Over the years, New Leaf Technologies has helped several well-known franchises and multi-national enterprises successfully roll out their employee and franchisee training programmes. For example, we implemented an induction program and provided industry-relevant courses for retailer PNA, and successfully integrated the aNewSpring Learning Experience Platform into City Lodge Hotel Group’s HCM platform, allowing them to deploy over 150 internal learning programmes.
There are many more examples, which you can read about in our case studies. But the bottom line is that franchise training is an absolute priority to ensure each franchisee has a head start to success. Without it, problems can quickly emerge, resulting in a breakdown of working relationships, a failure to meet business goals, and potential damage to the brand’s reputation.
While some functions, such as onboarding, foundation training, customer service training, and sales and marketing, apply to all franchises, each business has unique value propositions, employee demographics, and business goals. This means training will look different depending on the type of franchise business you own.
Let’s dive into the benefits of training your franchisees and how an adaptable, all-in-one training platform can transform your franchise training.
What are the benefits of franchise training?
- It lays a solid foundation that all employees can follow and teaches them how to replicate your franchise business.
- It standardises customer experience and franchise management across the group.
- It provides employees with resources, tools, and support structures and shows them how best to use them.
- It trains employees in franchise-specific knowledge and the skills needed to succeed.
- It ensures consistent brand standards by serving as a blueprint for visual and verbal brand identity, operational procedures and communication.
- It simplifies the adaptation period, accelerates the franchisee’s learning curve and fast-tracks business setup and operations, thereby reducing time to profitability.
- It strengthens customer service strategies by honing communication skills, conflict-resolution tactics, and customer-centric approaches that ensure uniform, quality service across units.
- It ensures legal compliance and protection, such as labour laws, taxation, safety regulations and industry-specific mandates to safeguard the brand’s reputation and maintain operational integrity.
- It helps franchisees realise their full potential and increases their motivation and loyalty to the brand.
Types of training
Franchises can have different training needs depending on how new or established they are. This means you’ll need a scalable learning management system (LMS) that is adaptable enough to simultaneously offer onboarding and foundational training for new hires, ongoing training or upskilling for current employees, and specialised training for those taking on new roles or responsibilities.
An intelligent training system such as the aNewSpring LMS (regarded as one of the best training programs for franchise success) enables franchise managers to provide training either online, on-site or in a combination of these. Known as blended learning, it leverages technology to combine online and face-to-face learning and is proven to be a highly effective way to help learners learn.
On-site training is practical by nature and would occur at the franchise HQ or at an individual franchise location or local training facility. Employees will get hands-on experience with the equipment, tools, inventory and systems used in day-to-day operations. It offers the opportunity to interact with colleagues and instructors or trainers in workshops or Q&A sessions, enhancing the learning experience. Knowledge gained during these sessions is then tested in an online environment.
Online training can happen year-round when you onboard or upskill employees or update course material or franchise information. This flexibility allows employees in remote locations or those juggling busy schedules to study and prepare for on-site learning activities as and when it suits them.
Online training via the LMS provides the opportunity to make eLearning for franchisees fun and engaging through gamified and micro-learning modules using videos, flashcards, polls, and assessments. The LMS also offers social learning opportunities via chatrooms, forums, and message boards.
Onboarding training
The onboarding phase is how franchisors formally welcome franchisees and begins right after signing an agreement. It would include an introduction to the company’s culture and brand values, an understanding of the business model, general working practices, and operational procedures. It will also introduce the team and leadership, provide access to resources and guidelines for using the LMS, and set performance expectations.
Foundation training
Foundation training is sometimes combined with onboarding or can be a stand-alone module. It could include training modules on exploring marketing strategies, understanding financial management essentials, and complying with legal and regulatory requirements.
Other topics include effective marketing strategies, sales techniques, and customer engagement that give franchisees the tools needed to drive demand and revenue in a competitive market.
Ongoing training
Your LMS has to be flexible enough to accommodate a franchise’s changing skill needs and growth goals. You’ll need to easily update or repurpose content and create refresher and skill development courses. This ensures standards are maintained, that franchisees remain motivated and enthused to keep the business moving forward and that they can stay up to date with industry developments and changes.
Is there an LMS that can do all this?
The answer is yes! New Leaf Technologies has guided dozens of big and small businesses through their franchise training using the award-winning aNewSpring LMS. Powered by AI, it uses adaptive technology to create, curate, and deliver blended learning experiences that adapt to each individual.
This scalable LMS allows users to create multiple sub-environments, each with its own URL, branding, and learning libraries. This makes it ideal for franchisee training, where different franchises may have different requirements or be at different stages. So whether you’re running onboarding, foundation training, or ongoing training, these modules are available simultaneously to all franchises.
aNewSpring integrates seamlessly with other apps and software, including New Leaf Technologies’ proprietary Training Intelligence System (TIS) – shortlisted for the prestigious global Learning Technologies Awards 2024. The TIS draws data from multiple sources to compile real-time reports on different aspects of the franchise and training. These reports provide targeted support to enhance professional development and performance-based outcomes. For franchises, this data can inform workforce development strategies, helping to align learning initiatives with business goals.
Super-charge your franchise training with New Leaf Technologies
We know that developing and delivering a franchisee training program can be daunting. There are myriad factors to consider, from creating training content and delivering it to geographically dispersed units to gathering feedback in one place and measuring your training ROI.
This is why reaching out to us to create an effective training course – and help you deliver and track it – is the best decision you’ll make all year. Contact us for a customised solution for your unique franchise training needs.
