Update Your Franchise System Manuals
It’s difficult to require compliance to brand standards if they haven’t been effectively communicated to your franchisees.
Keeping Your Franchise Manual Library Up to Date
If you are an established franchisor and find that your system manuals are out of date, unfortunately you are in good company. Franchise system manuals can easily become outdated as your system evolves, without a dedicated person who owns the task of maintaining the manuals and regularly communicating updates to franchisees.
In most franchise systems, even when manuals are updated, the content is authored by multiple writers. This results in an inconsistent voice that does not express the requirements of your system in an easy-to-understand manner. It can be daunting to align the wording of your manuals into one voice, and frequently franchisors push off the project for a later date. But delaying manual updates can create serious business and legal problems.
Out-of-date manuals can harm your brand
It’s difficult to require compliance to brand standards when they have not been effectively communicated to franchisees. If a new or revised standard does not find a home in a consistent reference book, as generally required in your franchise agreement, brand consistency will suffer.
Out-of-date manuals may include risky content
With the charged environment around joint-employment and frequent claims of vicarious liability, what used to be safe to include in franchise system manuals may no longer be appropriate. It is important to have your manuals reviewed by experts and, when necessary, revised with disclaimers and nuanced language, especially related to training and human resources content. It’s essential to ensure that your franchisees have the ability to train their employees, and equally essential that the training material they use does not create risk for you and the franchisee.
We guide our clients through a disciplined approach to reviewing manuals and training programs, and updating them when necessary, to ensure they are not only compliant with best practices but also in alignment with disclosure documents, franchise agreements, and franchisee recruitment materials.
As your franchise system changes and grows, so does the information you need to provide to a hopefully increasing audience in the United States and internationally. We augment manual libraries piece by piece as our clients’ franchise systems evolve.
The presentations below provide a concise overview of the purpose of your operations manuals and how to approach them:
Update your franchise operations manuals with our help.
For additional information, contact Marla Rosner, Senior Learning & Development Consultant, at (415) 225-8607 or mrosner@msaworldwide.com.
Do you have questions about franchise operations manuals?
MSA provides expert guidance on ensuring your franchisees stay updated on what they need to consistently deliver your brand promise to your customers. Contact us for a complimentary consultation.