Acquire or Develop Talent Acquiring talent involves actively seeking new candidates that have leadership qualities and other skills that would be beneficial to the growth of a company. Developing talent is developing the skills of the employees that are already part of the organization in order to save money and benefit the growth of an organization.
There seems to be an inconsistency in management styles between the original Tanglewood stores and the newly purchased stores. The best way to find new talent will be to acquire it by hiring candidates that enjoy participating in teams. By acquiring new employees that already embody participation and teamwork, they will be able to “hit the ground running” and be at peak performance from the moment they arrive (Heneman II et. al. 2012).
Hire Yourself or Outsource The decision of Hiring Yourself is pretty self-explanatory; it involves internal recruiters searching for candidates. Outsourcing, using outside organizations to recruit and select employees, is becoming a very popular form of acquiring new talent (Heneman II et. al. 2012).
Since Tanglewood seems to be struggling with identifying candidates that fit the organization’s specific culture, an experienced outsourcing vendor would do much better. Tanglewood is a mid-sized company that is currently lacking an HR function; therefore they are the perfect candidate for outsourcing. With all of the new stores opening, Tanglewood may not be able to keep up with the labor shortages. Outsourcing vendors specialize in staffing and will be able to hire the employees needed for each new store in a short period of time. Lastly, outsourcing is the best choice because the vendor will be responsible for complying with EEOC requirements rather than Tanglewood having to maintain all of the procedures.
External or Internal Hiring
External Hiring is hiring new candidates that are not within the company. While, Internal Hiring is hiring candidates that are already existing employees within the company.
When new job opportunities are created, Tanglewood should hire externally. Tanglewood is growing rapidly so there are typically more entry-level job openings than available internal candidates. In the event of an upper-management role opening, Tanglewood should then consider internal candidates because they will already possess the unique culture and values of Tanglewood.
Core or Flexible Workforce
A core workforce is made up of individuals who are viewed (and view themselves) as regular full-time or part-time employees of the organization. In contrast, a flexible workforce is composed of more peripheral workers who are used on as-needed, just-in-time basis (Heneman II et. al. 2012).
Tanglewood should focus on a core workforce rather than a flexible workforce during the selection of employees. Tanglewood is based on a philosophy of teamwork, which can easily be accomplished through core workforce because employees are constantly working together and become a team.

Hire or Retain
Hiring involves constantly hiring new people to fill the open entry-level roles. Retaining involves focusing on keeping existing employees so that recruiters do not have to spend so much time re-filling those roles.
It will be very difficult for Tanglewood to reach their goal of maintaining a consistent company culture if there is a high turnover rate of their employees. Tanglewood should focus on retaining their employees rather than hiring because it is cheaper to develop current team-members’ skills and talents than it is to hire new employees. MF Staffing Solutions has created an analysis that has determined that it is indeed more beneficial to retain rather than to hire. Tanglewood should strive to retain its current workforce as much as possible.
National or Global Outsourcing is moving a business process (service or manufacturing) to another vendor, whether the vendor is inside or outside the United States. While offshoring is the organization setting up its own operations in another country, meaning it is establishing its own operations in another country (Heneman II et. al. 2012).
Tanglewood sells items such as clothing, equipment, electronics and more. It is vital for them to be engaged in both over-seas outsourcing and offshoring by hiring employees that can deal with both global and local customers. Tanglewood should outsource not only their staffing activities, but also their technical support, database management, customer service, and manufacturing. It will be beneficial for Tanglewood to participate in both global outsourcing and global offshoring because a large majority of nations have lowered trading and immigration barriers. Also in the United States and parts of Europe, when a company participates in outsourcing and offshoring they can manufacture goods and provide services cheaper than in their own country. Lastly, it is sometimes difficult to find specific talent in the United States, especially for IT roles (Heneman II et. al. 2012). Outsourcing and offshoring can assist Tanglewood in finding the perfect candidates for those highly technical roles and help them to be competitive with the competitors in their industry.
Attract or Relocate
Attracting is when a company brings the labor to the organization rather than bringing the organization to the labor. Relocating is moving the organization to a region that has the available workforce.
Tanglewood currently has 12 geographic locations and has approximately 20 stores in each region. It is expected that the regional manager does not have experience on how each of those 20 stores are running their human resources. Tanglewood should provide both internal and external training for these regional managers so that they are constantly updated on new policies and guidelines throughout the organization. New employees will be more willing to work at Tanglewood and less overwhelmed with the workload if they know they will be attending various training sessions. It will also be beneficial for Tanglewood to attract candidates by indicating on job descriptions that there is a need for a high quality of education experience.
Overstaff of Understaff Overstaffing occurs when there are dips in demand for the organization’s products or services that the organization chooses to ride out. Or when the company is stockpiling talent just in case of a sudden surge in employees quitting, retiring, relocating, etc. Understaffing occurs when the company is struggling with chronic labor shortages or during an economic recession. Other times, companies might choose to understaff if there is an increase in employee overtime or temporary employees (Heneman II et. al. 2012). Tanglewood should understaff rather than overstaff. It will be both cheaper and more beneficial in the long run for them to understaff. By decreasing the number of employees and increasing the amount of training in each department, Tanglewood will be a more successful company. More training will lead to stronger cooperation among team-members and an increased job performance in a short time period. Understaffing will save Tanglewood money and will also move them ahead of their competition.
Short-Term or Long-Term Focus Organizations with a long-term focus of staffing needs have talent management programs and have put thought into strategic talent needs for the organization (Heneman II et. al. 2012). Most organizations have a short-term focus, which is improving current problems in order to get closer to long-term business goals. Since Tanglewood is facing challenges with developing their human resource functions they should have a short-term focus. This short-term focus should be to improve the human resources department by increasing their knowledge and continuously developing the way they do things. Once the human resources function has been improved, then Tanglewood can begin a long-term focus.
Staffing Quality
Staffing quality is the quality of the hiring that is being done. There are four decisions to take into account when looking at staffing quality. These are defined and explained within the next two pages of this report.
Person/Job or Person/Organization Match
Person/Job Match is when a candidate’s personality and abilities match the job description perfectly. Person/Organization Match is when the candidate’s personality and abilities directly match the culture and values of the organization.
For a company such as Tanglewood that focuses so much on their company culture and developing teamwork, it would be more important for them to acquire and deploy based on person/organization match. This means that only candidates that embody the teamwork culture of Tanglewood should be hired. Also, Tanglewood should only hire candidates that understand the way decisions are made within the company. If a person prefers to not make decisions or to express their ideas, then they probably will not be a good fit for Tanglewood and should not be hired.
Specific of General KSAOs Specific KSAOs are the necessary skills and knowledge needed to perform a specific job. General KSAOs include flexibility and adaptability, willingness to learn, written and oral communication skills and various mathematical skills. (Heneman II et. al. 2012).
KSAOs are job-specific knowledge’s, skills, abilities, and other characteristics. Tanglewood should focus on general KSAOs rather than specific KSAOs because a variety of skill and knowledge will be extremely beneficial. As Tanglewood continues to expand and grow, they need employees that can adapt to the constant changes within the company and in the industry.
Exceptional or Acceptable Workforce Quality Exceptional Workforce Quality allows the organization to stock up on the “best and brightest” candidates with the hope that this exceptional talent pool will deliver truly superior performance. Acceptable Workforce Quality is when the organization has a less high-powered workforce and also a less-expensive one. (Heneman II et. al. 2012) Tanglewood should aim for an Exceptional Workforce Quality because employees are the company’s greatest asset and they want the best of the best. The company cannot have just an “average” staff because then it will fall drastically behind its competitors and also will not live up to the standards it has portrayed over the years,
Active or Passive Diversity Just as Tanglewood is becoming more diverse in terms of demographics, so is the labor force in demographics, values and languages. Active Diversity allows an organization to be more attuned to the diverse needs of the customers it services. Passive Diversity requires substantial planning and assimilation activity and lets the amount of diversity happen naturally. (Heneman II et. al. 2012) Tanglewood should participate in passive diversity because it is more important for their employees to get along and work well together than it is for them to have a diverse array of employees.
Summary
In this report, MF Staffing Solutions advised Tanglewood of which staffing levels and quality will best serve their company. In summary, MF Staffing Solutions analyzed 13 staffing decisions. The recommendations were made based on Tanglewood’s mission and unique company culture
Thank you, Tanglewood, for choosing MF Staffing Solutions to assist you in your business improvements. We hope to work with your company again in the future. References
Heneman II, H. G., Judge, T. A., & Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D. (2012). Staffing Organizations (7th ed.). Middleton, WI: Mendota House, Inc.
Kammeyer-Mueller, J. D. (2012). Tanglewood Casebook. Gainesville, FL: Mendota House, Inc.