How Franchisees Can Gain More Time and Develop Their Employees
by Ed Teixeira
This article with shades of Management 101 offers some simple advice on how
franchisees and their managers can gain more time and improve the skills of
their subordinates. In order for a franchisee to function effectively, they need to have as much
optional time as possible. However, given the busy schedule that franchisees
have to deal with it’s not easy to find optional or open time. The
challenge is where to find the optional time? Some choices include delegating
certain duties to others, hiring new employees, automating certain functions or
simply dropping certain responsibilities. The most productive and desirable
option would be to delegate more duties and responsibilities to employees. In
order to accomplish this objective employees have to qualified and capable of
assuming added responsibilities.
As a franchisee you are often placed in the position of having to assist your
employees with decision making. Often times an employee will approach a
franchisee or manager with a particular problem or situation. When this happens
it’s easy for the franchisee to take ownership of the situation. I can recall as
a youngster wanting to help my father and not knowing exactly how to perform the
task. He would say to me: “Do it like this” and rather than give me the
opportunity to perform the task he would keep doing it because it was easier. I
think the analogy is similar to the experience of a franchisee or manager. It
can be far easier and expeditious to simply take over a problem or
responsibility from an employee. However, the right approach is to allow the
employee to retain the responsibility for a problem or issue and tell you how
they will handle it.
It’s not always easy to follow this process but it’s the most effective way
to develop your employees and gain more time for yourself.
The steps you want to follow are as follows:
- Make sure that your employees are fully and properly trained
- When that have a situation or problem encourage and allow
them to offer you their recommendation for resolving the
problem. Recognize that they may make an occasional error in
their decision.
- Monitor more challenging situations more closely.
- Strive to get your employees to the point where they won’t
run to or your manager every time there is a problem but rather
can solve it on their own.
Follow these suggestions and you’ll have more optional time as franchisee and
more competent employees.
© 2010 FranchiseKnowHow, LLC
Ed Teixeira is the President of FranchiseKnowHow, LLC. He can be reached at
franchiseknowhow@gmail.com
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