5 Steps to Turn Your Unit Managers into Problem Solvers
Jan 21, 2025
There are over 800,000 franchise units in the United States from various industries, and most of them generate between $500,000 and $1.5 million of revenue a year. These units are commonly led and in charge or a Unit Manager who may or may not have been properly trained to run a business. This is critical because businesses produce problems all the time, every day. That’s why one of the skills that these unit leaders must have is to become problem solvers.
- How can your Franchise Managers learn to solve problems proactively, and how can you help them acquire this ability?
These are five steps to turn your managers into effective problem solvers, transforming them into troubleshooting experts. It’s worth the effort! You can set the stage for a future in which they can confidently handle issues by themselves, reducing the need for your intervention every time a challenge comes up.
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1. Clearly determine what are their responsibilities
Some unit managers may not be clear about what they have to do every day. Are they aware that studying, analyzing, and improving labor costs is one of their direct responsibilities? It might be obvious to you, but maybe not to them.
So, you must sit down with them and explain in detail their role and the responsibilities, routines, goals, and objectives they should focus on every day. This will prevent ambiguity, which leads to inefficiency, confusion, and inaction.
Pro Tip: Write the job description for the Unit Manager position and include the operational responsibilities, goals, and expectations for this leadership role within your organization.
2. Define their KPIs
The next step in helping your franchise unit managers become problem solvers is to define what key performance indicators (KPIs) they must own and manage well enough to produce the expected business results you want from them. The most common for this position are sales targets, labor costs, and customer satisfaction.
- Of course, these should be proper, achievable targets for your industry and business and as specific as possible.
For example, “your sales need to be 2.5 % up over last year as a minimum”, or “your labor cost should be no more than 25%”, or “your Cost of Goods (COGs) should be between 30 and 31%”.
If you define these measurable goals, your managers will know what they should work on, what they need to accomplish, and whether they're close to the target or not. Consequently, they'll be more likely to hit the objectives you set for them.
Pro Tip: Remember to have some sort of accountability through a dashboard or reports so they can monitor these KPIs, track their progress, and see where they are compared to where you want them to be.
3. Develop a troubleshooting guide
You must create a troubleshooting guide to turn your managers into problem solvers. This guide will serve as a framework for the specific actions that managers, assistant managers, and team members can take to affect a particular KPI positively.
For example, if labor cost is off by 2%, this troubleshooting guide should include things like:
- Look at your hourly sales.
- Analyze if your employees are clocking in and out based on the schedule you produced.
- Can you adjust on a daily basis if the volume is up or down compared to what you projected?
A unit manager can take a very finite number of actions in each KPI to achieve the expected results. But how will they know what those are unless you have them documented and defined?
Pro Tip: If you already have some sort of a guide, make sure that it's as complete and robust as it needs to be and that it adapts to your franchise's unique challenges. That way, your managers will have everything and all the knowledge they need to improve the business.
Must read: #1 Way To Increase Profitability in your Franchise
4. Train your franchise unit managers and assistant managers
This next step is directly linked to the troubleshooting guide because once you create this document, it is critical that you train your managers on each and every one of the KPIs and the actions they must take to have the results you expect.
- The troubleshooting guide will give your leaders a list of things to pay attention to, but they need training to do it correctly.
How can you train them? In many different ways. You can do a group workshop if you identify opportunities across many units. Or you might do one-on-one training through the District Managers. You can also do videos of these trainings, especially if the actions imply a step-by-step process or a specific way of doing a task that requires visual aid. Either way, training on how to use a troubleshooting guide will be critical for them to implement the actions correctly.
Pro Tip: As mentioned before, we train Unit Managers to help them identify opportunities, produce immediate results, and achieve their business goals. To learn how we do this, discover our MANAGE program here.
5. Turn every opportunity into a troubleshooting exercise
The fifth step in helping your managers become problem solvers is to turn every problem or challenge they have to address into a troubleshooting exercise. Sometimes, troubleshooting doesn't come naturally to managers who are not trained in it, but practice makes perfect!
If you identify any opportunity during your weekly meetings with the managers or the dashboard and the profit and loss statement reviews, pull out the troubleshooting guide and go through the steps to determine which critical driver affects that opportunity.
- If you do this consistently, the managers will gradually become more comfortable with the process and eventually be able to do it themselves. They will also produce the results you want in your organization!
Pro Tip: Teach them how to uncover the root causes by asking "why" multiple times and explaining how things and numbers work. That way, you'll make that knowledge and understanding much more richer for them.
These steps I shared will not only turn your managers into problem solvers. Empowering them with this knowledge will elevate their professionalism, build a culture of excellence, and make them feel more confident about themselves and more loyal to you and your organization. Plus, they will help you grow and expand so you can transform your business into a legacy for you and your future.
If you want support in achieving your business goals, the American Franchise Academy is your best ally! We can help you as a franchisee and offer great training programs for your Unit Managers and District Managers, giving them the knowledge, tools, and resources to be successful and help you achieve your New Year's Resolutions.
Reflections:
- How much do you trust your unit managers to solve problems by themselves without your intervention?
- Are you and your leaders aware of the critical drivers that change your KPIs into better numbers?
- How can you elevate your unit leaders so they become excellent at their jobs?
- Can you easily identify opportunities for improvement in your profit & loss statement?
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