Very few will argue that online training saves franchises money. But how much money are we talking about?

A recent study conducted by Dual Code , a Canadian eLearning provider with a unique solution tailored for franchises and retail chains, estimates that franchises spend on average $1,165 for each new hire during their first month on the job. This data is backed by multiple other articles and surveys, including Jack in the Box, who estimates that "it costs $1,000 to recruit and train new employees" (1), McDonald’s, who reports they spend “$350 to $400 training an individual before putting that person on the floor” (2) and the People Report's survey of 12,798 restaurants ranging from fine-dining to fast-food establishments who estimate that the cost of replacing an hourly employee is $2,399 (3).

Given that most franchises have an employee turnover rate exceeding 200% and that the average employee quits after 5.87 months, a franchisor with 25 franchised locations and an average of 10 employees/franchise spends $582,500 per year training new hires! That doesn’t include the ongoing cost of training franchise owners, managers and experienced employees.

The following list describes the top 7 ways that franchisors and franchisees can reduce their operational expenses through the use of eLearning. You can use it as a baseline to calculate how much money your organization can save by implementing an effective online training program.

1. Reduce Employee Salaries

Online training is proven to shorten the time required to train a new employee by half. Why?

Conventional face-to-face training is generally not well scripted. Some preparation is required and interruptions are sure to happen during the training session.

Because the training material for an online session is prepared well in advance, students can on usually go through the same amount of information in half the time. And since franchises (at least in Canada) are legally required to pay employees throughout the learning phase, any reduction in the time it takes to train an employee is money in the franchise’s pocket.

2. Reduce Trainer Salaries

Conventional face-to-face training requires that someone – typically the franchise owner or manager – spends time with the new hire in order to train him. With an average employee turnover rate exceeding 200%, most franchise managers spend a majority portion of their time training replacements.

Online training allows employees to learn at their convenience, without the presence of an instructor, which means franchise owners and managers can focus their time on other important activities, such as marketing and growing their business.

3. Reduce Costly Errors

In a recent survey conducted by International Data Corporation (IDC) of 100 Canadian companies, 83 percent of employees said that eLearning increased their ability to do the job right the first time around. By properly training your employees on your equipment and operating procedures, you can save your franchise thousands of dollars by eliminating costly errors, which in some cases may even lead to expensive lawsuits and/or out-of-court settlements.

4. Enable Learning During Downtime

One of the biggest advantages of eLearning is that it allows students to learn anytime, anywhere. This means your employees can learn from home or at their workplace during downtime, keeping them productive during peak business hours. This increased productivity is huge for a company's bottom-line, especially for organizations where payroll is one of their largest expenses.

5. Eliminate Facilities and Equipment

Many franchisors spend tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars building and maintaining physical training locations. A moving company in the United States actually has a series of model homes, completely furnished with large appliances and pianos, just to train new franchise owners on various packaging and moving procedures. That’s quite a significant investment, especially when you consider the fact that the franchise owner himself will probably never physically be moving furniture!

Wouldn’t the money be better spent on an online training program that can additionally be taken by the “real” movers? Wouldn’t it be more beneficial if the company produced a series of educational slide-casts that a newly hired mover could view on a mobile device (e.g. iPhone or Blackberry) while his more experienced co-worker drives the truck?

6. Eliminate Travel and Living Expenses

Travel and living expenses accumulate very quickly when the franchisor visits his franchisees and vice-versa. Airfare, car rentals, gas, insurance, hotels, food, entertainment, time/salaries, etc.

By delivering courses over the Internet, travel and living expenses are automatically reduced to zero, saving you thousands of dollars per visit.

7. Eliminate Printing Costs

Printing operation manuals and other training material with hundreds of pages isn't only bad for the environment; it's bad for your wallet. The cost especially adds up when errors or omissions are found in the pre-printed copies, requiring you to throw them all out and print a new batch.

By delivering content via the Web, franchises can print what they need, when they need it. And more importantly, updates can be done with a click of a button and instantly available to all of your franchises.

(1) Source: www.boj.com/articles/franchise/jbx.htm

(2) Source: findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1154/is_n6_v84/ai_18324987/

(3) Source: http://www.boj.com/articles/franchise/jbx.htm