Ask the Experts

BRIAN DUCKETT WRITES:
I think it’s fair to say that very few franchisors will provide such training, although it is in their interest to make sure your staff are properly recruited and trained for all sorts of reasons.

Apart from anything else, if you recruit the wrong people this will lead to higher than ideal levels of staff turnover and probably lower then ideal levels of customer satisfaction. The former will damage your business because of wasted time and expense, not to mention the risks of unfair dismissal claims, while the latter will damage your business and the franchisor’s brand. There may be a section in your operations manual on the subject, but in most cases you’ll be better off buying a relevant book.

You may get more help if the operation of the franchise is closely regulated by independent professional bodies such as within, say, the various forms of elderly and disabled residential or domestic care sectors.

Where the franchisor hopefully will be of more use is in providing the means for training your staff to deliver the product or service properly, but this is more likely to be training you to train them, rather than the franchisor training them itself. Nowadays the bigger and better franchisors will even have e-learning training programmes online that, with accompanying evaluation techniques, at least ensure everyone gets the same instructions on how to do things from the start of their employment by you. Back to List