How Franchises Can Benefit from HR Technology

Franchise owners are often faced with human resource and benefits issues that may be solved with a solution utilizing HR technology that can help improve recruiting, management, and performance.

Consider the following ways HR technology could help you manage your franchise, but be mindful that every tool and resource noted below might not be available for your use by your franchise model:

1. Improve Your Time and Attendance Records

Payment errors often occur when employees have leeway to guess the time they arrived at work, the length of their breaks, and what time they left at the end of the work day. Guessing leaves room for error and may result in an employer paying for time not actually worked. When integrated as part of a comprehensive HR solution, a time and attendance system may help reduce these labor costs and can help achieve greater overall efficiency for your franchise.

2. Recruit Better Employees (and Reduce Turnover)

Hiring the wrong person can lead to lost revenue and productivity, while time and expenses used to hire the right candidate can be one of the best investments a business owner can make. Enhance confidence in your hiring by standardizing and streamlining your recruiting and hiring processes. With an HR solution, you can: create thorough job descriptions, define what you're looking for in a candidate's skill set, determine the benefits offered, communicate the candidate's potential development, and more thoroughly screen job candidates.

Having a keen idea of what these elements look like for each position and helping candidates know what to expect may help you more easily complete your search and find the right person for the job. Conducting pre-employment screening and applicant tracking with HR technology may also improve your hiring and onboarding processes.

3. Offer Competitive Benefits

What are you doing to set yourself apart from other organizations when it comes to attracting and retaining talent? The following benefits may help differentiate your franchise:

• Employees value their time outside of the office. Does your franchise offer competitive vacation time, paid time off policies, sick time, and holidays?
• Does your franchise offer health benefits and/or a 401(k) plan? These traditional benefits are highly valued by employees regardless of industry.
• Be creative. Even seemingly small benefits such as lunches out or gift cards (when you keep in mind the tax implications) may make a difference when a high-performer considers working for, or staying with, your franchise.

4. Improve Your Human Resource (HR) Processes

More efficient HR processes may support your franchise in several key areas:

• Fewer payroll errors. Automation can make inaccuracies less common.
• Improved security. Keeping track of security updates through your HR solution may help your organization become less vulnerable to security breaches.
• Saving money. Innovative and reliable technology can reduce the time employees spend sidestepping outmoded technology, which can lead to greater productivity and reduced business costs.

5. Spend More Time on Your Business

As a franchise owner, you are certainly busy. But busy does not mean productive. What if you didn't have to take on full responsibility for recruiting, training, and maintaining your staff? Running a franchise is your expertise; keeping up with software updates, government regulations, tax changes, and other non-core competencies may prevent you from spending time on managing the business itself. The right HR solution could help you more fully focus on the success of your business.