Level-Up Your Remote Workforce With Franchise Management Services

In the face of COVID-19, remote workforces may be the “new normal.” Whether you’re building a national brand or keeping a local workforce safe, FranchiseSoft’s remote franchise management services can help.

Remote franchise management services needed now more than ever

The coronavirus pandemic is forcing businesses across the globe to consider implementing remote work structures. Earlier this month, Microsoft, Amazon, and Twitter all encouraged workers to stay home, with Twitter stating it would let some employees work from home indefinitely.

For some, the idea of allowing employees to “work from home” is hard to accept. Studies have shown that “the fear of lost managerial control is reported to be a significant factor preventing widespread adoption of telecommuting” (Ware & Grantham, 2010, p. 3).

In truth, the rise of remote workforces has been underway for quite some time. Even back in 2001–only 8 years after the first internet browser came out–researchers at the Journal of Organizational and End User Computing spoke about the rise of the remote workforce.

In their seminal 2010 study “Managing a Remote Workforce: Proven Practices from Successful Leaders,” Ware & Grantham suggest that almost all organizations were already practicing some kind of “distributed work management” for the last decade, though many only in temporary or ad hoc situations (p. 3).

In fact, big franchises have been driving the growth and development of remote workforces for years, even if they don’t realize it. While we don’t think of franchisees as traditional “telecommuters,” franchise systems rely on remote management, clear communication, and streamlined collaboration to work.

The benefits of establishing a remote workforce are too good to pass up

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, everybody’s talking about the benefits of remote work for social distancing and stopping the spread. But there’s plenty of other perks to be had by mobilizing a remote workforce, including:

• Liability mitigation. “Employees who are denied the opportunity to work remotely might become resentful of the perceived inequity and file a claim under the provisions of the FLSA,” write Ware & Grantham (2010). This is especially true amidst the coronavirus pandemic, where working in-person could pose health risks.
• Employee attraction/retention. Ware & Grantham’s Work Design Collaborative report found that 72% of US employees say that flexible work arrangements would cause them to choose one job over another. Effective remote work structures also open up global hiring pools, allowing you to access talent around the world.
• Geographic diversification and globalization. Franchises rely on competent remote workforce management to operate at the national and international level, and the same would be true of any business looking to expand. Having remote work systems already in place makes it much easier to scale your business and expand into different geographic areas.
• Cost reduction. Ware & Grantham’s Work Design Collaborative report found that remote work systems made it possible to reduce corporate real estate portfolios by as much as 40-50%. Their case study review of SCAN Health from 2007 to 2010 revealed a 38% reduction in the cost of workforce support as a result of its “distributed work program.”
• Business continuity planning. Remote franchise management services like ours dramatically lower the risk of operational disruption due to external risks such as natural disasters and pandemics.
• Environmental impact. Telecommuting programs deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. A 2009 study indicated that telecommuters avoided over 100 million commute miles per year, with annual fuel savings of at least five million gallons and a net reduction of 50,000+ metric tons of CO2-equivalents (CO2e) emissions per year.

1. Going paperless. “Committing to digital information flow and storage is the single most important thing you can do to enable efficient distributed work” (Ware & Grantham, 2010, p. 11). Workers get more done when they don’t have to sift through piles of paper documents, and they can be productive anywhere with an internet connection.FranchiseSoft gives your business a completely paperless solution for remote collaboration, communication, digital information storage, and franchise management services. Store training materials, lead contact information, marketing ad copy, and anything else you need in your private Intranet server, then set different access levels for secure and streamlined remote work. You can manage employee work schedules with our calendar tool, and accept or send payments and invoices with a few clicks. No paper needed.
2. Carrying the tools you need with you. “One government agency we studied no longer has any desktop computers. Everything is portable. This degree of technology mobility increases the likelihood that people will work wherever they are–because they can,” (Ware & Grantham, 2010, p. 11).While you’re not obligated to can all of your desktop computers, you could! FranchiseSoft is completely mobile-friendly. Access the full functionality of any of our modules; create memos, training materials, and digital brochures; sign-off on field service work and process payments; or monitor the performance of your entire franchise in real-time–it’s all possible from the palm of your hand.
3. Making time to practice new tools such as job-specific software applications. Since it’s accessible anytime, anywhere, FranchiseSoft makes practice easier than ever. We also offer full initial software training and ongoing support. Once you’re trained, you’ll have no problem onboarding franchisees using the FranchiseSoft Training module. Powered by a robust Learning Management System (LMS), it can be used to create custom courses containing text, videos, PDFs, PPT, and many types of media to promote better retention. Training can be assigned to employees or franchisees, then tracked in real-time or auto-generated reports.

Free Franchise Management Services Software Demo

Call 888-302-3676 or fill out the contact form on the FranchiseSoft website to book a free virtual demonstration and see what our franchise management services can do for you.

References

Staples, D. S. (2001). A study of remote workers and their differences from non-remote workers. Journal of Organizational and End User Computing (JOEUC), 13(2), 3-14.

Ware, J., & Grantham, C. (2010). Managing a remote workforce: Proven practices from successful leaders. The Work Design Collaborative, 151.