Report on Professional Field Experience at Subway

Subway is an American private restaurant franchise that sells submarines, salads and sandwiches. It follows a franchises system that is one of the fastest growing system in the world. It is operating across 42,000 locations across the world. It is a largest restaurant operators and single-brand restaurant chain in the world (Wang, 2015). In have completed my internship in a Subway as a team leader. In this report, I have detailed out the operations of Subway and my professional experience with Subway being an intern Team Leader in Leicester’s St. Nicholas branch. The very first Subway was started in 1965 by Fred DeLuca. He borrowed $1000 from his friend named Peter Buck to start the business of submarines in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Later, the Doctor’s Associates Inc. has been formed to oversee the operations of expanding franchise. During the undertakings of this associate, the company derived its name from DeLuca’s goal. This goal was to be earn enough business for be competent to pay tuition fees for medical school as well as for having money for Doctorate in Physics (Zhang, Lao & Huang, 2013). Thus, sandwich shop was renamed as Subway in 1968. Now it is expanded as worldwide food restaurant chain. Across the world, the company is known for its submarine sandwich. Along with this, the restaurant offers salads, sides, drinks, and kids pack. It provides customized sandwiches with variable size and variety of breads. The restaurant of Subway both have dine-in and take away services (Asahi, 2016).

The operations management of Subway is now advanced enough because the restaurants are making use of extensive technologies. There are making the use of information systems to manage the operations and services. The technological advancements in the Subway stores or restaurant are intended to provide quality of services with Zero Tolerance Policy (Sigala, 2003). Zero Tolerance Policy can be referred as the policy where there is no compromise allowed with the intended customer services. For any type of compromises and glitches, there is harsh punishment for the employees of the company (Wilson & Worosz, 2014). The company follows a professional code of ethics to ensure the acceptable behaviour of the employees with each other, with managers, and with the customers. The code of ethics promotes the moral values amongst the employees to work for the public interest rather than personal interest. It was also intended to protect the confidentiality of the workplace. Any employee of the company was not supposed to share the confidential information of the company with any third-party (Petrick & Scherer, 2003)

OVERVIEW OF EXPERIENCE AND INSIGHT GAINED:

During my internship with Subway as a team leader, I have gained number of experiences. I was expected to work with high energy and sense of urgency. I worked there with full of energy to retain enthusiasm in me and my team members to work. Along with this, sense of urgency was highly important to communicate the change amongst the team members and to lead them towards the change. Sense of urgency helped me a lot to manage the team and to inculcate change readiness amongst them. It raised a sharpness amongst the team members for quickly adapting themselves with the change. Along with this, I was also responsible to ensure that store services are meeting the standards related to food production and customer services. To ensure these standards, I used to keep on checking whether kitchen staff is delivery the food as per the standards defined by the company and whether the serving staff behaving in the appropriate manner with the customers. I was also involved in the assistance for menu building, safety procedures, and cash control (Shapiro, 2016). I was obliged to provide outstanding customer services comply with the standards. I was already concerned for building and maintaining the positive culture in the company and to take the company to the next level. I was always intended to make the customers happier by providing them clean, green and happy environment. I guided my team to always greet the customers with high energy and enthusiasm and always keep smile at the customers. Such behaviour of the team members remained effective enough to build a healthy relationship with the customers and company. I have observed and identified that company have had number of cyclic and loyal customers. These customers often prefer to visit twice and thrice to the store (Bais, 2012).

I had created simple and managing service structure of the store that was easy to be followed by the employees and easy to be understood by the customers. I had maintained a good working attitude with the team members, customers, and mangers. I had high readiness to assist and help them in all the manner. I was helpful to them with skills and experiences and such contributions were always appreciated by the seniors, peers, and juniors. For the number of months, I got the appreciation in different forms. I was also indulged there in educating the guests relative to brand promise products and flavours. Furthermore, I was also responsible to ensure that all orders are filled and delivered in the accurate manner. In case, the customers claimed that there is a gap between the ordered and delivered product, then was responsible to offer swapping option to the customers. For creating and providing exception services to the customers, I often raised the fun related activities in the store.
Such activities were the part of occasional and festival events. Furthermore, I also organized number of parties there on the customer demand. These parties remained highly successful in the term’s food, fun, and themes. Furthermore, I had also organized an event to make the people aware about hygiene and hygienic food of Subway. This attracted a greater number of customers to Subway because they found Subway as healthier than rest of the fast foods. Along with the college students and adults, I had also experienced the visits of senior citizens in the store. Subway is free of contaminants those raise amongst the senior and junior health groups (Demirbas & Yukhanaev, 2011).

CODE OF CONDUCT AND MOTTO OF ORGANISATION:

The company has established number of policies and brand standards to ensure the compliant work and quality of services and I was responsible to consider them all during my undertakings. These standards also included the standards to maintain proper hygiene and sanitation standards. After getting training on these standards, I communicated these standards amongst the team members and workers so that they could work accordingly in the compliant manner. I also resolved number of queries of the staff members and found very less conflicts with the staff members while working. Every city, state or country possess different regulations and I was responsible to have awareness about these regulations and to ensure that all these regulations are met by store or not. Inventory control was also one of my responsibility. Subway have its own suppliers those provide the ingredients for making menu items. I was responsible for getting the records of existing inventory and required inventory from the kitchen staff and to order the inventory accordingly. On receiving back, all the records were again updated. I always effort to avoid over stocking to prevent the things to be contaminated. Reason being, I ordered the inventory what could have been used within a day or week only. Especially, breads and vegetables were ordered and received on the daily basis. It was helpful to keep the freshness of the orders and to improve the quality of the services. I was also very conscious for keeping the cleanliness and the things in the organized manner. I often ensure the availability of adequate staff in the store to maintain the cleanliness. The cleaning staff was also very cooperative because they have sense of responsibility to timely check the departure of the customers for cleaning the table. They also maintained cleanliness of the floor for making them shiny. Under my surveillance, I always received positive feedback of the customers relative to cleanliness of the store.

Before upholding the position, I had gone through a training to minimize the waste and shrink. It helped me to guide the kitchen staff and rest of the team members to manage the operations in the lean manner. While guiding them, I followed lean philosophy. This philosophy guided me to cut and minimize the wastes in the terms of time, cost, and effort. Following this following, I guided the kitchen staff to use the kitchen wastes in the menu items. It was intended to reduce the cost of production of the company. Along with this, I found the tactics of smart work and to teach them to the staff members (Vladykin & Gershanok, 2015). It helped me reduce the wastes in the terms of time and to ensure the delivery of quicker services. For reducing the wastes in the terms of efforts, I guided the team members to probe the order from the customers in the accurate manner so that accurate order could be delivered at the end. Otherwise, there might be the risk of inaccurate orders and affected quality of services of the company (Janiszewski, 2017). No doubt, there would have an option of swapping, but it would directly affect the cost and efforts of the company. Along with this, there needs to have safe security and cash management. I was responsible for accounting on the daily basis and to track the order records on the daily basis. The received cash must be secured enough from all type of theft due to which there was always a strict security for safe cash management. There was a back office that was responsible for managing the records related to orders and inventory. I was responsible for understanding these back-office reports and reports relative to daily pulls (Miina, 2012).

I was also responsible for keeping the records of staffing and related issues. For meeting the strategic goals of the store, I was highly important for HRM of the store to have adequate staffing. Reason being, I periodically reported to HRM relative to staff scarcity in the store. I also periodically appreciated the staff members by designing effective salaries, increments, and promotions. To ensure the achievement of strategic goals of the company, along with the achievement of high customer satisfaction, it was also important to ensure the achievement of employee satisfaction. The employee satisfaction is highly related to the extrinsic motivation. Thus, effective salaries, increments, and promotions could incorporate high extrinsic motivation among the employees for promoting high employee satisfaction. I have experienced that satisfied employees can perform in the productive manner. Such employees are highly important for overall productivity of the company (SHAIKHOLESLAMI, 2006). To ensure high customer satisfaction, there must always be a consistency in the service offerings. To ensure the high consistency of services, I practiced creating and maintain a stable work environment in the store. I periodically checked the quality of operations, quality of services, work environment, service space etc. I followed effective communication while working there with an intension to avoid all type of gaps. I was indulged in organizing the continuous meetings so that any conflicts between the staff members should not be raised. These meetings were intended to discuss the issues faced by staff members on the daily basis. Furthermore, staff members were also invited to incorporate their suggestions for the betterment of the organizations (Krajicek, 2008).

I followed the transformational leadership style while managing and leading the staff members. This is the leadership style which encouraged me to motivate and inspire the employees for creating change in the organization and to take the organization to the next level. I was intended to incorporate the growth and success future of the company/ store through this leadership style. I created a strong sense of corporate culture, independence, and employee ownership at the store (Shapira, 2019). It was also highly effective to raise the employee satisfaction at higher because all the employees would have a room to enjoy her work independence. All of them were intended to incorporate the high quality of services at the end. All the employees had authority of making decisions at their own level, but their decisions must be compliant with the standards and regulations followed by the company. Such leadership style influenced creativity amongst the employees and in their feedbacks, they provided so many creative solutions for the better future of the company (Duygulu & Kublay, 2010).

I was highly appreciated by the general managers of the company for my extensive leadership style because it created a positive environment in the store. I encouraged the intrinsic motivation and positive development amongst the followers followingthis leadership style. It resulted into improved performance of the employees what was the significant achievement for the senior managers of the store. I was already familiar with the ethical standards what an organization must have. I incorporated these ethics for improving moral values of business of Subway. Following these ethics, I communicated the importance of trust and fairness. It encouraged the staff members to be fair while treating the customers and to uphold the customer trust (Poppo & Zhao, 2010). Along with this, for fostering ethical environment in the company, I preferred to communicate values, standards, and priorities with the employees during every meeting. It helped me to build a positive corporate culture in the company by encouraging the employees to move form self-interest to the public interest. In this culture, the employees were fairer to their job with an intention to provide precedence to the public interest over personal interest. It helped to prepare a mind-set amongst the employees to work for the common goals and public well-being. It encouraged the team members to work beyond their salaries and packages. It motivated the employees to be focused on authenticity, open communication, and cooperation (Løvoll, Røysamb & Vittersø, 2017).

I applied the motivation theory for fostering organizational behaviour in Subway. This theory fostered intrinsic as well as extrinsic motivation among the employees of Subway. Based on the performance of the employees, I always recommended the names of the best performers for promotions and increments of the employees. I was important for creating positive work culture in Subway and to retain the employees (Hummel, 2014). The extrinsic motivation is highly important for employee satisfaction and continuous productivity. Reason being, significant factors had been selected for the boosting motivation among the employees because exposure and growth is demand and expectation of the employees of almost all the organizations. Along with the extrinsic motivation, I also preferred to boost up the intrinsic motivation amongst the employees (Korkmaz & İpekçi, 2016). Intrinsic motivation is referred as the behaviour of the employees that is driven by internal rewards. Along with this, such motivation arises from inside of the employees. It helps them to perform in an extensive manner with high enthusiasm regardless any personal interest.

It gives them self-satisfaction by working in the enthusiastic manner. Under the transformational leadership style, I practiced high to influence and retain intrinsic motivation amongst the employees. Such motivated highly helped me to incorporate the organizational goals. All of them were highly enthusiastic to provide improved services to the customers and to manage the operations in the improved manner (Locke & Schattke, 2018).

References

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