A Higher Level of Training

How do you retain employees and ensure the healthy development of your franchise? For East of Chicago Pizza Co., the answers lie in its Mastering Appropriate Skills Through Employee Recognition System (MASTERS) program. MASTERS, which was implemented early this year, is open to franchisees and corporate and store-level employees, training them in all aspects of store operation and corporate culture.

Franchise Zone spoke with Cory Washburn, vice president of operations for the chain, about why programs like MASTERS are so important to a franchise system.

Franchise Zone: Where did you get the idea for the MASTERS program?

Cory Washburn: We recognized that finding and keeping good employees is difficult. Other operations were saying they'd pay $7 or $8 an hour to attract people. It's not dollars alone that keeps employees-it's also important for employees to feel they're being developed as a person and that they're part of a company that offers opportunity for them. Our reasoning [behind MASTERS] was to use it as a recruitment and retention tool so employees would want to stay involved and know opportunity exists within the company.

How does the program work?

Basically, it's a six-level program. The levels increase in difficulty and challenge. Level one introduces [participants] to the culture of the company and starts to train them in operational skills. On level two, for intermediate employees, we start to cross-train them within the unit, teaching them to make our pan dough. Level three introduces a real leadership role-once they reach that level, they're a certified trainer. At level four, they're qualified to be a shift supervisor; at level five, a store manager; and at level six, a franchise operator.

We didn't want it to become a typical training program which is why the program has three elements: knowledge, performance review and a certification exam, for which there's a minimum passing percentage. This allows us to make it a competency-based program, to find out not only whether employees are learning and performing, but whether our trainers are doing their job.

We're very careful in specifying that even though we tell employees when they reach a level four or five, they're qualified to be a shift supervisor or general manager, we aren't guaranteeing them a position. But it certainly means they have the skills and knowledge for the position.

The other benefit we saw for the company is it would allow us to create a company-wide rating system for employees' level of experience and training. If an employee happens to relocate to another city and wants to work for a franchisee there, they can list on their resume, "I'm level-four certified." We all understand what that means and can be sure that person has the level of skills we're looking for.