Why are some franchisees successful and others aren’t? They all have the same operations manual and business model. One determination of success is how franchisees engage with their team. It is costly to lose great employees and keeps your franchise from growing at a faster pace. A lot of articles are addressing “the great resignation” and how companies must adapt to the “new normal” in order to retain their teams. The pandemic has caused a short-term shock-wave in many aspects of everyone’s lives. This article discusses how to engage with your franchise’s employees so the great ones don’t want to leave for greener pastures; no matter what the next business trauma is, you have systems in place. If you master all 7 Essentials, your franchise is set to keep your top talent no matter what issues show up.
Consistent training and professional development are required.
A Successful Franchisee seeks to move forward and learn something new every day. Learn one new thing each day and in a year, WOW, you’ve grown. Create systems providing professional training for your team, including you. Your franchise will grow tremendously. I saw this first hand with ImageFIRST and more pronounced as the Chief of the Terrace Park Fire Department. One of the first decisions from the leadership team created systematic in-house Firefighter Level I training and promoted outside professional training for all members. The organizational engagement, confidence and morale increased markedly. TPFD membership doubled during my time as chief. We grew when most volunteer departments were begging for firefighters.
Curious teammates help your franchise thrive. They are engaged and seek to know how they can improve. These employees are like diamonds ready to be cut, polished and shined. They are valuable. Figure out what you need to do to foster their loyalty to your franchise.
A Successful Franchisee has amazing managers.
It’s true, “good employees leave bad bosses” at every organizational level. You hire, promote and train the very best managers. They live your company’s mission at work and, in turn, so does their team. Put a poor manager in charge of a team and their performance will suffer.
Have systems for anonymous employee feedback, survey your teams regularly or have an outside advisor do a 360 analysis. All of these help in 3 ways:
- Demonstrates to your team that you are committed to improving their work life,
- Uncovers issues you didn’t know,
- Builds trust and loyalty when incremental improvements are made.
Managers communicate with your team daily. Make sure this communication aligns with your mission and adds to franchise growth. See my blog, “7+ Strategies for Powerful Business Communication.”
Evaluate the turnover risk for your franchise at least every 6 months.
Define your franchise’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) concerning employee turnover. Think of it as strategic planning on how to keep your best employees. Is your total compensation in line, below or exceeding the industry average? Money isn’t everything for employee retention. If your total compensation is at or below, it’s a red flag that needs addressed. In Honduras, one low-cost benefit that had a tremendous impact on employee retention was bus vouchers for all employees that made their target numbers for the month.
Your team is the biggest contributor to your success. Figure out what you need to do to keep the best working for you.
Engage new employees from the moment your offer is accepted.
Your high-performing teammates are your franchise’s greatest resource. New employees add value or you wouldn’t have hired them. They are excited for the new opportunity (your greener pastures). They’re nervous about the unknown. And they’re ready to show the world what they can accomplish. Leverage this emotional momentum. Make your franchise THE BEST place to work from the start:
- Give them as much paperwork as you can to be completed before their first day,
- Make sure they have time to wash their new uniform,
- Have flowers delivered, thanking their partner, when appropriate,
- Minimize the on-boarding obstacles and frustrations. Create an on-line process for orientation and some basic training.
- Detail what documents are required their first day on-site.
Nothing will grind the new-job positivity to a halt faster than your fresh employee stuck in a window-less cubicle filling out paperwork and reading the policy manual with little personal interaction the majority of their first day. Almost as boring as that last sentence is long. Actually, the windowless cubicle was a cleared-out janitor’s closet on one of my first days.
Instead, make sure their manager meets them at the door the first day on-site. Have them dig right in learning with a senior employee immediately after touring your facilities. At the end of the day, make sure their manager asks your new teammate what are the top 3 things they learned and 1 suggestion how their day could be better. A good rule of thumb is no more than 20% of the first day is paperwork. My franchise required new managers and sales folks to make deliveries with seasoned drivers the first 2 weeks. Over half of my ImageFIRST team worked with me 15 years.
Increase employee loyalty. Show appreciation daily for the “little-all-add-up” things. Specially recognize the remarkable.
Sincere appreciation is valued by those you lead. The Successful Franchise Owner seeks out reasons to praise their team. Company newsletters are a great way to showcase those employees that give discretionary effort for your company. How can peers show appreciation for each other’s great work? The list to let your team know they are valued is endless. The key is you are seeking out reasons to praise publicly. As much as possible, discuss corrective actions in private.
Be flexible on work schedules when possible.
Not everyone works at the same pace. You may have a herd of high-performers working with you. There are differences in quantity and quality of output among them.
In my engineering days with Red Kap, our main task was setting job standards. Using extensive time and dexterity studies, we determined how many pants pockets should be sewn closed in an hour, for example. The standard is the mean on a bell curve with some teammates completing more or less around the standard with varying quality. This happens in all roles and at all levels. Establish easily understood measurements for each job with your franchise. And have systems in place to measure each employee’s output. The inclination is giving more work to those that can handle it, just to fill their 40+ hour work week. That’s ok to a point. Crossing the line leads to burnout and, at times, resentment in truly high-performers unless their pay reflects the higher output.
Ensure the total compensation for each level is above industry averages.
Incentivize each role where possible. With my franchise, the GM was compensated a base salary with incentive bonuses for a number of measurements for which he had a majority of control. The customer representatives earned 10% of their weekly total dollars delivered. Not every role is that simple to quantify. With the right systems, all work output is measured.
Create a bonus plan for major objectives met. Increase or decrease the bonus for ranges. For the ImageFIRST GM, let’s say a quarterly review showed 110% actually spent of the vehicle maintenance goal. His bullseye was <100%. He earned a partial bonus for that particular KPI.
Pay attention to the most valuable asset to your franchise, your team. Start implementation of any of these 7 essentials on a small scale and test what works for your franchise. Over time you will develop a loyal work family.
