E-Learning provides franchisors many benefits. Notably:

·         E-Learning strengthens a franchisor's brand by standardizing their training program across the franchise system and ensuring the message is consistent for all learners, regardless of their location.

·         E-Learning eliminates logistical problems associated with conventional, face-to-face training by allowing participants to learn at their convenience, without the presence of an instructor.

E-Learning also provides franchisors with another major benefit: it saves them money! To be precise, it saves franchise systems anywhere between 40% and 80% on their annual training budget.

How exactly does eLearning save money for a small to medium size franchisor?

Reduce the Time Managers Spend Training Employees

Thanks to pre-recorded online training courses, employees can learn at their convenience, without the presence of an instructor. This means that managers can spend less time training employees and more time on other revenue-generating activities. Considering that your managers are your best-paid employees, freeing up their time can have a significant impact on your bottom line.

Reduce the Time Employees Spend Learning

E-Learning is proven to shorten training sessions by 20% to 60%. Because a lot more instructional design goes into each and every online training course, the student gets to maximize his/her time and learn much faster.  This, once again, means employees can spend less time learning and more time focusing on the activities they were hired to do.

Increase Productivity

A new hire cannot be effective until he/she has learned a basic set of skills. Unfortunately, managers don't always have time to train new hires as soon as they walk in the door. This leads to remunerated, yet non-productive employees. Worst however is the fact that these employees who are eager to learn end up sucking other people's time, which temporarily leads to a decrease in the productivity of the entire team.

Online training allows new hires to learn at their own pace, without the presence of an instructor (or other peers). It enables them to become as productive as possible, as quickly as possible, and contribute to the productivity of the team from day 1.

Enable Learning During Downtime

Every retail business has peak hours followed by downtime. What do you employees do in between rushes?

Instead of having them read a magazine or go 3 cigarette breaks in a row, why not take this opportunity to train them on your latest products, services, equipment or operational procedures?

Thanks to the anytime, anywhere nature of eLearning, employees can learn at their convenience in small chunks, say 10 to 20 minute increments. And because courses can be paused at the click of a button, employees can briefly suspend their learning to attend clients or more pressing activities should they arise.

Eliminate Travel and Living Expenses

Many franchisors spend countless hours visiting their locations on a regular basis. Others fly their store owners and managers to head office for week-long training. How else are you going to ensure that your franchises operate in a consistent manner?

E-Learning allows you to standardize your training program across the franchise system and ensure the message is consistent for all employees, regardless of their location. It also allows you to track your employees’ participation and progress in your program. A centralized, online Corporate University eliminates, or at least significantly reduces, the need to physically travel to each and every franchised location to check up on your franchisors. It allows you to significantly reduce travel and living expenses, which for most franchise systems, represent 40% to 60% of their annual training budget.

Eliminate Printing & Mailing Costs

All instructor-led courses I've ever attended included training manuals. That's because once the instructor is gone, the information is gone - with the exception of course of what you managed to retain following a marathon cramming session, which is typically very little! In the franchise world, those training manuals are sometimes referred to as Operation Manuals.

Printing manuals with hundreds of pages isn't only bad for the environment; it's bad for your wallet. The printing and shipping costs especially add up when errors or omissions are found in the pre-printed copies, requiring you to throw them all out and print a new batch. Thanks to your learning environment however, you can easily update training courses or PDF operation manuals and make them immediately available to all of your employees. You'll very quickly realize that employees no longer need printed material now that it is available anytime, anywhere, at the click of a mouse.

Eliminate Facilities and Equipment

Most franchised locations don't have separate training facilities to train their employees, but some do in fact rent facilities to train a large group of employees all at once. By offering courses over the Web, you no longer need such classrooms, projectors, etc. Students can learn anytime, anywhere, including from home. And because learning environments allows you to track the amount of time students spend learning, it's easy to tell whether or not your employees are being productive or simply surfing the net.