Importance of a franchise head office Operations Manual

Often when a staff member moves on they take with them a vast amount of corporate knowledge.

Depending how well processes are documented and how big your head office team is this could have a massive impact on business performance.

What would happen if a few of your key staff members moved on?

Or worse, there were some unforeseen circumstances that required you (or your franchisor) to be absent from work for several weeks?  

Do you have someone internally who could replace you or them, or at least ‘hold the fort’ until a new recruit is in place?

Developing your head office Operations Manual

What are some of the key functions or processes of those roles?  And how well are they documented?

These are all questions which have come up when a key staff member was offered a new job. If you’re unsure of the answers to these questions then now is the time act.  

 

Waiting until a key staff member moves on may be too late. If you haven’t already, you need to create an ‘Operations Manual’ for the key functions within your team.  

Developing your team in addition to an Operations Manual

It’s also a good idea to start building the capacity of other members in the team (if you have them), by arranging internal mentoring programs and/or arranging for up-and-coming staff members to shadow more experienced members with key tasks.

The Coffee Club Multi-Unit franchisee Carolyn McManus has a ‘hit by a bus’ policy, which focuses on making sure no staff member is irreplaceable, while at the same time ensuring the on-going development of each team member.

Although it sounds a little crude the idea is that if a staff member was removed from duty at short notice, whatever the reason, the business could continue to function at the same level.  (Apparently staff preferred the idea of being ‘hit by a bus’ to being retrenched).

Get it done today!