement the entertaining program in the Travelodge Hotel. This proposed goal is measurable, as it can increase the sales by 20% annually. This goal is attainable, because this can be attained easily with the help of the available opportunities and with the help of others(Calderhead 2012). Thearrangement of an entertaining program in the Travelodge hotel is very realistic as per the hotel industry. This goal can be achieved with the proposed duration, so it is timely as well.

Step3:The template will be made based on the developmental plan.

Step 4:Strategies will be laid down in such an away, that the goal can be achieved easily (Gamrat et al. 2014). For example, in this goal, the strategies will be meetings with the members of the hotel, meeting various dance and musical groups, arranging for their performances etc. 

Step 5:The goal should be evaluated in presence of all the members of the hotel before the final implementation. In this case, it is known that this goal will increase the sales of this hotel (McConnell et al. 2015).

Step 6:After certain period of time, the management should arrange for another meeting to map the progress of the implementation. It will accelerate the overall process (Galvin 2014).

Step 7:In the final step, as an assistant manager the author will note done all the accomplishments needed to achieve this goal. Later this note will be shared with the management system and other associates (Pallisera et al. 2013).

To achieve the gal, the required developmentalactivates are discussed below (ZakareviÄÂius and ŽuperkienÄ— 2015):

Making a team:

First of all, it is necessary to make a team to implement this goal of arranging entertainment program. So, the team will consist the manager, assistant manager, hospitality team, and the entertainment team (Leong et al. 2014).

Meeting:

Meeting should be arranged in several session in between the team members. It is also necessary to update the managements about the followings of those meetings (Russell and Korthagen 2013).

Research:

To choose a good singing or dancing group, it is necessary to know the famous brands and groups in that area. So, the research will be done (McBrien 2015).

Audition:

The singing or dancing group will be chosen based on their performance in the audition.

Finalization:

At last a performance will be presented in front of the managements and other staff members of the hotel to evaluate or review the performance.

As an assistant manager, the author had the weaknesses in attending meeting and completing the target with in the time. After critical analyzing, the author has realized that, he has improved his weaknesses (Brody and Hadar 2015). The author has learnt many experiences through this achievement. For, example, the author has learnt new experiences to work with a big team in such a big hotel. Problem solving skills will help to save a large amount of profit for the organization and it will also help to maintain the harmony in the work place. The leadership principles helped him to maintain the balance while conducting the work. In this plan, certain circumstances came, where the author used his self-confidence and self-development skills.   The author has learnt new skills like knowledge of music or dance in this plan and he is experienced with many cultures(Johnson and Golombek 2016).

Based on the feedback and evaluation, it is observed that the prepared developmental plan has worked successfully. This self-managed learning will not only help the author as assistant manager, but also it will help to modify in developing personal knowledge in his career.All the proposed skills have worked efficiently to achieve the goal. Only, the time was not manage according to the plan. The opportunities and strengths will help to ensure the success. The threats and weakness will motivate the employees to improve themselves so that they can give their best service in the future.So, the team has to focus on this in the next implementation in the near future(Narayanasamy and Penney 2014).

It can be concluded by stating that self-managed learning and personal or professional developmental plan have many positive attributes to offer both the organization and the associated employees. The people, who will be equipped with these skills, trainings and learnings will be successful in their professional and personal life.

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