BTEC HND in Hospitality Management (RQF) The Hospitality Business Toolkit (Unit-04)
Everyone needs to understand the business – not just their own part of it but how all the different aspects link together. The actions of a hospitality manager can have an impact on other areas, and their actions can affect interrelationships with those departments, so students will need to understand all this and be able to take effective, informed decisions.
Many hospitality managers are at ease with the customer service side of the hospitality business but are less comfortable diving into the financial side of things. Yet, to be a successful hospitality manager, you must know how to control your department or property’s finances responsibly and effectively. Every business requires its future leaders to have a level of understanding of key factors to drive both profitability and brand success. This can mean using tools such as human capital, planning to recruit and retain the best staff, and interpreting and applying financial key indicators to drive profitability or gain market share.
This unit is designed to provide students with key skills for becoming competent managers in a hospitality environment. It includes enabling them to understand key principles with regard to key performance indicators, both financial and non-financial.
This unit aims to give students the opportunity to develop their business acumen. It covers a number of different business activities applied within the hospitality industry context, including forecasting and budgeting, interpreting financial statements, recruitment and retention of staff, effective communication and dealing with legislation and regulation.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this unit a student will be able to:
LO1 Investigate how to manage finance and record transactions to minimise costs responsibly within the hospitality industry
LO2 Produce a workforce action plan for recruiting and retaining talent to address skills shortages in a hospitality organisation
LO3 Identify the potential impact of legal and ethical considerations on a hospitality business
LO4 Apply a range of communication tools in a hospitality context to create a positive guest experience.
Assignment Title: Managing the finances and recruitment of a catering business while understanding legal and ethical implications and effective communication.
|
Submission Format - Individual Report |
|
This submission will be
in the form of an individual report submitted using a WORD processed
document. PDF and other types of files are not accepted. The recommended length of
this submission is 4500 - 5000 words, although you will not be penalised for
exceeding 5000 words. Where appropriate,
learning theory and additional research must be used, and referenced
according to the Harvard Referencing system. The work must include a
bibliography for all referenced work using the Harvard referencing system. |
|
Unit Learning Outcomes |
|
LO1 Investigate how to manage finance and record
transactions to minimise costs responsibly within the hospitality industry. LO2 Produce a
workforce action plan for recruiting and retaining talent to address skills
shortages in a hospitality organisation LO3 Identify the potential impact of legal and
ethical considerations on a hospitality business. LO4 Apply a range of communication tools in a
hospitality context to create a positive guest experience. |
|
Scenario & Activity |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Part 1: You are the Assistant Manager of a catering
company, “The Dining Atelier Catering Ltd,” which specialises in a wide range
of events, including corporate functions, office meetings, wedding
receptions, anniversaries, birthday celebrations, funerals and wakes, as well
as TV and film productions. In addition to your existing responsibilities,
your line manager has recently assigned you the task of overseeing the
company’s financial management. As part of this new role, you are required to
prepare the accounts for all transactions that took place during June 2026,
as detailed below.
Based on the above scenario you are required to: Record all transactions correctly and produce an accurate trial balance by completing the balance off
ledger accounts, checking that each transaction is recorded in line with
accepted accounting principles including using the double-entry bookkeeping
accurately. To do so, you will have to analyse
sales and purchase transactions to compile the trial balance and investigate the various principles of
managing and monitoring financial performance of your entity. Part 2: “The Dining Atelier Catering Ltd” is doing quite well, and the
company is now expanding to a medium-size catering organisation covering the
entire of London. This means
that the company will soon be hiring more staff to support the continuous
growth of the business. This situation has also increased your responsibilities
within the company. Due to the
expansion in the business, the company is facing challenges on various fronts
most notably, recruiting talented staff, retaining, and developing talent,
legal compliance and effective communication and coordination across
departments. Your line manager has now tasked you to write a report covering
these challenges. In order to do so you will have to provide some insights on
how “The Dining Atelier Catering Ltd” should
proceed with the expansion plan. You need to
create and include in the report a
strategic and sustainable workforce action plan for recruiting and
retaining talent to support the long-term needs of “The Dining Atelier Catering Ltd”. The action plan will need to
address the skills needed, skills gaps and hard-to-fill vacancies “The Dining Atelier Catering Ltd” is
facing and propose some improvements for recruiting and retaining talent. Additionally,
the report must critically reflect
on the potential impacts of specific regulations, legislation and ethical
principles, including company, employment and contract law upon the company’s
decision-making. Make sure to list and identify specific examples of regulations,
legislation and ethical principles that
“The Dining Atelier Catering Ltd” must comply with. In the last
part of the report, you will have to select the most effective tools of communication
and apply them within a specific department (of your choice) of “The Dining Atelier Catering Ltd”
while highlighting how they strengthens its value chain and help to exceed
guest expectations and enhance the guest experience. This will
mean that you will have to demonstrate excellent communication skills, using
both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication as well as what kind of customer
service skills and behaviours could help to create a positive guest experience
and exceed their expectations. |
|
Achievement of a pass grade
A pass grade is achieved by meeting all the requirements defined in the PASS assessment criteria for each individual unit.
Achievement of a merit grade
All the PASS assessment criteria and MERIT grade criteria need to be completed within a unit to achieve a merit grade.
Achievement of a distinction grade
All the PASS assessment criteria, MERIT and DISTINCTION criteria must be completed within a unit to achieve a distinction grade.
ALL GRADES ARE PROVISIONAL UNTIL INTERNALLY VERIFIED AND UNTIL EXTERNALLY CERTIFIED BY EDEXCEL.
THIS MEANS THAT A GRADE CAN BE CHANGED AT ANY POINT UNTIL EDEXCEL CERTIFIES IT
As per Pearson policy, you are only allowed two submissions per module. One for final submission and another one for referral. Failure to achieve a grade pass after a second submission will result in you having to repeat the module in the next term.
Any re-submission or late submission (unless authorised due to mitigating circumstances) will be capped at a PASS grade only.
|
● Present your work in one business report style which should include a cover page, table of contents, introduction, conclusion, reference list, foot or end notes and appendices if any
● Include the reference code of this assignment on your assignment submission front page.
● Sign the Learner’s Statement of authenticity in the cover page. Failure to do so will result in the submission being declined.
● Ensure the following information is in the footer on every page:
o Your name
o The production date of your submission
o The code number of your assignment brief
o The page number (Each page must be numbered at the bottom right-hand side)
● Spell-check the document and make sure there are no grammatical errors as it may result in the submission being declined.
● Complete all the tasks in a Holistic manner as set in the brief and without separating the assessment criteria to avoid a potential referral.
● Create your own titles and sub-headings to structure the work without copying the assessment criteria verbatim.
● Produce clear specific reasoning and arguments in support of your answers.
● Submit your work in a single WORD processed document of not more than 5000 words for all learning Outcomes. This word limit is only for guidelines and is not applied to grading. PDF and other types of files are not accepted.
● You must include a bibliography at the end to show where your information was sourced. Failure to do so may result in the submission being declined
● Your sources must be identified using the Harvard referencing system. The words used in your bibliography will not be included in your word count.
● You must use Arial, size 12, 1.5 line spacing and black to format the text.
To access any feedback (formative/summative) you will have to access Moodle and open your assignment. You will have to click on the blue comment box in the right hand side and the feedback will appear within the text. You might have to click on the blue bubbles to see the feedback.
|
If an extension is necessary for a valid reason, requests must be made in writing using a course work extension request form to the head of department. Please note that the lecturers do not have the authority to extend the coursework deadlines and therefore do not ask them to award a coursework extension.
The completed form must be accompanied by evidence such as a medical certificate in the event of you being sick.
|
Any act of plagiarism and collusion will be seriously dealt with according to the regulations and MRC Malpractice policy
‘Plagiarism occurs when a student misrepresents any work submitted as his/her own work, the work of any other person or of any institution. Examples of forms of plagiarism include:
● the verbatim (word for word) copying of another’s work without appropriate and correctly presented acknowledgement.
● the close paraphrasing of another’s work by simply changing a few words or altering the order of presentation, without appropriate and correctly presented acknowledgement.
● unacknowledged quotation of phrases from another’s work;
● The deliberate and detailed presentation of another’s concept as one’s own.’
All types of work submitted by students are covered by this definition, including, written work, diagrams, designs, engineering drawings and pictures.
‘Collusion occurs when, unless with official approval (e.g., in the case of group projects), two or more students consciously collaborate in the preparation and production of work which is ultimately submitted by each in an identical, or substantially similar, form and/or is represented by each to be the product of his or her individual efforts.
All submissions for assessment must be submitted on Moodle to generate a Turnitin Report on similarity to detect potential plagiarism and collusion.
The maximum Turnitin score admissible is 15% but a submission can be classified as plagiarism and/or collusion with a lower score depending on the size of the submission and size of the text highlighted.
Assignments with plagiarism/ad or collusion will be automatically referred for reworking and resubmission. Please check the MRC Assessment policy as well as MRC Malpractice policy for details of the potential penalties as a procedure.
Including pictures of text (apart from the cover page or table of content) or pictures of any other type of information (diagram for example) without a citation and a Harvard Reference could be deemed to be an attempt of malpractice and could trigger an automatic referral as well as a malpractice procedure.
Any student might be called to seat through a viva with the lecturer to confirm any parts of the submission through an interview which will then form part of the summative assessment.
|
AI tools have proliferated and become more common and as a result, their usage for research has increased which prompted change of government policies in this matter.
Overall, it remains too easy for students to misunderstand how they can use Generative Artificial Intelligence tools and unintentionally breach academic integrity guidelines.
Research of information and the writing of academic work must always be performed by the student, and while it is acceptable to use an AI tool to start a research process, it is not allowed to use it to write a submission in your place.
The important part is to understand that the best way to produce a work is to research it through traditional methods (books articles, websites, journals).
Yet, AI tools could be used to help with the research but only as a starting point. Having found information, thanks to an AI tool, about a topic you are writing about, you should then research it using these traditional methods and include the references and citations based on these resources in your work.
Once you have the correct information, you need to write the assignment yourself, using an AI tool to do this for you is never allowed. The usage of paraphrasing tools might be appropriate to find alternative to some words and short sentences, but not or a whole paragraph/page/ work.
The same way Mont Rose College is using a similarity detection system, an AI detection tool is embedded in our systems and every submission you make will go through both of them.
Submissions for assessment that consist of large substantially unmodified output from Artificial Intelligence software may be considered as a very poor academic practice as it does not represent the student’s own work.
To this effect, the limit on AI detection has been set at 40%. If a submission is over that allowance, the grade will be suspended and the student called to seat through a viva with the lecturer and academic team to discuss the AI score as well as any parts of the submission through an interview which will then form part of the summative assessment.
In cases where an individual persistently exhibits poor academic practice through inappropriate use of Artificial Intelligence tools, such as a lack of evidencing their use of the tools, they may be referred to the academic misconduct procedures and the range of the potential penalties.
|
Textbooks
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S. (2023) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 16th Ed. London: Kogan Page.
Andrew, W.P., Damitio, J. W. and Schmidgall, K.W. (2006) Financial Management for the Hospitality Industry. 2nd Ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
Boella, M. J. and Goss-Turner, S. (2019) Human Resource Management in the Hospitality Industry: A Guide to Best Practice. 10th Ed. London: Routledge.
Horngren, C., Sundem, G., Stratton, W., Burgstahler, D. and Schatzberg, J. (2022) Introduction to Management Accounting. Global. 17th Ed. Harlow: Pearson.
Martin, A. (2020) The Practical Guide to Understanding and Raising Hotel Profitability. London: Routledge
Van Ginneken, R. (2019) Hospitality Finance and Accounting. London: Routledge.
Websites
Big Hospitality Legislation (General Reference)
CIPD Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (General Reference)
Food Standards Agency (General Reference)
HOSPA Hospitality, Finance, Revenue and IT professionals (General Reference)
Restaurant, News, (General reference)
