A Higher Level of Training

Are there any rewards or recognition for participants?

At every level, they get a letter from the president of the company. They receive a different type of nametag they can wear on their uniform. There are also small gifts from the company, such as a T-shirt or an attach with their name on it.

At level six, the company offers a real enticement: We take 50 percent off of the franchise fee. Or if the participant doesn't want to become a franchisee, we also offer coaching opportunities to help them with whatever they want to do. At our annual conference, for anyone who's achieved a level-six status during the year, we'll have an actual formal commencement in front of the entire franchise body. They'll be recognized by the founder of the company and formally given their level-six certification, a plaque and gift from the company saying, "Welcome to the MASTERS Hall of Fame."

A person has very few formal ceremonies in his or her life-a high school and maybe college graduation, maybe a wedding. And we thought we needed to make this special for somebody's who's taken that much time, put forth that much effort to reach the pinnacle of our program. When we hold our annual expo next November, we hope to have our first graduating class of level-six certified employees in the MASTERS program.

Is participation required of all employees?

When we created the program, we said, "Let's inspire them rather than create policy." It ended up being a very good strategy, because those who have participated are cheerleaders and encouragers for the other people. So participation is not required.

Why not?

We had to design the program with the franchise operator in mind. We made it easy to facilitate, where we weren't pulling employees out of the store for a long period of time. We wanted to allow employees to go through the program on their own time, so even if the franchisee didn't actively promote the program, the employee could still participate. All the franchisees have been more than willing; some have joined it themselves. The participation continues to snowball.

How important is it to have a program like this?

I don't see how we ever survived without it. One of things I noticed is that even McDonald's is talking about a program like this within their company. I think about how challenging it must be for a company that size to implement, and I feel fortunate we recognized the need for that when we did, even though it was still a challenge.

Would you suggest smaller franchises develop a program like this?

Franchises are going to be ahead of the game if they start developing their employees-a franchise is only going to be as good as its people. It's something even large franchises have to consider.

Will MASTERS participation someday be a requirement for supervisory and management positions?

That's certainly going to be at the discretion of the franchisee. We've encouraged some franchisees to go beyond what we've set in terms of incentives. Some franchisees have indicated they'll require a person to have level-five certification, for example, if they want to become a general manager. That's great from our perspective. We encourage that, although as a company we're not requiring it at this point.