If you own a franchise business or are planning to open one, you need to hire people to work there. This can be challenging, especially if you aren’t familiar with hiring. The following 12 guidelines will help you enjoy a successful hiring process.
1) Use Your Franchise Network
The franchisor and your fellow franchisees can be valuable resources when you are hiring. In fact, the whole business community can be. If, for example, you have been exploring franchise opportunities Phoenix, AZ, you should tap into the city’s franchise community. They likely can provide helpful guidance on the best job boards in the area, effective job descriptions and more.
Additionally, the franchisor may be able to provide access to tools and training. After all, it is in the central management’s best interest to ensure that employees are brand-safe. You may be surprised how much your franchise network can help. Furthermore, you lose nothing by asking. Talk to those around you and see what you can gain and learn.
2) Know What Role You Need To Hire For and When
Before you begin the hiring process, you will need to know what roles you are hiring for and when. Your franchise may have some rules about staffing and positions. However, there also may be some flexibility. For example, you don’t necessarily need multiple managers working at the same time when you are first growing. Match your hiring to your current needs.
It can be helpful to think long-term. Again, talking with the franchisor may be helpful as this is likely a consideration that other franchise owners have already addressed. Whatever your plan ends up being, it is valuable to know what types of jobs you need to fill immediately, and which can wait a little longer.
3) Create a Plan for Effective Hiring
Once you have a plan for who you are going to hire, it is time to start thinking about how you will hire them. You don’t want to simply put your description up on the first job board you find. Think about the types of people you need to hire for your business. Depending on the skillset required, you will want to target your recruitment efforts to find appropriate employees.
Additionally, you should have a good idea of your ideal employee as well as a sense of your minimum standards. You don’t necessarily want to simply hire the best applicants. If the best people who apply are still not up to snuff, you will be doing yourself a disservice by hiring them just to get the process over with.
4) Write Clear and Relevant Descriptions
No matter what job you are hiring for, the most important step is getting a great candidate is to write good job descriptions. It can be helpful to start with a template. If you were able to get some baseline descriptions from your franchise network, even better.
However, you should not just stick with the generic language you can find online. Your job description should be highly relevant to the type of candidate you are looking for.
Start by thinking through all the qualifications that would make an excellent applicant. Chances are that there are a least a few things missing from your baseline job description. After that, think about the description from the perspective of the applicant. If you were looking for this type of job, what would you be searching for? You can add some keywords to help improve the visibility of your listing.
Finally, try to make it stand out, especially if you have had a hard time finding good candidates. Consider touting some more unique benefits. Remember, the hiring process isn’t just about you getting what you want; it is also about your candidates finding somewhere they want to work.
5) Set an Interview Strategy
When you are interviewing people for a job, it is very helpful to have a consistent and thought-out strategy. Go into every interview knowing what you want to find out about the person and how you will ask them. Try to avoid simply reviewing the resume. It is okay to ask some questions about prior experiences to get more clarity, but you don’t want to waste time asking about things you already know.
You can ask your candidates about how they would handle certain workplace scenarios. If the job requires creativity or understanding systems, consider asking some abstract questions. For example, you could ask them how many ping pong balls fit in a 747. The correct answer doesn’t matter as much as the approach to answering.
6) Be Prompt With Your Communication
One of the most important parts of effective hiring is to be prompt when communicating with candidates. Finding the right person for the job can be challenging. So, if you think an applicant may be a good fit, respond quickly to set up an interview. The people applying are most likely looking at multiple positions simultaneously.
This timeliness should continue throughout the hiring process. Not only does it increase the chances that the candidate is still interesting, but it also communicates to them that they are a priority. This will help to increase the chance that your top choices will accept positions. It pays to be prompt when hiring.
7) Consider Multiple Interviews
Depending on the nature of the job, you may want to consider having multiple interviews. One of the most important characteristics to check for when hiring is reliability. This is difficult to determine in a single interview. However, you can get a much better sense of a person by meeting with them two or more times.
It is often helpful to have a second interview in a new environment. For example, you could have the first interview at your place of work and the second one at a coffee shop. You may be surprised how much you can learn about someone by seeing them in a new place. However, be careful about wasting anyone’s time with unnecessary interviewing.
8) Know the Law
Get familiar with your legal requirements for hiring before you get too far into the process. You may think that it is simple, but the truth is that many businesses make legal mistakes when hiring.
Most importantly, educate yourself about equal opportunity employment laws. These protect people against discrimination in the hiring process.
In 2018, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received more than 75,000 complaints about discrimination. Quite a few of these were related to franchises.
Your franchisor likely has compliance guides, but it pays to read up on the laws yourself. First, the guides may be out of date or insufficient. Second, you will have a better understanding of your responsibilities. If there is anyone else on your team involved with hiring, make sure they are familiar with the law as well.
9) Promote Your Postings
You will struggle to get candidates if you don’t promote your listings. You should be shouting it from the rooftops (figuratively). Try using some social media advertising to promote your posting. You can also take advantage of the promotional tools on many job boards. Some of them will let you boost a listing to get more visibility.
The more visibility the get, the more applicants you will get. This will significantly increase your chances of getting excellent candidates. You will need to be very diligent about weeding out applicants. However, it is worth the hard work to ensure that you have the best possible workers on your franchise team.
10) Use Recruitment Tools
There are some powerful tools you can use you minimize the amount of work you need to do to have a successful job search. Perhaps most significantly, you can use an applicant tracking system. These tools automatically scan resumes to find relevant keywords and ensure that you are only reviewing applications that are likely to yield positive results.
Furthermore, you can use the tracking system to keep your search organized. You may be able to get access to a tool like this through your franchisor. If not, you can also find many great systems available online for a reasonable price. You’ll be glad you invested in this type of tool when your search goes efficiently forward.
11) Have Realistic Expectations
Your expectations for your candidates are important for ensuring that your search is successful. You should strive to be realistic about who the right candidate for your job is. For example, if you are only paying minimum wage or just above, you are not likely to attract very experienced and skilled applicants. They are able to get other jobs with greater compensation.
You should also be realistic about who is likely to stay and be reliable. If you get an applicant who holds an advanced degree, he or she is not likely to be sticking around for long. Again, try to put yourself in the shoes of your applicants. Remember that they are trying to find the best jobs for their interests and financial needs. Be realistic with yourself about who you are targeting and what rewards they will need for working with you.
12) Train Thoroughly
Finally, the best way to ensure your hiring process is successful is to train your new hires. A good, consistent training program can help to make sure that everyone on your team has the core skills you need. In many cases, it is better to hire people for consistency and attitude then train the skills you need rather than focus on finding someone with the perfect skillset.
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These tips will help you to successfully hire people for your franchise business. Learn more about the hiring process so you can take advantage of top franchising opportunities.
