Blog

Some Tips for Franchisors to Adapt to the Changing World of Work

The world of work is changing, and all enterprises including franchise businesses need to be aware of emerging trends and adapt accordingly.

In the Deloitte University Press report Global Human Capital Trends 2015: Leading in the New World of Work, Deloitte exposes ten emerging trends to pay attention to. While a lot of the research revolved around bigger corporations, the same principles apply for SMEs and franchised businesses. We take a brief look at three of these trends, and how they can be applied in relation to your franchise, your franchisees and your business in general.

#1 Culture and Engagement

This one ranked as the no.1 issue for research participants. Engagement and retention were seen as more important than ever in light of mobility, skills shortages and modern technology, and the desire of today’s employees to have meaningful and purposeful work. Companies that create a culture of meaningful work, employee engagement and strong leadership were seen as more likely to be winners in attracting and retaining the best talent.

Tips for franchisors

• Develop strong and symbiotic relationships with your franchisees and regularly engage with them, listening to their suggestions for improvements, and openly communicating with them.
• Strong leadership was shown to be essential in improving engagement, so make sure to drive the shift towards better engagement in your organisation from the top.
• Regularly assess your organisational culture to uncover strengths and weaknesses and to strive for continual improvement.

#2 Learning and development

This ranked as the No.3 challenge for participants. Many companies also reported a low level of preparedness in dealing with the challenges, particularly in light of skills shortages and the need to develop from within the company rather than recruit from outside. Another challenge was that of making use of newer technologies and developing more experiential learning methods, and moving away from older lecture-style training. It was also found that companies that transform learning and development can dramatically improve employee engagement and retention.

Tips for franchisors

Training of franchisees is of course going to differ from that of employees, as franchisees have invested into the business and are less likely to be poached elsewhere! However, some of the same principles still apply, which include:

• Develop a learning culture in your business – one that involves continual training, development and adaptation to the changing marketplace. Make learning and development about engagement as well as the imparting of information.
• Reassess your current training modules, looking out for duplicated and unnecessary content and streamlining where possible.
• Make use of digital learning tools, such as videos, social media, and cloud-based platforms such as Google Docs, Drop Box, Evernote, Moodle and others.

#3 Simplification of work

Nearly three-quarters of participants reported the need to simplify work processes as being important or very important, especially in light of overwhelmed employees and increasing information overload, and the perceived demand to be always-connected. Complex tasks, rules, compliance processes and the need to multitask and always respond to emails appear to be leading to increased stress in many organisations.

Tips for franchisors

• Examine where you can simplify processes and eliminate unnecessary steps. Survey your franchisees and their employees for feedback on this.
• Consider making a rule of ‘no emails’ on weekends, after hours and during breaks.
• Make use of technology that can simplify processes. An example is cloud-based accounting to streamline bookkeeping tasks.

Speak to a professional franchise consultant if you would like more assistance in growing your franchise business and for adapting to emerging work trends.

If you want to know more about franchising, feel free to get in touch with us at The Franchise Institute. You can call us on 1300 855 435 or fill in this contact us form and we’ll reply as soon as we can.

Thanks for reading,
The Franchise Institute Team
1300 855 435