Tanglewood Case One
Rebecca Cassady

With reference to Exhibit 1.7 in the textbook, I think that of the staffing quantity and staffing quality strategies listed; that developing talent, internal hiring, and exceptional workforce quality are the fundamental strategies to implement. By utilizing these differentiation strategies, Tanglewood would continue its strong culture. Tanglewood must differentiate themselves from their competition; companies like Target and Kohl’s. Tangelwood can accomplish this by having the best staff that delivers a positive experience their customers, thus, making their store standout from their competitors. These strategies will help maintain a positive work atmosphere and build a strong relationship among employees, which will lead to successful job performances.

Hiring or retain overstaff or understaffed, and external or internal hiring:

As we look at these three decisions for the staffing levels, hire or retain, over staffed or understaffed, and external or internal hiring method we will see that Tanglewood Company is over-staffed. The mangers are cooperative with the employees’ suggestions regarding the company's operations, which need to be decreased. By decreasing employees and increasing the responsibility; staffing and training of departments will make the working environment stronger, and job performance to be improved saving both time and money for the company. Tanglewood should focus on retaining their employees and improving their expertise and skills rather than hiring new ones and develop a more flexible work place. Looking at Tanglewood’s culture and values we find that all employees do well in the family atmosphere, hiring external could affect this strategy. Employees coming from a different culture or with other perspective values will affect the positive family environment Tanglewood has worked as hard to build. Internal hiring will encourage employees more because of the people culture and value from each region; this is due to the similarity between the employee and their culture. Internal hiring is a better strategy for Tanglewood than external hiring because it allows everyone to start at the bottom as an associate and work their way up in the company. Using this strategy allows the company culture to flourish. Each employee must understand the culture of the business by starting out as an associate and learning how the company operates and about its culture. Exceptional workforce quality is a better strategy than acceptable workforce. Tanglewood’s target market is the middle to upper class. The company employs moderate pricing with a strategy of differentiation. They differentiate themselves from the competition by having a large camping and outdoor living area in each store. Having an exceptional workforce quality means hiring associates that will be excited about Tanglewood and provide excellent customer service. Having a strong customer service focus will encourage customers to repeat visits to the store, and enable the company to stand out among the competition as a customer’s favorite place to shop.

Hire yourself or outsource:

This is an extraordinary decision, for any organization to consider, because it offers both advantages and disadvantages of the company business decisions. Outsourcing a consultant for Tanglewood would mean they would require the knowledge to the current goals and objectives of the HR functions. That would cause all results be determined off of papers and information provided to them by Tanglewood. Also, they would not be fully aware of the strengths or weaknesses of the internal regions because they are would not be one of them. I would not encourage Tanglewood to outsource consultants, they would be lacking in the experience of that region. On the other hand, there are several advantages for outsource hiring such as offering fresh ideas, new plans, new techniques and opinions while improve upon current circumstances.

National or Global:

Tanglewood is a well know retail store with locations all over the regions and overseas. Each region enjoys its own culture and values, which distinguishes them from others retail stores. The pattern and process of Tanglewood has to be similar yet each the internal department methods will operate depending on their regions culture. Located on page 12 of the Tanglewood case book states that; “If you tell someone exactly what to do, you are only getting half an employee. If you give someone the space to make their own decisions, you are getting a whole person.”

I would encourage this philosophy be enforced among all regional locations. Tanglewood like other retail stores offers the same tools, clothing, equipment, electronics and much more. These retailers have to be engaged in both overseas out sourcing and off shoring by hiring high performance and talented, sufficient employees to deal with this globally and locally that will help Tanglewood reach and exceed competitive levels among others.

Attract or Locate:

The main idea of the organization is to be successful, to accomplish this they must bring labor to the company not the company to the labor. Tanglewood needs to establish locations closer to their distributors; Tanglewood has 12 geographic regions and 20 stores per region. The regional managers have little background in how HR runs throughout the 20 stores. Tanglewood needs to provide both external and internal training for these managers while continuously updating them with all new policies and guidelines. Another way to attract employees to Tanglewood is through higher-education quality that is expected of them when applying. This will lead to the last element of quantity exhibit, the short or long term focus.

Short or Long Term Focus:

Goal setting can be easy for a company; nevertheless, balancing and achieving that goal can be extremely challenging. Tanglewood's goals is to expand their business, twhiling attracting more customers. The HR functions among the regions for Tanglewood have working issues because they are not communicating with each other extremely well. The short focus plan needs to continue improving the HR functions while developing and increasing the knowledge of their department. This will lead to the long-term focus; achieving the short term will help them understand how to achieve their long-term focus. Most talent management programs are focusing on the long-term focus, and this is the only way HR can be successful in Tanglewood. Expanding and staffing will be the result of the HR departments doing a terrific job.

When all the Tanglewood HR managers and employees have been trained, they will need to start excepting new applicants. This will involve placing the right employee in the correct position. Any successful staffing design has to start with the job attraction, for the employee to perform the job successfully. With the large staffing in Tanglewood, HR needs to design a system to distinguish the skilled employees from the bad employees.

Recommendation and Conclusion:

It is extremely beneficial for Tanglewood CEO's and Managers to understand the value of KSAOS and the motivation to their employees. Learn how to attract, expand and satisfy their customers. The above explanation towards the quality and quantity of the Tanglewood retail store comes from the report Mr. Donald Penchiala provided. I think all the HR departments in every region put together guidelines and policies that work for their regions while being accepted in other regions. Having employees with strong HR skills, the qualifications, education, and knowledge, will lead Tanglewood to a new successful level of competition above like retailers in their area.