Junjie Ye
HTM 398- Summer 2013
Reflection
I am working as a seasonal in room dinning attendant at Tequila bar& grill of San
Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina. I Started at May, 1th, 2013. This is my first hotel
job. In those three month, I have learned a lot from the actual hotel working
environment.
Our human resource and housekeeping are the most impressive departments to
me. The first people I met when I started to work at our hotel is human resource. They
gave us a very effective and well inform orientation. At the May 1th, we signed some
paper work with human resource. The real orientation started at May 2nd. We got two
days orientation from human resource and one day from our restaurant manager. At
the first orientation day, we had a game to introduce each other of the new employees
who were attending the orientation together. They gave a speech and a video of
Marriott introduction. We learned the company vision: to be number one hospitality
company in the world, and Marriott five core values followed: 1.Put people first Take care of associates and they will take care of the customers. 2. Pursue excellence
- Dedication to the customer through service excellence. 3. Embrace change - Success
is never final. 4. Act with integrity - How we do business is as important as the
business we do. 5. Serve the world - Our 'spirit to serve' makes our culture more
vibrant and our business stronger. To present company's information build the
attribution of new employees. The new employees can know who are they going to
work for, where is their future, and how can they adopt in the new working company
environment better form it. As the same time, the human resource can help the new
employees on the same page with the company by inform the vision, mission
statement, and culture. In the orientation, we met our general manager, hotel manager,
and some related departments leaders. We got welcome from them. They shared their
story and the important company information. I feel I am part of the Marriott's family
strongly after met the leadership group. The leadership's show up added a lot of points
to the company. I know who my leaders are and they are care about the hotel business
and their employees. It inspires me to work hard for my hotel. Coincidently, that day
is the human resource lady's 30th years anniversary at Marriott. The hotel got her a
big cake, gift and certification. We had a chance to celebrate with her together. This is
a good fact to show the new employees how the company care about us, and why the
old employees choose to work for Marriott for long period. On the second day of
orientation, we got speeches of hotel' rules from different human resource leaders.
Marriott is a big company and our hotel is a big Marriott property. They have a very
complete system and rules to keep the hotel well managed. The human resource
printed the handout for us to keep us informed. In the whole orientation, they
provided, lunch, drink and snacks for us. The human resource people were trying to
make the speech fun and comfortable. They showed the Marriott culture of take good
care of employee by facts and examples. On the third day, I had the orientation with
my restaurant manager. When we got the meeting room, my manager had prepared the
binder with our name on at the table. There were around ten of us. And that was our
first official meet. I am very suspired that she could call every single of our name. She
had the power point ready for our speech as well. In the binder, there are a lot of
useful information for my new job, such as menu, leadership contact information,
restaurant map, meal break policy, and steps of service. This binder helped me to
prepare for my new position better and faster before I started. After the speech, my
manager gave us a hotel tour. It helped us to know the hotel better and be able to help
the guest on the direction in the future. At the end, we had a tasting panel at our
restaurant. Before we service the customer, we have to know what do we sell.
My
manager is a well prepare person. She is very nice, friendly, and patient for our
questions. She got my trust just in one day. I had a very high elevation for our hotel
and my restaurant leadership after three days orientation.
I work at the restaurant, so I use my off time to finish my training grid. The
people in our hotel are very willing to help me on the questions and shadowing. My
lead helped me to find the contact information of each department, and she walked me
to different department and introduce me to them. The housekeeping people are
extremely friendly. I shadowed with two leaders at housekeeping. They walked me to
the lobby and rooms for a better explanation. They are filled in patient. They told me
to see them anytime when I have questions. Our hotel is very successful on create a
friendly working environment. Under this positive energy, employees are willing to
stay and work harder. The hotel will get the biggest beneficial with having a loyalty
employee group.
However, there is some small problems I saw in our hotel and my restaurant
during my internship. The food at the employee's cafeteria sometimes is not fresh.
Some restaurants of our hotel give the food has passed the expatriation date to the
employee's cafeteria. The cafeteria then sell them to employees. The dessert I had
couple times had mold spot. It is very bad for employee's food health. Our hotel has
health counselor for employees' physical and mental health; however, the food we
provide for employees are not fresh all the time. It maybe harmful for employee's trust
on hotel's cultural: always take care good of our associates. Another problem is
happening in my restaurant. A lazy worker makes other workers feel unfair because he
make others to do extra work but make the same money with them. The leadership
know he is lazy and other coworkers' feeling, but they did not do too much actions for
solving the problem. Some coworkers could not see the recognitions from the
leadership for their hard work and the lazy worker's bad performance, then they
started to work not hard as before. This lazy workers brought a lot of negative to our
working environment. This thing remained me that to be a good manager has to bring
the fairness to employees, and recognize both the good and bad performance. To
award the good performance can build the confidence and loyalty to the employee at
work, at the same time inspire other employee for a better work. To aware and deal
with the bad behavior can help the employee to correct, and inform other employee
that bad behavior is not acceptable at work.
Overall, I am having a good time working at Marriott Marquis & Marina. It is a
very warm and friendly environment hotel: however, there are some problem that we
should to improve.