FOODSERVICE JOURNAL

WEEK 1

My goals and expectations regarding a career in the hospitality industry might not be very common considering I have spent over 20 years in the industry. The main goal while enrolling in the B.A in Hospitality degree is to match my practical experience with the theoretical knowledge.

My expectation during this 16 weeks course is to perfect my research and writing skills in terms of hospitality related topics. My expectation for this newfound knowledge is to be able to effectively incorporate them into my daily job functions as a food Service Director and hopefully move higher up the management spectrum.

WEEK 2

The three strengths which professionally describes me are: confident, resourceful and honest. Three areas of opportunities are: expanding my practical knowledge of the food service industry,building more positive relationships among peers in the industry and developing my own brand. All three strengths and opportunities highly correlates with my career goals, along with the experience from this class, they will help shape my path and what I would like to accomplish in the short and medium term.

This class will help combine all the hospitality management research from previous classes and the current research around regulations and issues affecting the hospitality industry. I hope to be able to use it as a building block towards real practical problem solving in my day to day activities at work.

WEEK 3

Customer expectations set the bar for customer satisfaction which also affects repurchase decisions and customer loyalty. If a customer feels like you did not deliver a service that was expected, they won’t come back and buy from you again.

In order to achieve quality customer expectations, adequate technical and personal training for all employees including management must occur. Training helps to accomplish the business mission and vision by creating awareness. The more the training, the more confident everyone becomes and this ultimately becomes the organizational culture.

I plan on including modules such as HIPAA, conflict resolution, anger management and much more. The training will be delivered via mandatory on-boarding classes and annual retraining class online via web video. Ultimately the impact of the training will  be determined by the customers hence the reason why bonuses will be tied to several metrics including customer satisfaction.

WEEK 4

There are many systems and processes involved in the food service/dietary profession. From food and supply ordering to maintaining budget for all dietary employees. Each process is governed by the Administrator and a monthly reconciliation meeting is held to discuss the previous month.

In the past, I've also worked with a company where fingerprints are used to authorize start of shift, registering for classes and assessing pay information.

WEEK 5

The expected goal chosen is being able to apply my management philosophy to my current role. This starts with utilizing what I've learned so far and building upon it based on my day to day activities. It is a year long plan in which I expect the results to be measurable in terms of team efficiency, customer satisfaction and effective feedback monitoring.

WEEK 6

One of my strength is being able to work with a diverse set of personalities, ability to understand what the other person is communicating . One aspect of the dietary profession that gives me concern is performance evaluations. In terms of evaluating employees, I always want to strike a balance between fairness and competencies. In terms of receiving a performance evaluation, I always appreciate appropriate feedback months before the actual evaluation. This helps to guide me towards working on areas of weakness. As a dietary manager, here is always a risk of alienating peers or employees and a successful manager must learn to be fair while being firm.

WEEK 7

I worked at the front desk of a large nursing home. A guest visiting her resident father was just leaving when she noticed she had a flat tire. It was the end of my shift and late at night. She did not have towing under her insurance but luckily had a spare tire so I offered to help her change to the spare. It was freezing outside and I directed her into the guest waiting area while I quickly changed to the spare.  She was very appreciative and came back the next day with a thank you card and an excellent feedback to my boss. She was particularly impressed that a female like herself knew how to change tires.

WEEK 8

There are many systems and processes within the food service industry but no system is greater than the one which aims to motivate employees to strive for excellent customer satisfaction. The system in place at my place of work is known as Total Quality Management (TQM). The American Society for Quality (ASQ) defines TQM as “a management approach to long-term success through customer satisfaction” (ASQ, 2017).

TQM is organizational wide and all employees, processes and systems operates on this methodology of improvement. Since TQM is a long term strategy, it has become part of the company's culture. A tweak to the system would be having metrics tied to how each employee adhere to the TQM methodology. This can be part of performance evaluations which will serve as an extra layer of motivation for all employees.

Reference

ASQ. (2017). Total Quality Management (TQM): What is TQM? | ASQ. Retrieved from American Society for Quality: http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/total-quality management/overview/overview.html

WEEK 9

For the most part my goals remain the same, my expectations however are being reshaped based on the reviews from my research on strategic management and the various issues associated with the food service industry. I've recorded quite a few achievements in terms of shaping my work environment and applying a more prudent system aimed at total quality service. We've had series of meetings in which management and all other employees gave various suggestions and these suggestions are being incorporated into the new operational policy for the department.

WEEK 10

In terms of strengths I would say my list stays the same but in regards to opportunities, I have added one more to include a broader range of implementation.  Our initial plans targeted only the location where I work in management but the concept and mock trials so far caught the attention of regional management and my team is putting together a presentation for Corporate. Hopefully our ideas will now be implemented throughout the company not just in our location.

WEEK 11

I have what I call the minimum acceptable standard and quality service standards. When visiting a restaurant I often look at key factors such as wait time, body language of the workers and the presentation/quality of food. These factors are rated as poor, average or excellent. As a guest I expect at least a score of average from restaurants I visit. Knowing what I know now, I believe all restaurants should aim for quality service and a bare minimum of excellent as a score. This might be hard to achieve but the reward far outweighs the stress.

WEEK 13

Throughout the last 13 weeks, my goals and expectations grew beyond the initial parameters and began focusing more on achieving employee motivation through internal and external benefits. This included reevaluating the facility layout for improved efficiency. If I were to start anew, I would expand my goals beyond my immediate facility and seek more participation from outside departments.

I would also change the performance appraisal technique to giving employees more opportunities to correct performance problems. Ultimately my goals would be a lot more achievable incorporating an agile methodology instead of trying to change everything at once.