Tangle Wood Case 1

HRM 594

Strategic Staffing

Tanglewood Case 1

Company Overview

Tanglewood is a retail chain store focusing on outdoor décor and operating in the middle to upper class consumer market. With an outdoor theme as a distinguishing trademark each store is known to maintain its own concept while still maintaining the company’s mission goals and statement. Originally founded in 1975 the company focused its main business on the west coast regional states. Starting with 10 stores the company quickly expanded to over 243 stores. The company is composed of regional managers who oversee the company’s day to day operations. The company has pressing concerns in the organizations management strategies and is looking to improve the functionality while still keeping the historical view between stores. The company has been advised to slow down, focus on the culture, and consolidate to enhance company quality and quantity strategies. Tanglewood is also advised to focus on the commitment of qualified individuals and improving its ability to compete with stronger competition in the industry.
Business strategy and goals. The company’s business strategy or niche has been an outdoor them while expanding to furniture, clothing, equipment and now they are planning to focus on competitor ideas. These would include food and having its own store products. All mission statements are similar and focus is mainly on providing employees with an open discussion work force. Hiring is done within with no qualifications needed for management and no particular focus on training requirements and employee planning. Westward expansion is keeping the business running but the company can possibly improve sales by expanding to the east. This would enhance sales during different seasons and expand products for those timeframes. The company’s profit and income ratios are ranked 7 in the list of competition. This could be due to limited expansion while other competitors have a lead with expanded variety in products and better sales promotions The company needs to consolidate to fewer stores but expand to a worldwide network. Reinvestment into HR practices could include employee evaluations regularly, increase in pay due to improved performance measures, on the job training required for all employees, and stringent hiring qualifications for positions above regular store employee. Acquire or Develop Talent At this point tangle wood is acquiring talent from within which is an aspect I would stick to. This concept lets the employees learn to increase his or her skill in the ability to advance in position. Of the ability to acquire the talent is an options but this could promote insecurity in the employees. Since employees all start at the sales person position he or she is already proving dedication to the company. Hence the ability to advance ones career from time spent on the job and training. Hire Yourself or Outsource Tangle wood is already in the process of hiring outside sources to improve company policies and procedures. The ability to have an organization do the hiring could provide the organization with more time to provide the additional training needed for those who are already hired on permanently. The organization does not hire temporary employees at this time, I would suggest during holiday seasons outsourcing will help maintain the stores clean environment and mission. I would suggest hiring yourself at this time but during slower or maybe holiday seasons outsourcing will help make sure employment laws are followed. External or Internal Hiring Since the company is not experiencing empty job positions recommendations would be for the company to hire internally. Committed employees are already promoted from within and utilizing the labor market in this fashion. Since the company is planning to consolidate the external hiring will be necessary upon the company having rapid growth with large vacancies in job openings. Core or Flexible Workforce The company follows the method of keeping core employees who already feel part of the organization. With the flexible workforce comprised of mainly alternative workers the retail division does not need independent contractors. Suggestions would be to focus upon the core workforce at this time and if any work needs to be contracted for such as store expansion or ancillary needs then the flexible work force would be the options.
Hire or Retain Retaining the current employees will keep the organization from experiencing high volumes of retention. Keep the replacement staffing to a minimum to lower higher costs. Of course the company should be ready to experience retention but retaining the employee through rewards and benefits while also help to reduce rehiring costs. National or Global The company needs to focus on outsourcing globally at this time. The company is in the processing of downsizing so outsourcing to company’s in different countries would not benefit their cause. Once the company is in the position to expand again then outsourcing nationally will increase profits with a wider variety in products and higher gains on out of state products. This will also increase sales due to an improvement in products.

Attract or Relocate In order for the company to attract sufficient employees who will display the required skills the company needs to relocate to areas that supply vast differences in skilled laborers. Situating businesses in country areas should be temporary but focusing on areas with large unemployment numbers will increase the labor coming to them. Tanglewood should also relocate business to college or industry areas to help supply employees who possess the degree for higher positions. Those who become employed can help keep sufficient training available while disposing new ideas of the new century. Overstaff or Understaff Due to the need to consolidate some of the business the company will be able to become overstaffed. I would suggest this since there are no labor shortages or economic downturn in process so the terms of future layoffs is avoidable. The company position to be able to expand again eventually will lead to those stores who are overstaffed to be relocated to future stores. If the company is in need of saving money at this time I would suggest in that scenario to under staff but keep the stores adequately staffed to maintain customer satisfaction and store cleanliness.
Short- or Long-Term Focus Tangle wood keeps the focus on hiring within and those who do progress in management are hired from within. The company is already strategizing on a long term goals for employees so I would suggest keeping at this goal. The need for short term readiness is still an option so training employees for higher management position and provide additional training is necessary since economic shortages is not detectable. The company can also focus on the short term by advising employees of a time constrain before advancement to higher positions is an option. Focusing on the advancement in the short term will ease the difficulty in finding demand and supply for the long term. Person/Job or Person/Organization Match

Tanglewood should focus on the Person organization match since the company has its own set goals and set culture. Hiring from within shows prime example that the employees should be matched to the organizations required needs. Employees who seek the job should be able to do required tasks as well as additional tasks. Upon displaying these abilities the employees should be rewarded which allows for advancement in the industry. These options should go for those who are seeking higher positions. Those in lower leveled positions should be categorized by certain KSAOs but also generalized for the additional skill they can bring to the organization. Specific or General KSAOs Tangle wood should focus on general KSAOs in this aspect they can also help the employee gain the skills to improve upon the ones the company feels he or she is missing. Not every employee is going to be perfect so train the individual to be who they are while still making adequate decisions. Confining the employee to certain characteristics is another form of discrimination and we are not able to depict how intelligent a person is able to become. Allow them to expand upon their current assets to gain the new assets needed to advance in the business. This will improve confidence levels and their determination to work harder.
Exceptional or Acceptable Workforce Quality The company has always focused on the higher technology status so lack of exception workforce is not to question. The factor is to see if the company need to focus on the less quality employees to see they are able to perform at the same standard as those imposed on the higher quality employees. Certain jobs need to possess a higher grade of knowledge but other aspects such as floor sales can save money for the company. Additional on the job training can expand employee knowledge as well as offering paid tuition, of course after a specific period of time, to those who qualify. So suggestions would focus on higher more qualified employees for the stringent positions while saving money to higher lower quality employees and supply the means to improve. Active or Passive Diversity Tanglewood should actively diversify their workforce environment. Having a diverse group allows them to actively seek different opinions. Especially since they already allow employees to place ideas and those are actively already enforced. Different demographics, values and languages supplies the store with different necessities for the customers especially if their happens to be a language barrier. Diffferent demographics allow for ideas of how to run operations, advertisements, and more. Every individual holds his or her own value standards and perhaps those who are already enforcing values may not have every t crossed when it comes to different cultures. It is already standard to have diversity in the workforce and to let applicants see you set that as a priority keeps others from feeling of less value next to another. In conclusion tanglewood is best to stick to actively diversifying the job market, expanding to a global network, having an exception workforce focused on general KSAOs while focusing on long term employees who match the job to organization profiles. The organization can then expand to other cities other than the west coast since they will be well organized through the HR department while enhancing the employee satisfaction and enhancing job organization at the same time.