Communicating comprehensive and clear instructions to employees, operators, franchisees, and other stakeholders is vital to the consistency and success of any operation with a network of outlets – be these franchised operations or company owned branches. The simplest way to disseminate this information is to document it in the form of an up to date and consistently-applied operations and procedures manual.
Good manuals start with good information. An operations manual that is totally reflective of the business is vital in any organisation where instructions, policies and procedures must be communicated from a head office level to a branch or independent operator level. The document ensures that each task is performed consistently no matter where the operation is based and who is responsible for it. This is a very important aspect of upholding the value of the brand. The operations and procedures manual has been called the backbone of the business; the blueprint for exactly how each unit must operate. It is often the case that an organisation has “unwritten” policies and procedures which are somehow circulated through the organisation to the employees responsible for performing the tasks but this approach leaves too much room for misinterpretation and error. We take any formal information within the organisation as well as the data residing in your “employees’ heads” (more informal) and apply best practices to this in order to create a comprehensive operations manual, which can be utilised throughout the business – from Inspiration to Information – thus ensuring systems and procedures which are easy to replicate!
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Click on the following link to download an Operations and Procedures Manual outline for a typical retail operation. The outline basically forms the road map or blueprint for what must be included in a franchise operations manual and each point listed is basically a heading which must be be fleshed out to include the business policies, procedures and resources. |
Our online operations manuals are password protected (access controlled) with only authorised users having access to the site thus ensuring the protection of important and confidential company information. Futhermore, the franchisor operations websites, to which franchisees are given access are easy to use and navigate using a simple search function so that the users can quickly find the information they’re looking for.
Events calendars and communications plug ins can also be added to the site to ensure that users are encouraged to visit the site regularly in order to stay informed regarding business activities, events and information which is passed on from head office from time to time. We have found that this approach goes a long way to ensuring that the operations manual is actually used by the operators and does not land up on the proverbial shelf gathering dust.
