After reading the whole case, I believe that the hiring policy was not followed was the biggest problem. The reason that was because the regional and district managers did not really follow the way it should be. Since the company expanded rapidly, the managers had the pressure to fill positions quickly in order to run the company well. At the meanwhile, managers had to check a large numbers of applications from sales people from other retailers and it was really hard for managers to recognize who were potentially consultants, not clerks. Therefore, there was tendency to hire those who had more experiences.
The company spent a lot of resources on training people who grew up in retail they lack of potential to be consultants and mentally being a sort of “clerk” kind and it would be less effective. Also when they face to customers they probably lack of passion and sluggishly during work.
The long-term impact of the problem would be there were not enough employees qualified as consultants and clerks would not get promoted. And customers who were treated sluggishly would not come back, eventually would affect company’s reputation and sales volume in long-term
Analysis:
Since employees who grew up in retail they lack of potential to be consultants and mentally being a sort of “clerk” kind, therefore it would be hard for company to change their minds. By using SWOT analysis, I found out strengths of this company was the core idea that they are not just selling cloths but also understanding people, both your teammates and your customers. The weakness was not every employee understand this idea and treat customers the company wishes. Opportunities were their minds would be change after intensive training. Threat would be company spent extra resources on training.
Recommendation:
My suggestion on this problem is managers should be more responsible for hiring employees, and also they can get commissions if people who get promoted as qualified