Behind every successful franchise lies a tried and tested learning and development program. Whether you specialize in fixing cracked windscreens or serving up tantalizing fast food, the quality and consistency of your services depends on it.
But gone are the days of relying on fine print textbooks and in-person sessions alone. Though these learning methods will always have their place, it can be difficult to measure their success.
How much information did your franchisees and their employees retain? Did they read the materials in full or skim a few sentences? And what about the individuals who couldn’t attend? How can you catch them up on the training?
There are too many gaps for errors to slip through. If you want to avoid them, guarantee success, and accelerate growth, you need to harness a franchise training LMS.
What is an LMS for franchises?
A franchise learning management system (LMS) is a software solution for creating, distributing, and tracking e-learning courses and pathways at scale.
Available via any device, you can harness an LMS to provide everything your franchisees need to succeed in their day-to-day operations. This includes onboarding, compliance, and product and services training.
A typical franchise training LMS will allow you to:
- Create mandatory or optional courses, modules, and pathways, using SCORM-compliant content and other learning assets (such as policies, operation manuals, videos, PDF, external webpages, etc.)
- Test user knowledge with quizzes
- Automatically award certificates and assign validity dates
- Track user enrolment and completion rates
- Set granular user permissions
- Send automated notifications for compulsory training, course expirations, and more
- Assign subject matter experts to courses
- Collaborate with users via communications features, such as discussion rooms, in-system messages, and comment threads
- Access associated materials, such as policies and brand documents
- View user profiles and their achievements
- Reward learners with badges and celebrate their achievements via public thank you messages
- Change learning themes, experiences, or content based on automated triggers
11 benefits of a franchise training LMS
Now that we’ve summarized the purpose and capabilities of a learning management system, let’s dive into why your franchise needs one.
Here are 11 compelling benefits to inspire you:
1. Standardize your onboarding and recruitment processes
When onboarding a new franchisee, you’ll often follow the same steps and require the same training every time.
An LMS empowers you to build standardized courses for this exact purpose. Ensuring every franchisee receives the same, consistent training. You just have to make sure it encompasses everything you need it to - whether that’s your operations manual, policies, health and safety videos, and so on.
2. Progress new franchisees securely
Until your franchisees pass their compulsory data security training, there may be certain content you’d rather keep hidden.
With the right learning management system, you can set automated triggers for every user. When they pass a predefined course or courses, the platform will automatically adjust their permissions settings, allowing them to access previously restricted content.
This not only reduces information overload for your franchisees - it also protects your sensitive data.
3. Scale your network efficiently
The more slick your onboarding and training experiences are, the quicker your franchisees can launch their units and bring in sales.
The result? You can grow your franchise much faster, knowing every franchisee is receiving the best training possible.
4. Maintain brand consistency
Your brand is more than just your identity: it’s one of your biggest selling points.
Indeed, consistent branding can boost revenue by up to 20%. It can also strengthen customer loyalty and attract fresh talent.
This is where an LMS or franchise training software can become your secret weapon.
By creating training around your brand, values, culture, and mission, you can better align your network.
With the right platform, you can augment these efforts with integrated internal comms channels and document management features. This empowers you to create an online portal that doesn’t just tell your franchisees about your brand, but embodies it.
5. Reduce manual effort and save money
There’s no need for ad-hoc training sessions when you have a repository of tried and tested e-learning resources at your disposal.
What’s more, when the time comes for refreshing your training, all you need to do is update the course and notify your franchisees. This reduces manual effort and gives you more time to spend on strategizing. You’ll also save money in the long run, too. (As there’s no need to splash out on room hires, travel, or professional trainers.)
6. Ensure operational consistency across your locations
Some rules are made to be broken. And some rules are just plain, hard rules. If your franchisees don’t follow them, your brand could land itself in serious trouble.
For example, imagine a KFC employee under-fries your order by a minute or two. When you collect your food, you expect the same quality you typically receive, but the chicken is raw and inedible. (Not so finger-lickin’ good now, right?)
This one minor deviation from your operations manual could result in catastrophe.
However, with standardized product and services training, you stand a better chance of mitigating these problems. Instead, you can empower your franchisees to perform at their best and deliver a stellar customer experience every day.
7. Track completion rates and identify areas for improvement
It’s not enough to distribute training and hope for the best. To truly understand how successful your e-learning programs are, you need to track the data behind them.
An LMS provides access to individual course and module analytics, including the number of users enrolled and the overall completion rates. You can also track questionnaire results to pinpoint any knowledge gaps.
This allows you to make data-driven improvements and chase any franchisees who haven’t met their training obligations.
8. Improve compliance and mitigate any risks
From health and safety to data security, compliance training is commonplace for every business.
However, just because you provide this training, doesn’t mean it always works. In fact, around 40% of ethics and compliance experts rate the effectiveness of their training (in regards to impacting employee behavior and/or operations) as “poor” or “fair”. They also cite difficulties with testing knowledge and addressing employees who fail.
Thankfully, a franchise learning management system can solve these problems:
- Test franchisee and employee knowledge with interactive quizzes
- Monitor pass rates and identify the questions learners often get wrong
- Automatically notify users of any pending courses
- Encourage users to retake a course when they fail
- Provide subject matter expert support with course tutors
This ensures your compliance training isn’t just a tickbox exercise, but makes a tangible difference to your operations. In turn, helping you mitigate risks and pass your audits with ease.
9. Motivate and engage your franchise staff
As labor shortages continue and turnover rates remain at a high, it’s never been more important to invest in employee retention.
Providing engaging career development opportunities, as well as rewarding recognition schemes, can satisfy franchise owners and employees across your locations. It also demonstrates a clear investment in your people - which can be great for your employer branding, too.
10. Provide valuable support
For the times when your franchisees and their staff need extra learning support, assign expert tutors to your LMS courses. This can boost pass rates, improve the learning experience, and strengthen your franchisee relationships.
11. Encourage on-the-go learning
In the UK, 50% of all franchisees operate remotely. This makes in-person training difficult to coordinate and traditional training hard to track.
A mobile-accessible LMS overcomes these challenges. You can create, deliver, and monitor training across your network without having to worry about logistics or time zones.
Your franchisees can take compulsory training and self-service learning pathways whenever it suits them - and from the comfort of their mobile devices.
The future of franchise training is here
68% of franchises expect to increase their training and development spend in the coming year. Though the reasons why vary, here’s what we know for certain:
- 15% of franchises are concerned about poor sales
- 70% of franchises report their units have unfulfilled job vacancies
As we’ve discussed in this blog, high quality training can have innumerable benefits for your franchise. It can strengthen your brand, encourage consistency, and drive growth.
That’s what makes it such a solid investment.
But delivering this training at scale requires a comprehensive learning management system. One that doesn’t just consolidate your training materials, but supports them with your policies, documents, brand assets, internal communications, and more.
Here’s where the Claromentis franchise management software can help. Our solution combines powerful intranet, e-learning, and automation capabilities - empowering you to build an online portal that unifies your network and revolutionizes your operations.
If you’d like to see it in action, we’re only a short call away. Book a personalized demo with one of our experts here to get the ball rolling.
