Training for Franchise Management

As futurist John Naisbitt noted, franchising is "the wave of the future." Already, franchising accounts for a third of all U.S. retail sales; and this figure is projected to climb to at least 40 percent by the year 2000 (Justis and Judd 1990). The rapid expansion of franchising throughout the world is making the task of managing a franchise more complex and difficult, particularly in view of differences in national environments and local cultures (Chan and Justis 1990). Already, many franchise businesses have recognized management training as a sine qua non for their success. The successful franchisor depends on highly motivated employees who think and behave as representatives and innovators for the franchising company. It is critical that the franchisor be able to attract quality franchisees, who in turn can secure capable employees to run the operation successfully. Despite the importance of training for franchise management, there is a dearth of research in this area. The bulk of existing training literature focuses on training programs for large organizations and an increasing array of small businesses; few, however, have examined franchise management training programs. Historically, franchisor training has consisted solely of a franchisee training book or package. This is usually handed over to the franchisee to digest. Today the successful franchisor is more dedicated to training and seeks to provide training programs for all levels of individuals within the franchising organization--the franchisee/store owner, manager, assistant managers, and other employees. Unfortunately, no established guideline suggests how much of a franchisor should set aside for training. One rule-of-thumb says that an average 1 percent of gross salaries should be spent on franchise training programs. METHOD This article discusses findings of a preliminary study of training programs currently used by franchisors in the United States. Our main objective was to compare different aspects of the training provided by a wide spectrum of franchisors. The primary research instrument was a survey questionnaire. Based on anecdotal information collected from the field, we also were able to determine what some companies were doing with respect to training programs at the time of study. The sample consisted of a group of franchisors across the United States who responded to our request for information about training programs. A total of 250 requests were mailed and 108 were returned (a 42 percent response rate). The nonrespondents were randomly distributed and did not represent any particular size group, or industry. The sample of 108 respondents represented twenty-two different industries. RESULTS An interesting feature of franchise training programs concerns their length and duration. Table 1 shows that the length of the training programs surveyed varied from one week to more Table 1 FRANCHISOR TRAINING PROGRAMS Number of Franchisors 108 Length Number Percent One week 24 22 Two weeks 18 17 Three weeks 15 14 Four weeks 12 11 Over one month 24 22 Not specified 15 14 than one month. As reported in the table, approximately 22 percent of the franchisors required a one-week training program; 17 percent required two weeks; 14 percent required three weeks; 11 percent required four weeks; and 22 percent required a month or more of training. In addition, 14 percent of the franchisors indicated that they have training programs but did not specify the duration of their programs. An example of a successful training program is that instituted by Popeye's. The Popeye's Institute of Polytechnic provides training and orientation for both franchisees and other management personnel before opening new restaurants. …