Work Experience Journals
Student name: Alia Mohammed AlBastaki
Student ID:H00248814
Section:2
Company:Al Hamed Exchange - Travelex
JOURNAL 4
Competencies and Skills (CLO 3 and 4)
Describe how you applied, IT, business, customer awareness and numeracy skills
during your work experience.
IT: in my company, I used many different technologies, such as computer that has special
keyboard for exchange currencies, money counting machine and machine that identifies the
fake note from the real.
Business: I applied it through selling offers to the customers, we have two special offers,
one is the buyback offer that benefits you as a customer with getting back your money with
a great exchange rate and free of commission charge. Second, Jade Card offer, if you are
carrying a big amount of money with you while travelling, then don’t keep them in your bag,
instead put them in the Jade Card where you can use it worldwide for almost everything.
Customer awareness: communication was the most valuable asset that I’ve used to grab
customer’s attention; I always welcome every person that walks by us. I treat customers in
such a friendly way, where I ask them about their trip and finally wish them to have a nice
day. Also, sometimes when a customer comes and asks about the rate and how much he
would get if he wanted to buy for example Dirhams, I gladly explain to them the whole
transaction and make sure that they understood it.
Numeracy skills: when customers come to buy dirhams or sell them, we do some
mathematics. For example, if a customer had a 125 US Dollars. And they want to buy
dirhams, the equation is (foreign money × buying rate – commission) so, I will multiply 125
by the exchange rate which is 3.6003 then I will minus 15 or 0.02 from it which gives us 435
dirhams. But it goes the opposite way around when it comes to selling dirhams, for example,
if a customer had 500 dirhams and he wanted to buy US dollars, here we divide the dirhams
on the selling rate then minus 15 from it.
Compare the skills you learned in the HCT College with the skills needed to succeed
in the workplace.
I learned in college that being on time, communicating with other employees and working hard
on the tasks that the company gives us are the most important skills needed to succeed which
is basically applied everywhere, but when I joined this organization, It was more than that, the
skills that I needed to succeed in my work place, wasn’t being on time, communicating or
working hard but it was convincing skills, good language and speed, and then rest would
eventually follow.
Evaluate the competencies and skills that you still need to develop.
Skills that I still need to develop are convincing skills and problem solving. I’ve had hard time
dealing with customers, who gets angry very fast, or refuses to understand how exchanging
works. I would always seek help if a customer got mad on me because my company charges
commissions. So I need to develop these to skills more.
How could the HCT College have prepared you better for Work Experience?
By giving us real career life problems and letting us solve it. Taking us to conferences and
lectures that gives work related talks and solves work related issues. It is very important to
understand how different things get from graduating college to entering work life.
Reflect on feedback you have had on your work, and how you plan to use it.
I’ve got such a positive feedback on my work from my manager that I have good problem
solving skills, strong communication skills and how passionate I am to learn new things,
which made me more confident about myself and I plan to develop them more by working
even harder, participating in different events and taking risks.
Critical Thinking
-Working students
Reflect on your future career plans, do you plan to continue working in your current
position with your current employer or are you planning a change? Where do you
see yourself in five years?
I planned to work in my current position with my current employer till I graduate with
bachelor degree in finance, then I’m planning to change it to a higher level where I can
practice everything that I learned in finance, I will join Dubai Financial services authority.
In five years from now, I see myself having my own business company and going worldwide.
Complete the work plan table for the relevant weeks.
Work Plan
Week/s
Department
5&6
Customer service
Activities (at least 4 tasks)
I exchange currency
for the customers.
-I Interact with
customers and ask
them about their flight.
-I convince the
customer to buy the
BuyBack offer
-I transfer money from
Till to another
-I Write down the
records in the Till book
- I count all cash with
different currencies.
-I seal all the cash and
keep them in the safe
box.
Supervisor, Job Title,
Telephone, e-mail
Supervisor: Aseef
Job title: Team Manager
Telephone:0502065484
Email: Aseef@travelex.com
Example of my work:
Buyback and Jade Card offer that I sell everyday: