HOSPITALITY
Conflict resolution
Conflict resolution refers to finding solutions to disagreements that may develop from issues involving finances, emotional disputes, political differences, and personal behavior (Wallensteen, 2018). The development of covid-19 has brought about a conflict regarding the internal and external environment at the Travel Agent, the company that I was working for. These issues came about due to the impact of the coronavirus, whose effects have been established to be a pandemic crisis. Due to the quick spread of coronavirus, the company has been significantly affected as a measure undertaken to contain its spread has resulted in poor business activities and, hence, conflicts.
Internally, the business atmosphere has been affected by a shortage of staff since most of the employees were laid off. This situation was brought as a result of the government directives to its citizens to practice self-quarantine while also locking down states that are affected by the virus. Hence, the company is facing the challenge of dealing with employees who were dependent on the organization for income as the demand for financial settlements, hence causing conflicts. The government, however, has issued a directive for all organizations to pay their employees a percentage of their salaries as it attempts to resolve such conflict that has risen with other companies too. Externally, the company has been affected as the rate of business has dropped drastically hence low income since the company is highly dependent on tourism and traveling, which is highly discouraged during this period.
Personally, the impact of covid-19 has affected my progress in building my career since the company terminated all internship contracts. This has shortened the experienced that I considered would help obtain additional skills that would assist me in developing a successful career path. However, the consideration of enrolling in online training and educational activities would help in continuing to develop and acquire more skills that would assist in my career path once the coronavirus is controlled and contained.
Teamwork, motivation, and leadership
The success of an organization is highly dependent on the amount of labor and effort placed into the completion of a task or project. Henceforth, the motivation of employees is essential to build a conducive working environment through teamwork. Members of a team, therefore, are required to possess some characteristics or qualities that would promote social relationships within an organization (Wiyono, 2018). some of these characteristics include the ability of a member to be responsible and reliable. Members that have such a character are essential as they are dependable to complete tasks presented hence promoting team success.
Furthermore, members of a team should be committed to handling the assignments or projects assigned to the team. This characteristic is essential as the tasks allocated to the team would be completed in time. Lastly, the other characteristic considered is that team members should always be ready to help. Since a team comprises different individuals with different skill sets, in case a member faces challenges, a member should be readily offered assistance to the individual. All the discussed characteristics are supposed to help build a good working environment that would foster global team success.
According to Maslow’s hierarchy, motivational needs can be classified into a fire-tire model of human needs. The five categories of the tire include physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Considering the above-discussed characteristics, the Maslow hierarchy model can be used to classify them into the five stages of needs as follows. Firstly, the characteristic of being reliable and responsible could be classified into the safety tire since team members are confident that members who have this character would manage to ensure tasks at hand are completed hence job security. It can also be classified into the love and belonging since this characteristic helps to build trust among members and the assurance of being affiliated with a successful group.
Secondly, the characteristic of being committed to enabling a team member to accomplish assignments to attain maximum potential through working experience; hence, it is classified under self-actualization need. It could also be classified into esteem needs as a commitment of individual results to personal achievements and development of respect from others. Lastly, the characteristic of being ready to help could be classified into the esteem needs category. This is because assisting other team members provides team cohesion and enables an individual to gain mutual respect from other team members. Furthermore, it can be grouped into the love and belonging category since the provision of assistance leads to the creation of friendship among team members.
The perspective of teamwork in an organization brings about the need for team leaders who would be in charge of teams formed within the organization. These individuals are in charge of assigning tasks to team members and provide motivational factor that would allow members of a team to work towards achieving goals set. Reflecting on my internship, individuals such as our group team leader, the department supervisor, and the organization manager are the ones I consider to be the leaders. These are some of the characteristics which they all showcased during my internship, as listed below.
- Self-management.
- I am effective communicators.
- We are promoting creativity and innovation.
Reflecting on the above list, these leaders showcased these characteristics through various ways. Considering self-management, these individuals were able to manage time and activities in a manner that enabled them to be involved in the daily organizational activities. Being organized forms the basis of management skills that would enable one manage others hence this support their leadership skills. Additionally, these individuals expressed humility through actively accepting criticism for their actions from their immediate superior officers. Acceptance of correction creates an opportunity to grow from lessons learnt from the experience hence supporting these individuals leadership capabilities. Furthermore, these individuals were good communicators in a manner that they were able to clearly explain daily goals and assign tasks while also providing opportunity for dialogue to ensure the message intended was understood. These individuals also potrayed decisiveness in a manner that when presented with any situation, they were able to make decision and develop strategies to help come up with solution to challenges arising. Lastly, these individuals were able to encourage innovativeness and creativity through encouraging ideas from members of different teams and organizing events for individuals to showcase their creativity.
Time and Stress management
Time management involves the act of planning on how much time should be spent performing certain activities with an aim to increase productivity and efficiency. According to the calendar, 15 March marked the date that the government issued the guidelines to majority of stares in America to go on lockdown as a means to control the spread of covid-19. The government also encouraged self-quarantine for its citizens hence majority of the population ended up confined in their houses. This presented an opportunity to perform impending activities due to availability of time hence proper scheduled to manage time was required.
My scheduled captured how to handle daily activities that varied from personal activities to academic activities and the scheduled was considered for working days only as weekend are rest days. According to the time management schedule, the time to rise up is 6.00am. this allowed me enough time to prepare for the activities of the day and have proper breakfast. The preparation period lasted till 8.00 am where online academic activities are scheduled to begin till 12.00 noon. As from 12.00 noon to 2.00 pm involved the lunch break period. The period from 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm involved the time frame scheduled for research on development of ideas that I consider may help further my career aspirations. Henceforth, the period from 4.00 pm till 11.00 pm involve the time frame for personal activities such as making orders for food supplies, exercise and personal hygine. It also provided time to rest and a chance to interact with other family members.
The transition to quarantine however has not been as smooth as it has disrupted normal activities such as the internship program and interaction with friends and collegues. This has resulted to stress due to worry over career aspirations since working activities have been withheld and also over the welfare of friends, collegues and their families. In an attempt to relieve stress, I have embacked on activities that would assist manage the emotional turmoil. These activities include playing video games, watching movies, browsing the internet and interacting with friends via social media platforms.
Goal setting and life management
Goals are important in life as they act as the driving force for establishing a good career and a sustainable life ( Lenzen et al,2017). Reflecting on the activities that I performed during my internship, the activities that I am proud of involves building a social network with staff members and the customers that visited our organization with an aim to create good relations. Additionally, at the organization I was able to perform various tasks such as making itinerary for customers, ordering brochure and taking part in online training. Performing these tasks such as preparing itinerary for customers has resulted to safe and cost-effective travels for our customers and the online training has enabled me gain more experience on offering proper services.
During the internship period, I was able to undertake on tasks to the best of my abilities to provide positive results. My abilities included providing assistance to team members that faced challenges that I was capable of handling. Additionally, through my resilience and commitment to do research complete tasks, this resulted to provision of timely reports that assisted in providing useful information to the company and customers. Furthermore, through my ability to communicate with customers ensured that the quality of services I provided were good and helpful. Considering my abilities as discussed above, I think that this demonstrates my ability to work with other members of the organization.
During free or rest days, the need for extracurricular activities was necessary to allow chance to have new experiences apart from work and academic activities. Some of the extracurricular activities that I associated myself with include visiting an art store to learn how to paint portraits. The organization too did organize social events such as volunteer work and community service as a means to engage its members into extracurricular activities. Additionally, working at the agency required adaptation to the environment as interaction involved individuals of diverse culture and speak different languages hence, I had to learn languages such as Spanish and French to ensure communication. This was inspired by the interest to travel to various art galore in different countries such as Spain.
Impact of covid-19
The spread of the covid-19 has reached a pandemic level that has promoted most countries to close their borders and disallow travelling activities both internally and externally. The hospitality industry has been affected the most due to the cancelation of events, conventions and postponement of activities such as sports which has affected tourism and travelling activities. This has affected the personnel in the industry since lack of customers results to reduction of job opportunities hence resulting to undesirable outcomes. Personally, the spread of the virus has impacted my career goals negatively as work was put on hold as a measure to control the spread of the virus. The lack of working time has resulted to stagnated progress to the continual development through the experiences supposed to be gained (Kelley, 2017).
To adjust to this set back, I have implemented several ideas of how to manage and overcome the downturn in the economy. This is through taking steps to do research and enrolling for online programs that would enable me gain a lot more education in my career. Furthermore, I plan to get involved into platforms that would allow me gain income such as through online sales and marketing as a means to generate income during this pandemic.
Career and life changes
The challenges presented by covid-19 include loss of income due to quarantine and the inability to socialize physically with other people. Additionally, educational activities have also faced a bump as educational institutions are closed. However, personally I have taken the initiative to deal with this situation in the manner that would not only allow me to overcome these challenges but also continue to build my career. The measure that I plan on taking include organizing online chat rooms that would enable me and colleagues from the organization I was working for to discuss ideas that could be implemented when we resume work. Furthermore, I am looking to utilize the online educational platforms availed by my school to further my own education (Savickas, 2019). These measures would present opportunities for me to pursue my career through gaining more experience from chatting with colleagues and furthering my education through online platforms would enable me gain more knowledge on how to develop my career path.
References
Wallensteen, P. (2018). Understanding conflict resolution. SAGE Publications Limited.
Wiyono, B. B. (2018). The effect of self-evaluation on the principals’ transformational leadership, teachers’ work motivation, teamwork effectiveness, and school improvement. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 21(6), 705-725.
Lenzen, S. A., Daniëls, R., van Bokhoven, M. A., van der Weijden, T., & Beurskens, A. (2017). Disentangling self-management goal setting and action planning: A scoping review. PloS one, 12(11).
. Kelley, C. B. (2017). Time management strategies: purposeful rounding and clustering care. MedSurg Nursing, 26(1), S1-S1.
Savickas, M. (2019). Career counseling (pp. xvi-194). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.