Grich B. De Vera BSHRM IV (Irregular) Student No. 9510378 30 November 2011 Practium Reaction Paper Mr.

. Raffy Oliva, Practicum Coordinator

Beyond Making the Grade

This reaction paper is so long overdue. I do not say that because I have not met the deadline for its submission, but because this is a composition I should have written in the summer thirteen years ago for a subject I was enrolled in at that time, a subject I am enrolled in this semester. Officially, Practicum is scheduled for me for this Schoolyear 2011 2012 as part of the requirements for my college graduation. However, in reality, my Practicum hours and work experience spans a little over a decade, going way back 1998. I am a returnee. This label for my status in school is not something I wear like a badge of honor around the campus, but the courage, determination, and humility I have mustered on top of the financial challenges I have overcome during the past decade to return to St. Scholasticas College and earn my bachelors degree at the age of 32 (!!!) is something I am extremely proud of. Fortunately and contrary to my initial misgivings, the faculty members of I-HOTELEIRES and the current BSHRM students of my old alma mater have not only welcomed me back with their warm smiles and inspiring words of encouragement, they have opened their arms wide to a prodigal daughter me, Grich, returnee. Having said this, let me walk you through my experience and learnings in the workforce in the hotel and restaurant industry and in others as well. All of which contributed to the employee, the worker, the entrepreneur, and the student that I am today.

My very first work experience in the foodservice and hospitality industry was at The Peninsula Manila, where I was an On-The-Job / Practicum Trainee from March to May 1998. At this hotel, I was assigned for half a month in the Pastry and Cold Kitchens, where I gained knowledge on the day-to-day operations of the unit by assisting senior chefs in preparing cold sandwiches, appetizers, hors d'oeuvres, and baked desserts for small and large banquets and functions held at the hotel. It involved intensive hands on work, which tested my speed and efficiency in large batches of food preparation within very limited periods of time. The rest of my stay at The Peninsula Manila was spent on a month-long assignment in their Room Sales and Marketing Department. Because of my attention to detail, I was tasked with administrative functions (i.e. fax communication, photocopying, internal mail distribution, encoding, printing, and filing). I also assisted the Sales Admin Clerk in preparing materials for sales and marketing presentations and projects as well as direct mailers for distribution to regular clients in various revenue-generating categories (i.e. gold, platinum, silver, and bronze). I was also assigned to the preparation of gift certificates entitling bearers to free room accommodations and discounts on published room rates at the hotel. On several occasions, I was also given the opportunity to join several of their Room Sales Executives on client calls wherein they would visit their corporate clients to discuss updates on the latest promotions, hotel improvements, management changes, or to simply greet their corporate contact persons a happy birthday. On such visits, we would always bring a cake from the hotel bakeshop. It was during these client calls that I gained tips on how to set up appointments, groom and dress properly for corporate meetings, and comfortably converse with people employed in various industries. My second work experience, still in the foodservice and hospitality industry, involved a two-month employment as Manager Trainee from April to June 1999 at a franchise of Subway Sandwiches located in Virginia, USA. During my employment there, I learned various

techniques and US industry practices on manpower scheduling, purchasing of raw materials (foodstuff) and store supplies, regular maintenance, servicing, and repair of store equipment (i.e. soda machines, ice makers, walk-in cold storage rooms and cabinets, baking ovens, electric food slicers/cutters, cash registers), and proper waste management and disposal. I was also assigned with completing daily and weekly inventory and sales reports and with monitoring the distribution of promotional freebies such as frequency cards and discounts on food and beverages. I was also involved with training new hires and with day-to-day store operations like mise en place, final food preparation and service, dish and ware washing, cashiering, and cleaning. Although most of my learnings from Subway Sandwiches came from doing the actual work in the store where I learned through my own mistakes and trial and error, I gained my theoretical knowledge on store operations from classroom learning during the Sandwich Artist Course and the Store Operations Management Course, which was offered to all aspiring Store Managers. On top of having gained additional knowledge and experience in the hospitality and fast food industry, my stay at Subway Sandwiches also gave me the opportunity to work with different races Asians, North Americans (both black and white), and Latin Americans (Mexicans and Columbians). This exposure to other cultures taught me that technical know-how was not enough to get me by every day at work. I had to harness my social skills and come up with creative ways to build harmonious relationships with my co-workers and a culturally diverse set of staff members so everyone would feel motivated to work as a team and achieve our goals on the job. After my stint in the USA, I worked as a Barista at Starbucks Coffee (Rustan Coffee Corporation). I was assigned for seven months from June 2000 to January 2001 at one of their branches in Alabang Town Center, Muntinlupa City. During this employment, I learned how to properly handle credit card payment from customers, how to operate a Point-of-Sale System

(POS) and complete manual official receipts, and how to schedule and rotate staff work assignments on an hourly basis. I learned to master the art of espresso and coffee making and how to conduct an annual inventory of all store materials, equipment, and products for sale. Working at Starbucks was a humbling experience because, from once being a Starbucks customer, I became a Starbucks employee. Behind the scenes, I learned that being a Barista was not just all fun and games. Where I once thought that working behind the Starbucks counter was a menial, easy, no-brainer job, I came to discover that a Baristas job was a challenging, interdisciplinary occupation. It took patience, a lot of hard, physically demanding work, discipline, attention to detail, customer-orientation, peer appreciation, and multi-tasking skills to be a great Starbucks Barista. My fourth work experience found me no longer in the foodservice and hospitality industry, but in logistics and air express delivery. This is where I discovered what I was truly passionate about people, customer service, training and organizational development, and events management. At DHL Express (Philippines) Corporation, I spent seven years from December 2001 to December 2008 working my way up from Customer Service Agent to Network Tracing Agent to Customer Care Executive to Customer Service Coordinator. When I left the organization, I was their Training and Employee Relations Executive. During my tenure, I honed my skills in delivering excellent customer service delivering it with much gusto over the phone, through email, and in person. I traced missing shipments across the global DHL network and handled and approved or denied claims for damaged, delayed, and lost shipments of up to USD 100 each. For the most part of my stay, I was the Customer Service Coordinator. In this position, I handled all administrative functions, human resource related activities, and events management for the entire Customer Service Department. At the same time, I was also Assistant to the National Customer Service Manager. One of my major responsibilities was to prepare all

her reports and presentations as well as those required by our Senior Management Team. While I was Customer Service Coordinator, I was also a Certified Line Trainer for DHL Express. In 2007, the company sent me on a train-the-trainer session at our Regional Office in Singapore. When I returned to Manila, I trained the entire Customer Service Department on our new service at that time, Airport-to-Door Express. During that same year, I was recognized and awarded as the Employee of the Year for 2006, having been screened and selected among 500 employees of the company; the trophy for which I received at a lavish ceremony held at The Conrad Hotel in Bali, Indonesia in February 2007. In 2008, I was promoted to Training and Employee Relations Executive. This movement meant a transfer from the Customer Service Team to the Human Resource Department. In my new role, I handled all organizational development and training requirements of almost 700 employees, employee relations, proceedings for employee disciplinary cases, company-wide employee opinion surveys, and events management for the entire organization for Manila and provincial offices. A couple of months into my promotion, the effects of the global recession hit DHL Express worldwide. Since I was in charge of employee relations, I was assigned to manage duties, responsibilities, and tasks related to change management company-wide communication, the lateral movement of some employees and employee transfers to other departments, and, sadly, the dissolution of some units, demotion of some workers, redundancy, and termination of close to a dozen employees in managerial and staff positions. I would have to say that this was the most personally and professionally challenging time of my entire career specially because some of the employees I was tasked to move were friends of my own. When the tension from the transitions had subsided and shortly before my resignation, along with the help of a handful of employee volunteers, I organized and managed the elections for the new officers of the Bi-Partite Communication Forum (a committee composed of both managerial and staff representatives tasked with voicing out employee issues

and concerns then getting them worked on), the very first viewing of a Pacquiao boxing match for 200 employees at TGI Fridays in Glorietta (Pacquiao vs. Dela Hoya), a billiards tournament for 100 employees in Bangkal, Makati City, the very first DHL Idol Singing Competition, and the 2008 Annual Christmas Party for 700 employees at the Country Office in Makati City. It is with great pride knowing that I left DHL Express with a bang. A little over a year later, in 2010, while working part-time as a Client Business Analyst at a Canadian BPO and with a loan grant plus some of my personal savings, I put up my very own business, a laundry shop with two branches, one along Pasong Tamo Ext. in Makati City and another one inside AFPOVAI in Taguig City. As an entrepreneur, I learned the ins and outs of setting up a business because I did everything on my own from getting into a lease contract with my landlord to registering my business with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), the municipal government, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), to paying taxes and employee salaries and fringe benefits. Although I had an accountant on retainer, who worked on my quarterly and annual tax returns, I taught myself how to do my monthly tax returns and my annual tax payer registrations. Because I had four employees, I learned industry and government practices and policies involving human resource management for small and medium enterprises. I was also able to harness my sales and marketing skills while promoting my laundry shop. I came up with my own logo, advertisements, flyers, promos, banners, and the like. I had two commercial clients then, a garments retailer located at The Power Plant in Rockwell and a fine dining restaurant along Pasong Tamo Ext. in Makati City. Dealing with them, their demands and deadlines, and their unique business requirements taught me professionalism, patience, and transparency. Fast forward to last September, after having returned to St. Scholasticas College and officially enrolling in Practicum, I found myself again as an On-the-Job Trainee. This time, at

Kuyas At The Fort in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City. During my almost one month training with them, I was assigned to organizing, centralizing, and automating their daily, weekly, and monthly inventory. Apparently, they had been recording all their inventory manually in various log books one for canned and bottled sodas and juices, another one for alcoholic beverages, one for pre-prepared and cooked dishes, and yet another one for raw foodstuff. Since they did not have a Point-of-Sale (POS) System or a computer application for this purpose, it made for the restaurant owner a difficult time in monitoring and tracking his inventory and managing pilferage and spoilage at his restaurant. To simplify the whole process, I created templates for them and taught their three employees in charge of inventory how to properly use the Excel files I designed for them. The templates made it easier for them to log inventories and, at the same time, cost them less time in recording compared to when they were writing everything down by hand. This time, all they had to do was encode and print. A couple of days before the end of my training, the restaurant owner had closed a deal with the Technological Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA). Kuyas At The Fort was to provide them with thirty employee meals thrice a day, every day each month, for twelve months at a budget of only PHP 315 per employee per day. At the same time, the restaurant owner was bidding for a contract with the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club in San Juan City for exclusive catering at all its banquets at menu prices of PHP 1,500 to PHP 3,500 per head. These new business developments gave me the opportunity to test my menu planning and costing skills. With the help of the restaurants chief cook and head waiter, I came up with menus for TESDA and the Wack Wack Golf and Country Club in time to meet their clients deadlines. Shortly after my training at Kuyas At The Fort, I was accepted as an On-the-Job Trainee at FoodLab, Inc., a budding umbrella company for an incubator kitchen in Taguig City, a bakeshop in Alabang, and an upcoming fine dining restaurant cum bed-and-breakfast in

Tagaytay. One of the company owners is an American chef and instructor at the Moderne Culinaire Academy in Taguig City and another one is a franchise holder of a fastfood chain in the U.S.. Together, they had over three decades of expertise in the foodservice industry. Having only lived in the Philippines for less than a year and with very little knowledge of the local workforce, they needed help with human resources so I was given a major project to come up with a tailored Employee Code of Conduct for them. Having had prior experience in employee relations, I came up with a fourteen-page Employee Code of Conduct designed for FoodLab, Inc.. On other aspects of their business, I also assisted them with staff recruitment, screening, and selection, kitchen facilities design, and government requirements on business registration and taxation. In a nutshell, I would have to say that Practicum well, for me does not just end with the 400+ hours required to complete the subject and make the grade. Practicum is a life-long experience. In fact, I believe I am still rendering my Practicum hours right now. By integrating all that I have learned from within the four walls of each classroom in St. Scholasticas College, from my experiences as an on-the-job trainee, hired employee, and an entrepreneur, and from the hallmarks of my Benedictine education, I am able to make Practicum extend beyond what I officially enrolled for and make my every day experience moving forward a credit towards Practicum. Being a Practicum Returnee after all these thirteen long years is not so bad after all.