Tanglewood Case Study Case Description

Tanglewood Case Study

Case description

Tanglewood is a general retail store chain which specializes in many items including appliances, electronics, clothing and home decor. The target customers are the middle and upper income individuals in the society. The company strives to give its customers quality, value and durability for all aspects of their lives. This report tackles the strategic staffing decisions of Tanglewood in two broad sections which are staffing levels and quality. The purpose of the report is to help the company establish the appropriate strategic staffing decisions that help the organization

Identification of business strategy or goals

Tanglewood's strategy as per Porter's generic strategies is based on differentiation. This can be seen where the organization strives to provide its customers with a unique combination of outdoor clothing and equipment which is distinguished from the collection. The company also strives to give their customers an unrivalled experience in their stores as well as with their in-house products. By applying the differentiation strategy, Tanglewood is able to achieve rapid growth and expansion. The company has also managed to become competitive in the retail stores industry as a result of their differentiation strategy. The company has managed a 9.3% compound growth rate with a 14.2% growth rate for the last one year.

Tanglewood's niche is the middle and upper income consumers who are in search of convenience and reasonable pricing. The company uses a similar layout of its merchandise as its competitors though they strive to maintain a high quality stock as well as providing exceptional customer service. Tanglewood has developed proprietary brands of merchandise which have been designed to complement the company's looks. These brands have helped the company to match its differentiation strategy by ensuring the products are of the highest quality possible.

Strategic staffing decisions

Staffing levels

Acquiring or developing talent.

Acquiring talent involves recruiting of new staff then training them. There is a cost of failure where the organization may select staff that may not be capable of meeting the requirement. On the other hand, developing talent also has its costs. Developing talent from the inside is usually more expensive than acquiring it. However, if conducted in a well-defined process, the benefits of developing talent from the inside beat those of acquiring it. This is because the employee is able to adjust to the company's environment gradually and it boosts employee morale Paauwe, 2004.

It will also help the organization to maintain a productive workforce. Developing talent will thus be most beneficial to Tanglewood.

Hire yourself or outsource.

In order to be able to outsource, Tanglewood would need to explain to the hiring firm their human resource needs in order for the company to find the perfect person for this position. It would also need the hiring firm to conduct an internal assessment of Tanglewood's strengths and weaknesses in order to find the right person for the position. This is a time-consuming option. With Tanglewood strategy of differentiation, the company would benefit more from hiring on their own as a result of being able to find the person that best complements the organization's strategy and will appeal to the needs of the organization. Though this may seem to be more cumbersome and labor intensive for the human resource department, the benefits largely outweigh the workload.

External or Internal Hiring.

Looking at the Tanglewood culture and its values, we find that the employees are more like a family. External hiring would affect the company's culture and values, which is why internal hiring is advocated for. With the company having thousands of employees per region, hiring for managerial positions should be done internally and for entry level positions or where there is a lack of skill internally, the organization should hire externally. This will help the organization to have a workforce that is committed and qualified to carry the philosophy of Tanglewood into the future.

Core or Flexible Workforce.

As is expressed in the case study, Tanglewood needs to consolidate to make sure the company is as close to is mission as possible in order to reap from the strong culture of the organization which needs to be upheld. This is the major reason why the company should focus on a core workforce rather than a flexible workforce. The core workforce will enable the company to build a team philosophy rather than an accomplished core workforce. It will also be quite difficult for the organization to maintain their culture with a flexible workforce.

Hire or Retain.

Tanglewood needs to focus largely on employee retention in order to be able to achieve the other strategic strategies proposed in this report. These strategies include developing talent and hiring internally. A high employee retention rate will enable the company to embed its culture deep into the workforce and thus bring about a high performance work environment which will push the company towards prosperity.

National or Global.

Tanglewood currently has many stores in various regions around the country and oversees. Each region has the benefit of having its own culture and values which are, in some cases, unique to the others. In order to maintain their competitive advantage and possible exceed it, the company needs to come up with staffing strategies that are both national and global O'Brien & Shennan, 2009.

This will help the organization to choose the best people from a huge pool thus enabling it to hire the more talented employees that will satisfy the human resource needs of the organization.

Attract or Relocate.

In order to succeed, Tanglewood will need to bring human resources to the company rather than to take the company to the location of the human resources. Therefore, the company will need to be able to attract high quality and talented people. Attracting them can be done in various ways. First is to train the managers and update them continuously on the policies and guidelines in the company and secondly is to ensure that the employees' remuneration exceeds that of the competition and where this is not possible, it should be at par Cummings & Worley, 2005()

Overstaff or understaff.

Looking at the employee figures of Tanglewood, the company is currently overstaffed. Even though the company's management seems to be more cooperative with its employees and their suggestions, the company operations require less employees than it currently has. Therefore the company should employ strategies to reduce the number of employees per store by either shifting them to new stores or training them to take up roles in other departments.

Short or long-term focus.

The goal of Tanglewood is to expand the company further and to be able to continuously attract more clients. The HR functions of Tanglewood need to be aligned with this goal. Therefore the company should engage in a long-term focus or staffing in order to be successful. This long-term focus will also enable the company to achieve its other objectives in terms of developing talent, employee retention and having a core workforce.

Staffing quality

Person/Job or Person/Organization Match.

Matching a person to a job during the recruitment and selection process usually requires specific knowledge of how to do this and the specific rewards. The person is matched to a job when their personality, demography, or skills match the organization itself. On the contrary, matching the person to the needs of the organization requires the organization to have a high attraction for the employee in terms of remuneration. For Tanglewood, the organization should match the person to the organization. This is essential because it does not require expert knowledge. Also since the organization's employees have a culture of working as a family, it will be important for the organization to match the person to the organization in order to keep this culture among its employees. However, for the managerial positions, it would be best for the company to match the person to the job in order to ensure the person fits the requirements of the organization for the particular position.

Specific or General KSAOs.

General knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics (KSAOs) are more beneficial to Tanglewood than specific KSAOs. Staff who are knowledgeable and experienced in a variety of fields would be best to serve the company at the lower level positions. The company will also be able to tap the general KSAOs of their employees to be able to develop their talent as they see fit for both the employee and the needs of the company. General KSAOs will also be important for the senior management since they will be able to tackle the company's expansion and other managerial requirements from a variety of perspectives rather than from one perspective.