Multi-Unit Franchisee Insight - Hiring, Firing, Training, Retaining & Problem Employees

We talk to successful multi-unit operators regularly here at Franchise Update Media. These busy on-the-go people share great insight and wisdom with us through our profile stories in Multi-Unit Franchisee magazine. Here, from our archives, are some insightful responses from some of these franchisees.

How do you hire and fire?
Hire for attitude, train the skill. We like to think that if we do the work on the front end (hiring), the work on the back end will be minimal.

How do you train and retain?
Retention is a result of an effective culture. People want to work where they feel valued and comfortable.

How do you deal with problem employees?
We feel that people who don't fit into our culture weed themselves out on their own. Typically, they get the message pretty quickly before it gets too far down the road.
 Andrew Jones, multi-unit franchisee of PJ's Coffee and Zaxby's

How do you hire and fire?
We are very cautious about employee terminations. There's always plenty of documented counseling and attempts to improve behavior. We try to hire for friendliness and character. We can teach people to cashier, cook, and be leaders but we can't teach friendliness and high moral character.

How do you train and retain?
We direct our teams to follow the formalized Captain D's training programs, which are excellent. We retain by paying competitively, and we strive to be very competitive with benefits. Most important, we dedicate tremendous time, energy, and costs toward developing the leadership capabilities of our general managers. Most of the time a retention problem has a direct correlation to a general manager with deficient leadership abilities.

How do you deal with problem employees?
Documented counseling in an attempt to improve behavior and/or performance until we realize that they actually aren't coachable. If someone is simply not coachable, we can't use them on our team.
 Chris Benner, multi-unit franchisee of Captain D's and Grandy's