EXP 201 Professional Practice - Free Samples to Students

ion as 30 March was my first working day. My journey started with a formal introduction with the staff members about the workplace and work structure. It was an ice breaking session for me where the mentor handed me the weekly roaster. As I worked only for the last two days in the month of March, therefore I could not feel much pressure. I have learnt the use of ordering machine for taking orders and helping my colleagues to determine the daily work.

In the month of April, I have worked for 10 days but not on a daily basis. It was in this month that I understood the importance of mentoring and its effect on the work structure. As I got a roaster from my mentor, I could chalk out different activities according to their priority. My mentor helped me in understanding the pattern of taking orders from customers and taught me the art of effective communication. He also taught me certain easy ways of checking on the bookings, which in turn, helped me in coordinating with my colleagues. In this regard, the practice theory can be used which helped me to gather individual knowledge, values and experience. This particular theory has focused on the helping of the mentee by the mentor to become better in his own field.          

As I was an apprentice in the workplace therefore, I was not fast paced and faced difficulty in coping with the regular tasks. My mentor stood by me all throughout so that I can get used to the speed of work in different circumstances. He helped me in increasing the efficiency of my work by proper guidance. In this way, I could prepare myself to help my colleagues with lunch preparation and setting the table. I learnt that hygiene and cleanliness should be of top priority in creating impression among the customers. A perfect mentoring was, thus helpful in building up friendly relation with my co- workers.

With more passing days, my shift timing increased to 21 hours and 25 hours. I learnt from my mentor that in a restaurant business cleaning is the most important thing. This is because no customer will pay money for eating on a dirty table. Therefore, I helped my colleague and sometimes on my own cleaned the tables to give them a polished and clean look. Cleanliness was the ultimate motto of my workplace and I strictly adhered to that. My mentor was very clear in teaching me all the necessary things such as making a list of stock with the help of the chef, which will be required in the restaurant.    

Initially I was a poor performer in dealing with the customers and I could not treat them politely. It was considered as a breach of the ethical parameters of the restaurant and my mentor advised to rectify my behavior. He taught me to deal with the customers on ethical and moral grounds, as they believed that guests are god. Until that day, I could only look into the strengths of mentoring but at that point, I felt that it was his weakness. On the very first day, he should have told me and made me aware about the ways the customers should be treated. I observed the negative element in his mentoring style. He taught me the elements on practical aspects rather than giving any prior hint. It became difficult for me to cope with the new things every day.

Therefore, I decided to work on my areas of self- improvement. As I have already completed several days at the workplace, I was quite aware of the dos and don’ts. I learnt that I cannot depend on my mentor for everything and I will have to deal with the small issues on my own. For instance, there was a customer who was unable to pay the bill and I smartly handled the issue by dropping him home and collecting the money. By the end of April, I was thorough with the detailed work schedule and structure. Thus, it became easy for me to conduct the activities in a smooth manner in the last month of my internship. I learnt some additional work outside my routine work when my mentor told me to substitute on behalf of my sick colleague.

Conclusion

During the last days, I took the initiative of checking the stock and made a list of those, which needed to be refilled. My mentor was successful in finding the loopholes and it became easy for me to improve those areas. I must say that my mentor was the ideal person to make me acquainted with the working structure of restaurant business. I learnt various kinds of activities from booking and cleaning table to checking and filling stock. I dealt with my communication issues to contact the suppliers and serve the customers. Apart from all these tasks, I learnt to make promo menu poster and adopted the ways of selling business.

Bibliography

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Eissner, S., & Gannon, J. (2018). Experiences of mentoring in the UK hospitality sector. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 1-18.

Ellis, C. (2015). Sweet Mentoring. Depart Crit Qual Res, 4(1), 81-88.

Erickson, T. (2015). Mentoring and managing employees to ensure husbandry and assure consumers.

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Parsloe, E., & Leedham, M. (2016). Coaching and Mentoring: Practical Techniques for Developing Learning and Performance. Kogan Page Publishers.

Russell, J. S. C., Southerland, S., Huff, E. D., Thomson, M., Meyer, K. B., & Lynch, J. R. (2017). A Peer-to-Peer Mentoring Program for In-Center Hemodialysis: A Patient-Centered Quality Improvement Program. Nephrology Nursing Journal, 44(6), 481-496.

Tsai, C. H. (2014). Training Effectiveness from Guanxi Perspective in Mentoring System. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 4(1), 130.