5 Best Practices to Manage Your Franchise Library

Let’s start with the challenge. Your library consists of manuals, playbooks, and guides, forms and videos, maybe some one-off policies and procedures that only apply to certain types of locations.

Each document has a different objective, whether it be to set expectations for legal compliance, train line-level employees, or serve as reference for troubleshooting.

You have different audiences, from franchisees who are accountable to the standards (but who may not be doing the day to day operations) to specific roles within each unit. One may sit at a desk, another may be at a customer site.

All of this probably means different versions of different documents in different channels (ever read a PDF on a phone?).

You have multiple things coming together which will all share topics, technology, and processes. A comprehensive plan will help break down siloes, speed workflows, and ensure accuracy over time.

How you Create, Publish, and Manage this information determines whether your docs are assets or liabilities. It affects your support costs, credibility with franchisees, level of effort to maintain, technology costs, and – ultimately – your ability to grow. So here are the…

Top 5 Must-Have Best Practices for Your Franchise Library.

A Plan

Operations manuals are written as the basic training guide for franchisees and their employees, but also important compliance documentation. Targeted information speaks to specialized teams – marketing, finance; or FOH/BOH – and are also used for reference in the field. They might even have different channels. You have multiple things coming together which will all share topics, technology, and processes. A comprehensive plan will help break down siloes, speed workflows, and ensure accuracy over time.

Single-source Content

If you have multiple audiences, you probably have re-used content. A good example is your company’s version of a Logo (or Marketing) Approval Process, where franchisees cannot create their own ads without them being approved. This is almost always part of the Operations Manual. But it’s also a part of the Marketing Toolkit, and if you have a Grand Opening Playbook, part of that, too.

Best practice is to use a content management system (CMS) or learning management system (LMS) to “write once, publish everywhere.” Failing that, one document should be authoritative for the topic.

Static content is not static. Plan for change and growth.

Create an Editorial Calendar

Change is constant, and growth is expected. And while recipe guides and vendor lists may change often, things like ordering and cleaning checklists in the Operations Manual are more stable. An editorial calendar helps you keep track of when topics were last updated, who owns them, and where they live. They also help you plan your communication to franchisees, since too much change all at once creates a flood of information that can be avoided by spreading the task of information updates over the course of a year.

Appoint a Librarian

Every topic has an expert. Every playbook, guide, and manual should have an owner. Now you need a Librarian, someone who knows where each topic is listed, manages the editorial calendar, and is familiar with all of the publishing technology (fileshares, intranet, website) so they can affect how new items are created and old items archived.

Governance

No one likes rules, but rules exist for a reason. Rules improve consistency of message and brand, make things easier to archive and find, and prevent accuracy erosion and conflicting messages. Governance doesn’t mean rules for the sake of rules, it means standards and procedures for your content (styleguide, naming convention, metadata, archival). And it may seem counter to conventional wisdom, but these processes actually speed time to publication by improving work and approval flow. 

A comprehensive plan – along with solid governance – will help break down siloes, speed workflows, and ensure accuracy over time.

Adding a sixth item in, because it’s the overall principle that brings things together: managing content is a process, not a task. It’s an ecosystem that involves Creation, Publication, and Management of all of your assets so they don’t become liabilities, and each affects the others. Consider your assets holistically before creating anything new, or purchasing new technology.

About Manual Makers

Manual Makers is a content and knowledge management agency with experienced advisors who help guide our clients through the process of documenting their knowledge. We work with emerging and established brands to remove barriers to growth. We love to talk to people about their franchise operations, and consultations are always free.