The fast food industry is bursting at the seams with franchise opportunities, as well known multinationals such as KFC exist alongside a new breed of brands that offer cuisines including Mexican and Vietnamese. 

While there are plenty of viable options to choose from, it is important potential franchisees take the due diligence process seriously and look into the training and support their brand of choice provides before they invest.

Potential franchisees who register their interest with global restaurant chain KFC must complete an intensive training program that covers all of the skills required to run a restaurant/s.

According to the brand’s chief people officer Rob Phipps, KFC offers a three tiered training structure.

“We have team member, shift supervisor and restaurant management training, and if franchisees are going to run multiple sites we have area training,” he says.

The program involves a combination of theoretical and on-the-job training. “Franchisees complete e-learning modules and they have someone in the restaurant that acts as their module trainer, they attend classroom training sessions and then practice the skills they have learnt.

“Unlike a university student who learns how to complete tasks when they start their first job, the basis of our training is to ensure the franchisee is actually competent at performing the tasks required of them when they finish the program,” says Phipps.

The training program can take anywhere between three and six months to complete, depending on individual circumstances.

“The time period is difficult to define because it could be different for different people. It depends on what their past experiences have been – some people have worked in our environment before whereas others haven’t.

“Three to four months is probably the average, and that is full time, doing nothing but learning about KFC,” Phipps adds.

Upon completion of each module, a brand representative will visit the prospective franchisee on-the-job. “They go in and watch them for a shift and determine whether the franchisee is proficient at the tasks required of them in that module.

“We hold high standards and we build that expectation with the guys before they go into the process so they know how it works,” he explains.

KFC offers yearly refresher training in the areas of occupational health and safety (OH&S) and food safety; however the brand does not retrain staff.

“The theory that we take is once you have been trained in something and you are then practicing it proficiently on a regular basis there really is no need to train you again on it – otherwise there is something wrong with your management systems,” Phipps explains.

Instead, ‘champs excellence review specialists’ visit KFC restaurants and identify areas that may require improvement. “They go out into restaurants unannounced and coach whoever is on the shift.

“They will look at everything from employee files to ensure people receive the right training to recording temperatures and things like that to make sure things are being done properly – that is the ongoing self improvement mechanism that we use.”

Of course, the brand won’t simply introduce a new product or process without training franchisees and their staff first.

“The team will assess whether the change is a level one, two, three or four roll out and then we put a package together depending on the extent of the change that is going to occur as a result of the new product or process,” says Phipps.

In other words, the more dramatic the change, the more comprehensive the training will be. “We have a tiered training assessment – if it’s a super different platform we are using we put a lot of time and energy into it, if it isn’t then we don’t.

“If we were to introduce a brand new protein we would get everyone together and have a hands on training session, whereas if we were putting a different mayonnaise on one of our burgers we would probably just send out an email,” he adds.

The brand also offers franchisees ongoing support in dealing with matters that are not related to training.

“We employ a team of franchise business consultants who work with individual franchisees around what they might need or how they are going to approach the business.

“They are based in New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria and they are the primary contact for franchisees,” says Phipps.

Furthermore, when they enter the system franchisees travel to KFC’s head office, or ‘restaurant support centre’ in Sydney to meet with the brand’s staff and gain an understanding of who they should contact when particular issues arise.