The owner of the ‘Eat Street’ wanted me to help him out in finding out the overall rating of his cafeteria in the eyes of the visiting customers in order to offer better services in the prevailing cut-throat competitive hotel industry.
1. The report: Mr. at your instance, I set out to visit the Eat Street, to have a first-hand information and knowledge about the whole place and its present state of affairs.
The Eat Street which is situated about two-and-half miles away from my school-block bordering the northern part of the university campus is quite a nice place. The path leading to the cafeteria, plush with greenery and flower gardens all around it; is quite a smoothening ambience for the visiting customers which the other cafeterias in the campus lack. I found the elevation of the cafeteria building, with its Italian sculptures and designs on the supporting pillars, the most enthralling and serene experience on the exteriors. The interiors are well-designed, too, to make the customer feel cozy and comfortable, while getting a feeling of being at home. The allocation of adequate space for different settings like, eating tables, the pantry, the kitchen, the store-room, the wash rooms and the like; makes the Eat Street more attractive and inducing factor for the customers to frequent it. The waiters, the serving staff, the cashier everybody, looked in place and everything looked spic and span. The waiting staff, in particular seemed to know their business well, because they were all smiles no matter what, and they served the customers of varied culture and places with ease; and cared for customer satisfaction. As I entered the food court, the main serving hall; a tall, good looking hostess ushered me into the hall-way leading to the tables.
The hall was filled with customers, mostly the students; but they did not recognize me although I was one of the students on the same campus. There was a long queue at the billing- counter and when my turn came, I ordered for French fries, hotdog and coffee with crème. My order was delivered very late because the French fries were not ready; but eventually I finished my eating. While eating I looked around the place, inside, trying to evaluate the upkeep and so on.
On the ‘flipside’, in the entire duration of my visit to the Eat Street, I noticed, some aspects of the management, the upkeep, quality of the foodstuff and the services that need your attention to initiate steps to revamp the whole outfit to give a face-lift and new look to the Eat Street that you can be proud of. The areas that need to be fixed are: 1. Upkeep: I found the roof- ceiling was not cleaned for a while and cobwebs could be seen hanging on the corners. I noticed some houseflies near the kitchen area. 2. Being the only billing-counter available; resulted in long queues inconveniencing the customers who had other matters to attend or in a hurry to rush off. 3. I had to wait for more than half-hour to get my order delivered, which was disgusting. Some of the French fries tasted stale. These aspects were in a way violating the hygiene, and sanitation laws. Some of the staff at the serving/delivery counters did not care for the protruding hair, off their head-covers; a violation of policies and social norms. I also could not be blind to the dust on the windowpanes and the dirty restrooms.
After my detour to the Eat Street, I would like to recommend/ suggest the following measures to make the Eat Street a better place to visit repeatedly and conform to the standards as required for any good eating place one can think of:
1. In the first place, ensure that hygienic conditions are maintained at the kitchen and restrooms, strictly.
2. The women staff, in particular, should be asked to cover their head properly to prevent any hair fall into the foodstuff delivered to customers.
3. Frequent quality testing of food stuff, by supervisory staff specially appointed for the purpose.
4. Deploy additional staff for billing counters, when there is a heavy rush at the food court.
5. Install closed circuit cameras/ TVs to check the diligence of staff and monitor the activities and coordination between different wings of the Eat Street.
6. There is ample space for about a hundred and odd more persons than the present number of customers patronizing the Eat Street, on an average, every single day. Provision of additional seating arrangement would help generate more revenue and provide comfort to many customers who are otherwise standing for longtime having no place to sit. I overheard some customers expressing displeasure over such an uncaring management. I would suggest you to ponder over this issue on top-priority basis.
7. Running a restaurant/ cafeteria has got certain inbuilt shortcomings like shortage of manpower in times of windfall / seasonal business such as annual day celebrations, Fetes , convocations, cultural fairs, inter-school competitions, tournaments and sports events. A foresighted approach to cope up with such contingencies can be quite rewarding. On the contrary if due precautions as enumerated above, are not taken, the business of Eat Street will experience disastrous moments and face unpleasant situations; not worth experimenting.
8. Above all, hand-holding and concern for the welfare of the staff -- the main human resources of Eat Street, and empathy towards them is going to have a dramatic change in the entire atmosphere and ambience of the Eat Street.
2. Imagine that you are very close to graduationwill be helpful:
I note with interest, your requirement for a position of Communications Officer; made available in your website. I wish to apply for the same through email, with my resume attached therewith for your favorable consideration.
I graduated recently; in Business Communications from the University of .having secured a First Division in the final exam result. I am quite confident that the range of skills that I acquainted myself with; will enable me to quickly adapt to the work culture of your organization, as a Business Communications officer, and steer my department in the direction of laudable success path with rich outputs.
I have been proactive in learning new things with active participation and involvement in various extracurricular activities on and off campus. I am a keen listener and am enthusiastic in any activity that is in non-academic circle that comes in handy in nurturing communication and leadership skills essential for becoming successful in the working world.
I was instrumental in the successful organization of various seminars, conventions and conferences; using effective communication between the coordinates, as a Spokesman of the student community.
I am quite aware, as a communications person that the success of any organization primarily depends upon its interaction with all those connected and concerned with its activities; which is through communication alone, because communication, as you are aware, is nothing but sending and receiving messages by various means. If the communication is effective, the job is half-done. I have a strong aptitude for this communications job and given an opportunity in your esteemed organization, I shall spare no efforts to serve the prestigious organization, effectively and efficiently; to the best satisfaction of all concerned.
Please find my resume attached to this cover letter; for your positive consideration. I shall feel privileged to attend an interview at your convenient time.
Education: Bachelor of Arts in Business Communications- (Advertising Major).
Study Abroad:
Highlights of additional coursework: (list any additional courses attended/completed).
Soft Skills: windows & Mackintosh O/S, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, M.S. Office suite and Internet Explorer.
Experience: Part-time summer and Holiday on campus job of Student-Media coordinator involving intra-university and inter-university communications for organizing group student events etc.
2. Your work supervisor has asked you to go toemail to your work supervisor:
Critique the website: http://www.manulife.com, the website of a large and successful Canadian Company, The Manulife Financial:
Manulife Financial Corporation, popularly known as Manulife Financial, is a company based in Canada with its operations spread over Asia and the USA, besides home operations. It was first founded in 1887 as The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company with Canada’s first Prime Minister- Sir John A. Macdonald, as its first president. Currently Donald A. Guloien is the President and the CEO while Richard Dewolfe, the Chairman of the Board of Directors. The company is head-quartered at Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
The company has since taken long strides in the area of growth and development and has built up a very significant presence in providing customers strong and reliable financial solutions, thus gathering a larger customer base over the past 125 years. The international network of over 75,000 workforces comprising of employees, agents and distribution partners, about 8,600 employees in Canada; exhibit high professionalism in providing insurance products of life and health besides wealth management related products and services.
The Manulife Financial operates as John Hancock in the USA with about 6,300 employees endeavoring to offer financial solutions at every phase of life of the customers with wide range of products and services in life, health, pension, retirement planning to the most discriminating customers.
The John Hancock has become a household name with about 94% brand recognition.
With wide-spread global presence, the Manulife Financial Corporation has established strong roots in the world’s insurance and financial markets and ranks amongst the largest life insurance companies with a Market Capitalization of US $ 32.3 billion( CAD 33.2 billion).
The homepage of the Manulife Financial website is neatly designed and presented for the viewers to access any information they like to have about the company and its working.
On the top right corner one can view: Contact us/Site map/Francais followed just below by Search box.
The main classification headers are: About Manulife, Products & Services, News room, Investor relations, Careers.
About Manulife: In the drop-down menu , to the left side one can see a) Company overview, b) Our brand, c) Company management, d) Corporate governance, e) Community giving, f) Awards & recognition, g) Vision & values, h) Company history, I) Transactions, j) Alumni connect, k) Contact us.
Products & Services: Different products and services dealt by Manulife Financial in Canada, USA, and Asia, are listed with description.
Newsroom: This is a one-step information source to obtain the latest news affecting the Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries across the world about its total activities, both marketing and corporate.
Investors Relations: The Manulife Financial complete performance related information is given with regard to Shareholders Services, Stock Performance, Annual Reports, Quarterly Reports, Securities Filings, Credit Ratings presentation, Events Calendar, Analyst Coverage, Email Alerts and Contact IR.
Careers: Why Manulife, Career possibility, Career Alerts, Campus.
Other related searches options are provided in the extreme left panel of the webpage. The only intriguing factor is the conspicuous absence of information/ Statistics of the actual performance (in figures) of the life insurance business procured during the last accounting year and the current year’s performance with reference to the projected targets, the number of policies sold, the total premium income generated, the number of Claims, Death Claims & Maturity, settled, Claim to Settlement Ratio, the Time Lag in claim etc.. For these are main indicators/ yardsticks for assessing an insurance company’s strength and stability.
References:
- Safani, Barbara. A Sample Resume for a Recent College Graduate-Career Articles. N.p., 23 Dec. 2010. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2010/12/23/college-graduate-sample-resume/>.
- Manulife Financial: strong, reliable, trustworthy, forward-thinking. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://www.manulife.com/public/home/index/0, lang=en, 00.html>.
- Manulife Financial-Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manulife_Financial>.
