How to satisfy your hiring needs, then reduce turnover
It's that time of year in which franchisees have already hired staff to handle the busy holiday season peak. Hiring workers and keeping them in franchises is almost always a challenge. But there are some things that can be done to push up the number of applicants. For example, few franchisees use their own signage to advertise for talent, particularly if some customers have the background to be potential employees. Franchises tend to think that such signage is only for fast food restaurants. Anyhow, here's three good resources on how and where to find good employees.
The other key to staffing a franchise is knowing the best employees and retaining them. Here's an idea from Applebee's on using simple and quick evaluative metrics and implementing rewards. (WSJ subscription needed to read the full article.)
At Applebee's...managers must divide hourly workers into "A" players, the top 20%; B, the middle 60%; and C, the bottom 20%. The managers then are eligible for merit raises and bonuses based on how well they retain employees in the top 80%. The practice is unusual in the restaurant industry,where managers tend to worry more about staffing the next shift than career development and performance evaluation.
"Among the hourly retail or service employees, there is certainly a tendency to say, 'Let's bring warm bodies in here,' and then to just try to hold down turnover in general," says Rick Beal, a senior compensation consultant at Watson Wyatt Worldwide, a human-resources consulting firm in Washington, D.C. Mr. Beal says rewarding managers for retaining the better workers...will prove effective only if employers develop straightforward, and simple, ways to judge hourly workers. "Otherwise you're going to burn more time than it's worth," he says.
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