Very few will argue that online training saves franchises money. But how much money are we talking about?

A recent study conducted by Dual Code , a Canadian eLearning provider with a unique solution tailored for franchises and retail chains, estimates that franchises spend on average $1,165 for each new hire during their first month on the job. This data is backed by multiple other articles and surveys, including Jack in the Box, who estimates that "it costs $1,000 to recruit and train new employees" (1), McDonald’s, who reports they spend “$350 to $400 training an individual before putting that person on the floor” (2) and the People Report's survey of 12,798 restaurants ranging from fine-dining to fast-food establishments who estimate that the cost of replacing an hourly employee is $2,399 (3).

Given that most franchises have an employee turnover rate exceeding 200% and that the average employee quits after 5.87 months, a franchisor with 25 franchised locations and an average of 10 employees/franchise spends $582,500 per year training new hires! That doesn’t include the ongoing cost of training franchise owners, managers and experienced employees.

The following list describes the top 7 ways that franchisors and franchisees can reduce their operational expenses through the use of eLearning. You can use it as a baseline to calculate how much money your organization can save by implementing an effective online training program.

1. Reduce Employee Salaries

Online training is proven to shorten the time required to train a new employee by half. Why?

Conventional face-to-face training is generally not well scripted. Some preparation is required and interruptions are sure to happen during the training session.

Because the training material for an online session is prepared well in advance, students can on usually go through the same amount of information in half the time. And since franchises (at least in Canada) are legally required to pay employees throughout the learning phase, any reduction in the time it takes to train an employee is money in the franchise’s pocket.

2. Reduce Trainer Salaries

Conventional face-to-face training requires that someone – typically the franchise owner or manager – spends time with the new hire in order to train him. With an average employee turnover rate exceeding 200%, most franchise managers spend a majority portion of their time training replacements.

Online training allows employees to learn at their convenience, without the presence of an instructor, which means franchise owners and managers can focus their time on other important activities, such as marketing and growing their business.

3. Reduce Costly Errors

In a recent survey conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) of 100 Canadian companies, 83 percent of employees said that eLearning increased their ability to do the job right the first time around. By properly training your employees on your equipment and operating procedures, you can save your franchise thousands of dollars by eliminating costly errors, which in some cases may even lead to expensive lawsuits and/or out-of-court settlements.

4. Enable Learning During Downtime

One of the biggest advantages of eLearning is that it allows students to learn anytime, anywhere. This means your employees can learn from home or at their workplace during downtime, keeping them productive during peak business hours. This increased productivity is huge for a company's bottom-line, especially for organizations where payroll is one of their largest expenses.

5. Eliminate Facilities and Equipment

Many franchisors spend tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars building and maintaining physical training locations. A moving company in the United States actually has a series of model homes, completely furnished with large appliances and pianos, just to train new franchise owners on various packaging and moving procedures. That’s quite a significant investment, especially when you consider the fact that the franchise owner himself will probably never physically be moving furniture!

Wouldn’t the money be better spent on an online training program that can additionally be taken by the “real” movers? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial if the company produced a series of educational slide-casts that a newly hired mover could view on a mobile device (e.g. iPhone or Blackberry) while his more experienced co-worker drives the truck?

6. Eliminate Travel and Living Expenses

Travel and living expenses accumulate very quickly when the franchisor visits his franchisees and vice-versa. Airfare, car rentals, gas, insurance, hotels, food, entertainment, time/salaries, etc.

By delivering courses over the Internet, travel and living expenses are automatically reduced to zero, saving you thousands of dollars per visit.

7. Eliminate Printing Costs

Printing operation manuals and other training material with hundreds of pages isn't only bad for the environment; it's bad for your wallet. The cost especially adds up when errors or omissions are found in the pre-printed copies, requiring you to throw them all out and print a new batch.

By delivering content via the Web, franchises can print what they need, when they need it. And more importantly, updates can be done with a click of a button and instantly available to all of your franchises.

(1) Source: www.boj.com/articles/franchise/jbx.htm

(2) Source: findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1154/is_n6_v84/ai_18324987/

(3) Source: http://www.boj.com/articles/franchise/jbx.htm

One simple practice separates successful franchisors from average ones: effective franchisors spend the majority of their time working on important rather than urgent things. They adopt Stephen Covey’s advice outlined in his best-selling “First Things First” and “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” books.


There are only so many hours in any given work day. So the question becomes, “What do we do during those hours?” Isn’t it interesting how some people use their time to be incredibly productive while others accomplish very little. Why is that? Why do some franchisors achieve their goals and experience great growth and success while others do not?

Successful franchisors spend the majority of their time in quadrant 2. They know that duplication and consistency are at the heart of a successful franchise system, and therefore make it their #1 job. The only way that brand consistency can be accomplished is through training, so they invest time and money on their training program. They also continue to innovate and develop new concepts and product ideas that appeal to their market.

When an important/urgent issue comes up, they quickly switch to a “SWAT team” mode, fix the problem, and immediately return to the “important but not urgent” quadrant.

Average franchisors on the other hand focus their effort in the other quadrants. They spend their time on the phone or replying to emails that do little to help them grow their business. They’re busy. Some even work very long hours, but unfortunately, they spend their days on “time wasters” and activities that don’t contribute to the achievement of their business goals.

To be successful as a franchisor, you need to be certain that your franchisees succeed. Success begets success. Successful franchisees increase your royalties and help sell other franchises. So stop procrastinating and delaying important activities such as improving your training program or developing new products ideas. Define which activities are important to your franchise, and allocate the majority of your time to completing those activities.

Most people get the value of slide-casting (slides+audio). But for those who don't, here's an excellent article that discusses presentations in general. While the article itself is not related to slide-casting specifically, it makes a strong point that "Presentations = Speech + Slides", not just slides.

http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2008/presentation-speech-slides/

Dual Code has just released a slide-cast plug-in for Moodle. Once installed, the plug-in allows you to view slide-casts directly in Moodle, without ever leaving your Moodle site. Here's how it works.

1. Download the plug-in from www.slide-casts.com/moodle
2. Install the plug-in on your Moodle server. (Detailed instructions can be found here.)
3. Display "public" slide-casts (e.g. slide-casts created by other authors that are available to anyone), OR
4. Create a "Learning Management System" channel in slide-casts.com and link to your slide-casts from your Moodle server using a security key.

See www.slide-casts.com/moodle for more details.

Dual Code has just released a new online service at www.slide-casts.com

This free service allows you to:

• Share your Powerpoint, Keynote and Impress presentations online.
• Add audio narrations to your slideshows to make them even more effective.
• Limit access to your employees, co-workers, students or friends.

Try it for free at http://www.slide-casts.com

Blindside Networks (www.blindsidenetworks.com) is hosting a monthly Moodle user group in Ottawa. The meetings are held on the 4th Thursday of each month. The next event will be on January 28 , 2010, from 6:00 - 8:00 PM at the Code Factory (246 Queen street).

This meeting will have Steven Muegge, Associate Professor, Carleton University, giving a talk entitled "Use of Moodle for distance education within the Technology Innovation Management program at Carleton University".

There is no cost for this event, but the Code Factory asks that attendees make a $5 donation at the end of the meeting. Please register at Eventbrite (http://ottawamoodle.eventbrite.com/).

You can't teach someone who doesn't want to learn. To help your employees get the most from your training program, try the following:

• Before: When enrolling an employee in a course, tell him/her specifically which skills he/she needs to learn and why. Provide concrete examples and real-life situations where certain skills would have helped improve his/her performance.
• During: Make sure the timing is convenient. Many employees do not want to learn if it means they're going to have to stay late and work overtime to make up for the time "lost" spent learning.
• After: Put the employee in a situation where he/she can immediately apply the newly acquired skills. Showing them how the stuff they just learned helped them perform better sets the tone for the next training session.
  

These concepts are not new, but many organizations tend to forget these steps.

E-Learning provides franchisors many benefits. Notably:

·         E-Learning strengthens a franchisor's brand by standardizing their training program across the franchise system and ensuring the message is consistent for all learners, regardless of their location.

·         E-Learning eliminates logistical problems associated with conventional, face-to-face training by allowing participants to learn at their convenience, without the presence of an instructor.

E-Learning also provides franchisors with another major benefit: it saves them money! To be precise, it saves franchise systems anywhere between 40% and 80% on their annual training budget.

How exactly does eLearning save money for a small to medium size franchisor?

Reduce the Time Managers Spend Training Employees

Thanks to pre-recorded online training courses, employees can learn at their convenience, without the presence of an instructor. This means that managers can spend less time training employees and more time on other revenue-generating activities. Considering that your managers are your best-paid employees, freeing up their time can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

Reduce the Time Employees Spend Learning

E-Learning is proven to shorten training sessions by 20% to 60%. Because a lot more instructional design goes into each and every online training course, the student gets to maximize his/her time and learn much faster.  This, once again, means employees can spend less time learning and more time focusing on the activities they were hired to do.

Increase Productivity

A new hire cannot be effective until he/she has learned a basic set of skills. Unfortunately, managers don't always have time to train new hires as soon as they walk in the door. This leads to remunerated, yet non-productive employees. Worst however is the fact that these employees who are eager to learn end up sucking other people's time, which temporarily leads to a decrease in the productivity of the entire team.

Online training allows new hires to learn at their own pace, without the presence of an instructor (or other peers). It enables them to become as productive as possible, as quickly as possible, and contribute to the productivity of the team from day 1.

Enable Learning During Downtime

Every retail business has peak hours followed by downtime. What do you employees do in between rushes?

Instead of having them read a magazine or go 3 cigarette breaks in a row, why not take this opportunity to train them on your latest products, services, equipment or operational procedures?

Thanks to the anytime, anywhere nature of eLearning, employees can learn at their convenience in small chunks, say 10 to 20 minute increments. And because courses can be paused at the click of a button, employees can briefly suspend their learning to attend clients or more pressing activities should they arise.

Eliminate Travel and Living Expenses

Many franchisors spend countless hours visiting their locations on a regular basis. Others fly their store owners and managers to head office for week-long training. How else are you going to ensure that your franchises operate in a consistent manner?

E-Learning allows you to standardize your training program across the franchise system and ensure the message is consistent for all employees, regardless of their location. It also allows you to track your employees’ participation and progress in your program. A centralized, online Corporate University eliminates, or at least significantly reduces, the need to physically travel to each and every franchised location to check up on your franchisors. It allows you to significantly reduce travel and living expenses, which for most franchise systems, represent 40% to 60% of their annual training budget.

Eliminate Printing & Mailing Costs

All instructor-led courses I've ever attended included training manuals. That's because once the instructor is gone, the information is gone - with the exception of course of what you managed to retain following a marathon cramming session, which is typically very little! In the franchise world, those training manuals are sometimes referred to as Operation Manuals.

Printing manuals with hundreds of pages isn't only bad for the environment; it's bad for your wallet. The printing and shipping costs especially add up when errors or omissions are found in the pre-printed copies, requiring you to throw them all out and print a new batch. Thanks to your learning environment however, you can easily update training courses or PDF operation manuals and make them immediately available to all of your employees. You'll very quickly realize that employees no longer need printed material now that it is available anytime, anywhere, at the click of a mouse.

Eliminate Facilities and Equipment

Most franchised locations don't have separate training facilities to train their employees, but some do in fact rent facilities to train a large group of employees all at once. By offering courses over the Web, you no longer need such classrooms, projectors, etc. Students can learn anytime, anywhere, including from home. And because learning environments allows you to track the amount of time students spend learning, it's easy to tell whether or not your employees are being productive or simply surfing the net.

The owners of private schools in Egypt are developing their own measures to prevent the spread of H1N1 flu, also known as swine flu, when the academic year resumes on October 3rd. Possible courses of action include, amongst other things, shortening the time spent in classrooms and replacing it with eLearning, thereby allowing students to learn from home.

The full article can be read online on the Egypt News Web site.

Dual Code has just released a white paper titled "Online Training for Technology Companies". This white paper presents best practices and "how to" information to help technology companies develop a successful online training program.

Although this paper focuses on training your employees, many of the principles such as the benefits of an online Corporate University and characteristics of adult learners also apply to training other stakeholders such as your clients and partners.

This eLearning white paper is available as a free download here:  www.dualcode.com/whitepaper.htm. No registration or email address is required!