Hello,
Im Filbert from Limkokwing University Malaysia. I am now doing my internship in Padma Hotel in Tarakan, Indonesia. Padma hotel is a small yet a winning 2 star hotel which recently had been promoted by the local tourism board.
Tarakan is a small island, which is located between the Malaysia and Indonesia borderline. The population is pretty big for a small island.
Since the hotel still doesn’t have any PR department, I mostly help the manager to manage the administration and at the same time try to apply any PR techniques that can be done in the company. Public relations are still not well used in Tarakan. Some even don’t know what PR is.
Through my second weeks in the company, I found that language is the most problematic issue I’ve faced. Most of the employees in Indonesia were not highly educated. Most of them ended their school in high school. Hence, English is not well used among the employees. Some of the Caucasian clients sometimes even hire a translator to guide them through their vacations. The employee did, not understand most of the strategic plan that we’ve done. Even the local manager needed me to translate it. I found it very hard to explain English term into Indonesian language.
I’m also aware that cultural value is another major problem in the company. I used to complaint a lot on how the company works directly and they seems cant take complaint directly. The whole situation turns into chaos. Then I realised I shouldn’t do that because the way on how the local people think is different. Therefore, I asked a colleague which is local to talk to them. Some of the plans seems not be cared by the employee. Employee thinks that the strategy is made to confront them and they felt embarrassed by it. Hence, employees become 2-face agent where they only do as directed in front of their senior management and will neglect orders if there are no seniors around
Last week I proposed a strategic plan on how to enhance the productivity among the employee. It seems that the senior management fear to apply it. They think it is not necessary. The management fear to improve and think that any major step of improvement will lead them to a disastrous future. After a while I found that the company don’t even have a vision and mission statement to lead the company into a better future.
In the promotional part, the company find it hard to get any media attention because the only mainstream media in town is the local newspaper. how stupid is that!
i hope i can find a way to do more things with so little sources and medium...tsk...
any advice guys? aiyoh.... im stuck!
4 comments:
Hey Filbert,
I'm Ram, doing my internship at Microsoft Singapore.
Hearing your story so far is definitely interesting, I can definitely understand your frustration.
However, I think you have a great opportunity in your hands to be impactful and really contributive to the hotel's management system. You have stated the employees and your employer are not digesting and are fearing your strategies and ideas.
First of all, I would like to mention here that you are there as an intern, so basically speaking, even if I am worker there, i'll go AWOL if an intern comes up with a strategy to to try and change my productivity level. Your boss too, is bound to have that authorative ego to refuse your plans. But your intentions are great.
My suggestion would be that you do more analyzing and constantly feed information to your boss. Let your manager do the planning, but make sure you constantly barge them with information that will reflect the hotel's shortcomings. As we are PR people, you have to go about your job intangibly, dont let it be too obvious, and make sure everyone don't feel threatened by you.
As you said, many people there do not know what PR is yet, but never let that complex sip into them with your presence. You can't be their teacher, but you can guide them towards understanding what PR is. I personally see this as a fantastic opportunity for you to inflict yourself and be extremely involved in all the proceedings, but neer try to appear more smat than your manager, whatever the cirmcustances.
You seems to be needing to do some personal PR to make yourself trusted and appealed by your team, before you can help the company do its PR to improve external relations.
But, good chance, and just try a different approach to 'unstuck' yourself there. All the best.
Regards, Ram Anand
Hi Filbert,
im agreed with Ram. working with a company in a place with limited resources can be really frustrating and tiring at times, or maybe most of the time.
But! it also trains u to be a tougher and more resourceful person. When u need to learn and dig everything by yourself, looking for solutions for all the problems that u're facing and there is almost no one that u can refer to, it simply makes u a better person in times to come, because definitely u will learn a lot more compared to those who have been spoon fed by others.
do not wait for the things to come for u to work on. while waiting for jobs to be assigned for u, what u can do is to look around, observe more, and always be prepared to new tasks. Or, talk and communicate more with the locals or the foreigners to add into your knowledge and experiences.
For me, communicate is always the key. Though language can be the barrier, sometimes it is the heart that counts. remember to always treat those people around u with true feelings, be willing to learn and make friends with them. Things will come a lot easier.
Anyway, talking is always a lot easier than praticing. Im not in your shoes so i cant help much.
All the best! happy new year.
Hey Filbert,
Looks like you're hitting a rough patch at work.
Well i did my internship at a hotel as well and i kind of understand what you meant by people in the organization not willing or dare to make changes or amendments. This did not happen in my hotel directly but other organization that was related to it. Of course there are unmentionable factors to it.
One thing that im surprised is that your hotel does not have a vision or mission statement because those are a process and the final destination of where they want their organization to be at the end of the day. But I guess every organization would have its own policies. Just like how mine did not have a media strategy plan in their hotel.
Well Ram and Jacinta have both given you really good advises in which I really agree to. So just to add on, in every organization, every department, every job, and in every possible aspects of it that you can find, there are bound to be challenges ahead of you, big or small. Sometimes things can get quite tough because of ego, fear, limited resources and what not. But be strong and try to step up to it, and that is within your abilities of course. I really agree with Ram of not outsmarting your seniors, although your intentions are good, because they have their egos and reputation to take care of. It's human nature i would say. So whatever it is that you’re doing and/or hope to do for the better of your hotel, take courage to do it but wisely.
All the best. :)
Hey Filbert, I hope that the frustration levels have gone down. Well, where I'm working, as much as I like it here, I sometimes feel like they are not reaching their maximum potential. As an intern, at the beginning I was afraid of making any suggestions or comments because I felt like they would probably get offended, think that I don't appreciate the opportunity they are currently offering me and in the end fire me. But as I settled in, I begun to voice my opinions (in a very low and shy tone hehe!) and surprisingly, the MD and the team liked my ideas...now and then they even ask me for suggestions. My boss says that its always nice to have ideas of those who are fresh out of college as their ideas are not old fashioned and tend to be more creative. I really hope that someone will hear your plight as you aim at bringing in new ideas where you’re interning.
All the best :)
xoxo
Carole
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