This application assignment is designed to test your understanding of setting staffing outcome goals and integrating strategic staffing with other functional areas of human resource management. Caribou Coffee's senior leaders logically assumed that customer service was the reason customers returned to their stores. This made sense, particularly given the company's emphasis on the customer service skills of all its employees, including district managers who were responsible for 814 locations. But they found that store success varied more across district managers than within a single district manager's stores. So, if there was an across-the-board focus on customer service, why was the performance of each district manager's stores so similar, but the performance of each district manager so different? What exactly accounted for the difference? Caribou discovered that its district managers' skills did vary. It discovered that the most important district manager competency was his or her ability to effectively staff the store manager position. When a district manager took the time to find the best replacement for a store manager instead of automatically promoting the shift supervisor with the most tenure, the results had a strong impact on revenue. Caribou's ability to show its district managers concrete evidence that hiring the right store managers positively impacts sales has been critical in focusing district managers on the careful staffing of its store manager positions. Not only have sales increased in the previously underperforming stores, the district managers appreciated the information and assistance as well in improving their own performance. Submit your answers to the following: 1. Develop three staffing goals (must include both process and outcome goals for full credit) that would reinforce Caribou's desire to hire the best store managers. 2. How else can Caribou Coffee ensure that its staffing function for store managers is integrated with other HR functional areas (e.g., performance management, succession management, training and development, compensation.) Provide three specific examples.