Tanglewood Case Report #1

Tanglewood is a conglomerate of stores that started out as one store founded in 1975 by friends Tanner Emerson and Thurston Wood in Washington State. They specialize in outdoor clothing and equipment catering to middle- and upper-income consumers. Each store showcases a simple but elegant outdoors camping/living section which allows consumers to observe the focus of the store. By purchasing existing stores rather than building new ones, Tanglewood has grown rapidly with a total of 243 stores now in operation primarily in the Southwestern United States.

Originally, key management decisions, including staffing, were made by Emerson and Wood until the expansion caused them to realize that they could not effectively handle all that was required in operating multiple stores. They decided to leave the day to day operations of their stores, which include staffing strategies, to regional managers but the management strategy needs to be consolidated. Tanglewood’s objective for its stores included employee participation, customer satisfaction, and profitability while staying true to its corporate culture. Their staffing strategy included getting enough qualified people to work for them (person/job match) and ensuring that these people would be a good fit for the company (person/organization match). Staffing strategies not only included the employment of a workforce, but finding ways to retain them for the long-term.

Tanglewood’s mission statement involves making a commitment to their consumers and employees to provide maximum value by staying true to the core values of the company which include responsible fiscal management, clear and honest communication, and placing performance and customer service foremost in the operation of their stores.

Recommendations for strategic staffing decisions include the following:

Tanglewood should focus more on developing talent as opposed to acquiring talent because it is not necessary to have trained and ready-to-go employees at Tanglewood. It would only require that the employees who are hired are willing to get on-the-job training and that they have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other responsibilities to perform the job duties.

Tanglewood should hire their employees as opposed to outsourcing that responsibility because Tanglewood knows exactly what type of employee they want to represent their company. The perspective employee could be interviewed in person which would give managers some idea of whether or not this person would be a fit for the organization. An outside agency with no real knowledge of Tanglewood culture would not be able to do this as effectively.

A mixture of internal and external hiring of employees, dependent on the situation, should be utilized. For promotions and new positions within Tanglewood, the focus should be on internal hiring because this would create a feeling of trust and longevity among employees as well as decrease turnover. On the other hand, for certain new positions, temporary, short-term positions, or when a large number of employees need to be hired, considering the rapid growth of Tanglewood, hiring externally would be appropriate.

Tanglewood must, out of necessity, use a combination of core and flexible employees because of the nature of their business. The core employees are the long-term, dependable staff who make up the majority of the workforce, while the flexible employees are those who fill in the gap. They are the temporary and seasonal workers who are used wherever and whenever there is a need in the organization.

The focus of Tanglewood should be to retain its workers. This is less costly and disruptive to the flow of business as usual. In order to retain their workers, Tanglewood will have to do whatever it takes which may involve appropriate retention strategies in order to make sure their workers remain. These include flexible scheduling, pay raises, additional benefits including work-life benefits, and succession planning which is a process to develop specific employees toward leadership roles in the company.

Outsourcing at Tanglewood would not be applicable since the stores are located in the U.S. All employees and work associated with Tanglewood would come from the various locations in the States because it would not be difficult to locate and train enough workers in the U.S. without having to go outside of the country to find suitable candidates for employment.

The corporate culture and business strategy of Tanglewood has always been as a place where consumers could purchase outdoor clothing and equipment. Heretofore, there has never been a problem finding employees who have the knowledge and background of residing in the type of environment which caters to the outdoors lifestyle. There would be no reason to relocate with the goal of finding people to work for the company. With the economy as it is currently, there is no problem attracting workers for the stores, so to relocate to find workers would not be recommended.

With the downturn of the economy, it is recommended to understaff employment levels. One reason for this would be to avoid future layoffs of valued employees. The unstable economy has also caused consumers to not spend as much, so a surplus of workers would not be advisable at this time. If and whenever additional workers are needed, they could come on as temporary, seasonal, or part-time employees.

As Tanglewood is expanding at a phenomenal rate, the focus should change from short-term to a more long-term vision of staffing. At present, staffing has been left to local leadership, but now there needs to be a more central staffing planning division that would prove more efficient in taking care of the staffing needs of the different departments throughout the stores rather than leaving that task up to human resources personnel and management at each store.

A person/organization match would be more suitable for the sales environment at Tanglewood. Workers can be hired who have had no experience in sales, but can be trained on-the-job in each department. A person/job match would only be relevant if an employee is hired to work in the corporate office as a computer programmer or a technical position, for example.

More general KSAOs would be appropriate at Tanglewood because there are no specific-based tasks that workers need to perform. Possessing general KSAOs means that the potential employee has basic knowledge, skills, abilities, and other requirements that would enable him to work throughout the store after having been trained for that particular department. Employees must be flexible and have the ability to be taught and to retain the knowledge shared in order to work effectively and successfully in that department.

The culture of Tanglewood is such that an acceptable workforce quality would fare well in this environment. This type of workforce could be counted on to get the training needed to perform the job and be appreciative enough to stay with the store long-term. The problem with pursuing an exceptional workforce is that this type person may not want to start as an associate making a minimal salary and may always be pursuing other more lucrative job opportunities; therefore, the turnover rate for this type of workforce is very high.

Since Tanglewood was originally started in a location that was probably not as diverse as some in other parts of the country, the recommendation would be to commit to a long-term plan of active diversity hiring. Although there will be changes that need to be initiated, such as diverse awareness training and hiring a diversity specialist, legal requirements make it necessary to actively pursue diverse candidates. More importantly, Tanglewood would make a strong moral statement in doing so.

Summary

Tanglewood’s culture and values are based on employee involvement and teamwork allowing employees to assist with any decision-making. This philosophy has caused Tanglewood to become very successful in its sales efforts and in the recruitment of an effective workforce. Since its inception, Tanglewood has grown at an enormous rate, currently boasting over 200 stores in the Northwest region of the United States. As Tanglewood grew, its founders realized that they could not keep up with all that it took to manage these stores locally. Management of each store has been assigned to a regional manager who took over the day to day administration, including human resources responsibility. The staffing of these hundreds of stores needed to be consolidated to ensure that all aspects of human resources are conducted the same in all of its stores. Recommendations for strategic staffing decisions have been presented which will assist in the consolidation of all human resources activities.