Communication

Communication is one of the most important aspects of any work environment. If you cannot communicate what you want to your employees, you will have many problems getting things accomplished. I felt that there was a great level of communication at my externship at the Hotel DuPont. While working on the pastry side, everyday someone would go through the BEO’s and make a list of what we need to accomplish. Then through looking over the list we would all discuss what needed to be done first and who should do what. This was a great way to communicate as we all had an input and we were all aware of what we needed to accomplish. We also had safety meetings everyday where we would not only discuss the safety topic of the week but also talk about what events were coming up and how we needed to prepare for them. Finally, as there were many stations in the bakeshop, we would all need to communicate with each other. Every day we would get a phone call telling us the count for lunch and dinner, which affected each station. Therefore, whoever answered the phone, it was there responsibility to write down the numbers and go around the bakeshop informing everybody of the counts for the day. We would also need to let each other know when we were low on things. For example, if the front desk needed macaroon containers, we would need to tell the person in charge of baking off macaroons that we needed more, so the pastry side could put together the containers. The entire bakeshop worked together as a team and communicated with each other very well, which I feel made a great work environment.