Steps to Resolve Franchise Hiring and Staffing Challenges

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Hiring and retaining employees is a major issue for most business owners, including franchisees. Concerned about potential combined labor concerns, franchisors have recently shied away from helping franchisees hire and support their personnel. The need to do more is increasing due to COVID. Thus, franchisors are developing tools and training people to help franchise hiring and staffing challenges.

Certain multi-unit franchise hiring involves a recruiter specializing in lead generation and job placement. It is critical to establish a baseline for how the team feels. Include inquiries about their function, connection to the team, and relationship with their direct boss. The corporate office can construct a survey and make it available to franchisees to distribute to their staff on an opt-in basis. Alternatively, you can partner with a third party to administer it directly to franchisees.

2. Employees desire a positive work atmosphere and can be more selective in hiring. Demonstrating WHY working in your firm is superior is critical. How would you assist them in growing? Alternatively, how enjoyable will it be while they are clocked in? What distinguishes you from the other ten companies to which they applied?

3. Ensure that the application procedure is straightforward for applicants and that franchisees reply promptly. Remind them that 80% of hourly employees complete these on their phones. Eliminate the requirement for a formal résumé and instead TEXT applicants within five minutes of receiving an application, followed by a phone call five minutes later. Workstream-like technology systems can help with this. Additionally, franchisees should conduct exit interviews to ascertain why people are departing.

4. Assigning top staff to assist in interviewing applicants is an excellent approach to increase their responsibilities, assist them in growing, and alleviate the franchisee’s duty (or manager). Provide referral bonuses to employees for bringing new members to the team. When job openings are plentiful, happy employees telling their friends and neighbors about their experience working in the store and being a part of the team can make a significant difference.

5. If you deal with Indeed, inquire about the status of the business, the average spends per location, and which franchisees perform exceptionally well or poorly on the platform. How does your brand’s corporate website’s CAREERS section look? Are you able to provide video and/or written confirmation from existing employees? Are you willing to share the rewards offered? Is it simple to access local location websites/pages? These pages should all provide the same information: employee validation, local benefits, and available employment. Each franchise should be allowed to customize all of this stuff.

6. Business owners are becoming more inventive to attract additional employees. Offering managers unlimited PTO after a certain tenure, giving child care or payment for child care costs, allowing managers to work from home (if the function can be performed remotely), promoting mental health wellness, and offering wellness packages or benefits were all suggested.