Saturday, October 4, 2008

Tanglewood Case 2, Number 1 (by Katie)

Katie Eckel

Sean Johnson

Audrey Nassal

Tasha Smith

Tanglewood Case 2

Table 1.1 Markov Analysis Information

Transition probability matrix

Current Year

Previous year: ( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 ) ( 5 ) Exit

( 1 ) Store associate 0.43 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.51

( 2 ) Shift leader 0.00 0.54 0.16 0.00 0.00 0.30

( 3 ) Department manager 0.00 0.00 0.64 0.06 0.00 0.30

( 4 ) Assistant store manager 0.00 0.00 0.06 0.52 0.08 0.34

( 5 ) Store manager 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.66 0.34

Forecast of availabilities

Next Year (projected)

( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 ) ( 5 ) Exit

Previous year: Current Workforce ____

( 1 ) Store associate 8,500 3655 510 0 0 0 4335

( 2 ) Shift leader 1,200 0 648 192 0 0 360

( 3 ) Department manager 850 0 0 544 51 0 255

( 4 ) Assistant store manager 150 0 0 9 78 12 51

( 5 ) Store manager 50 0 0 0 0 33 17

Gap analysis Next Year (projected)

( 1 ) ( 2 ) ( 3 ) ( 4 ) ( 5 )

Year end total 3655 1158 745 129 45

(column sum)

External hires needed 4845 42 105 21 5

(current workforce-total)

Environmental Scan

Upon performing an environmental scan, we have determined that Tanglewood might have problems filling their vacancies in the future for a variety of reasons. According to the scan, there are available candidates who are ready to fill managerial positions. However, our hiring policies at Tanglewood require employees to start out as store associates and work their way up in the organization if they choose to do so and if the store needs these positions filled.

We also strive to hire an exceptional workforce. One way we may want to go about hiring an exceptional workforce may be to hire motivated, intelligence college graduates. However, according to the environmental scan, we have found that recent college graduates do not necessarily want to start at the bottom of an organization as a store associate in order to work their way up to a higher position. Additionally, the retail industry holds a negative (and partially accurate) image of providing low pay, requiring long hours, and of their being frequent conflicts with lower-level employees.

A Prelimiary Statement of the Action Plan for Hiring for Washington Next Year

According to the forecast of labor requirements found in Table 1.1, next year we will need 4,845 store associates, 42 shift leaders, 105 department managers, 21 assistant managers, and 5 store managers. As a result of both these figures and our hiring policy of hiring internally and thus starting every employee at the lowest position, we will need to hire a large amount of store associates. We will keep most of them at the associate position and promote some of the more experienced associates into the managerial positions. We also must keep in mind our other hiring policies of developing talent and having exceptional workforce quality. In order to fulfill all of our hiring practices, we propose the following plan.

We will hire at least 4,845 store associates to meet our projected needs for the next year. We will do this by attempting to dispel negative perceptions of retail store employment by providing higher pay and store discounts as well as offering flextime. We will also strive to have and to build exceptional workforce quality in a number of ways. We will work to improve job satisfaction by providing employees with task variety. We will allow store associates to work in different departments and to do different things from working the cash registers to designing and assembling in-store displays. We will also encourage teamwork by having contests between store departments and have parties to celebrate everyone’s hard work and to honor the winning team. Tanglewood’s comment system will also be stressed to show that although store associates are the lowest level position at Tanglewood, these people are one of the company’s most important assets and that their comments and suggestions are encouraged. We must keep in mind that associates are often the face of the company because they directly interact with customers. We must show them how important they are to Tanglewood.

We may want to focus much of our efforts to recruiting high school students for these store associate positions. Each store needs to have a large number of store associates and not very many managers. As a result, we do not want all of our associates to have a desire to move up into managerial positions. High school students may be the perfect match for this role because these candidates may just be looking for a part-time job to have in order to make some extra spending money and to gain some work experience. They may not want to have all the responsibility of a manager and they cannot work all of the hours required of a manager because they must go to school.

We will also work toward developing talent and hiring internally. For employees, such as recent college graduates, who have expressed a desire to attain managerial positions, we will allow them to enter a management trainee program. This program will follow our policies of having everyone start at the bottom, but it will allow participants to move up quickly in the organization provided they learn what is necessary to hold these positions. Workers in this program will be paired up with exceptional workers so they can learn the culture and operations of Tanglewood quickly.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Tanglewood Case 1

Katie Eckel
Sean Johnson
Audrey Nassal
Tasha Smith
Tanglewood Case 1

In reference to Exhibit 1.7 in the textbook, we feel that of the staffing quantity and staffing quality strategies listed, developing talent, internal hiring, and exceptional workforce quality are the most important strategies to implement or to continue to implement at Tanglewood. These three strategies were chosen over the others because Tanglewood uses a differentiation strategy and the company believes it is important to maintain a strong culture. Tanglewood is concerned that companies like Target and Kohl’s are going to create more direct competition for the company. Therefore, Tanglewood must ensure they differentiate themselves by having the best possible staff that will deliver positive experiences to their customers and make their stores stand out among the competitors.
As stated on page six of the Tanglewood Casebook, “the organization feels there absolutely must be a workforce of committed, qualified individuals who will help carry the Tanglewood philosophy into the future.” We believe they can do this by continuing to use strategies of developing talent and internal hiring as well as employing exceptional workforce quality. We believe these strategies are the most important to use because they will allow Tanglewood to differentiate itself from the competition, build a strong culture, save money by hiring internally and developing their talent, hiring people who are new to retail and developing them as Tanglewood associates, and it will support Tanglewood’s team focus and maintain the family atmosphere in employees that the company was built on.
Developing talent is a better strategy for Tanglewood than acquiring talent because acquiring talent from other companies costs more money. Additionally, if Tanglewood starts employees off as associates who are new to working in retail, everyone will start fresh and learn everything the Tanglewood way. This may also result in there being less opposition among workers about how things should be done in retail because they will not have experienced any other method. At the same time, Tanglewood welcomes suggestions from all workers and has made a few major operational changes as a result of employee suggestions.
Internal hiring is a better strategy for Tanglewood than external hiring because it allows everyone to start at the bottom as an associate and to work their way up in the company if they work hard and have the desire to move up. This strategy also allows company culture to thrive. Each employee is able to understand the culture of the company by starting out fresh as an associate and being taught how the company operates and to learn about its culture.
Exceptional workforce quality is a better strategy for Tanglewood than acceptable workforce quality for many reasons. First, Tanglewood’s target market is middle to upper class society. The company employs moderate pricing and a strategy of differentiation. They also differentiate themselves from the competition by having a large camping and outdoor living section in each store, having an outdoor theme, and by having a personable sales staff. Having exceptional workforce quality means hiring associates that will be passionate about Tanglewood and in providing excellent customer service. This strong customer service focus will encourage repeat visits to the store and allow the company to stand out among the competition by being a customer favorite.