You put a lot of time and effort into coaching your franchisees. You go beyond coaching for performance – you look out for them. But do you have the tools and preparedness to support their mental health? Doing so could make all the difference.

Listen to this section from our recent webinar ‘How to Create Franchising Joy‘ with Jen Chapman-Boffin, or read the summary underneath. Thoughts and comments all welcome!

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Jen: Mental health interventions are not a one-off. Generally, when you’re investing in mental health and wellbeing, these are skills you’ll use both in and out of business.

It can be difficult as a franchisor to identify whether people just have a bad attitude or are suffering from poor mental health. Sometimes when people are being difficult, it is because of a mental health challenge. But it’s also so important that people don’t use poor mental health as a blanket excuse. Because what happens then it diminishes the significance when someone is genuinely struggling. So there’s a grey area because we can’t necessarily see anxiety or depression on an X-ray, like you might for a broken bone.

There is still some scepticism around mental health because there are people who do use it in a blasé way. That makes it tricky when people do need support because the reality is that everyone is human.

From a franchisor’s point of view, if you know that you’ve provided these tools, whether it’s training or on-demand, at least if you’re providing that to your network to use. It’s then up to them whether they use it, just like other business tools in a franchise.

Rob: You can’t just bolt it on as an add-on. Mental health must be built on the foundation of a solid relationship that has had its foundations laid from the start.

Jen: Yes, we call it creating a psychologically safe culture, where it’s part of general conversation. When it’s asked, it’s asked genuinely, not just – “so how are things going?” I’ve also been a franchisee before. I know from having those one-to-one support conversations that the order of the questions matters. Do you genuinely ask how someone is before enquiring about their sales and financial goals?

Graeme: Another point to note is that this entire process should begin in the recruitment phase. This goes to the heart of genuinely awarding a franchise opportunity to the right people. We’ve touched on Angela Duckworth and the research that sits behind grit and resilience. Even now, we could begin assessing grit and resilience during the recruitment process. There are some people who are probably much more prone to issues related to grit and resilience that we could identify with a straightforward assessment at the outset.

Rob: This does happen in employment settings. This is why people conduct assessment days and similar events.

Graeme: Yeah, exactly. But this goes to the heart of franchise recruitment done well. Again, there are many amazing, well-intentioned franchisors, but if you’re at the beginning of a franchising journey, you may be transitioning from having built a successful business to deciding on franchising as a growth strategy. If you don’t know what you don’t know, you will make assumptions about what good franchising should look like. Of course, people should be signposted to the British Franchise Association and all the support networks available for responsible, ethical franchising. However, there are support measures you can put in place to proactively prevent some of the mental health issues we’re discussing.

Jen: Asking those questions as part of the recruitment process is important, but don’t base your decision on it. So, if someone comes out as having low grit and resilience, that’s not a reason not to award a franchise, because resilience is actually a skill that can be taught and learned, like most skills. Sometimes people just aren’t resilient because they’ve never needed to be. Perhaps they’ve lived a particularly fortunate life, where they haven’t faced a time when they had to be particularly resilient. Actually, it’s a skill that can be learned.

Rob: I think all humans are resilient. Some of us just need more support, and maybe can’t battle through the wilderness by ourselves, and that’s fine.

Jen: Yeah, and even know they have it in them to do it. So do the assessment, but to identify specific ways an individual might face challenges and need support. Try to identify what coping mechanisms they either already have or need building.

Graeme: Completely agree.

Rob: Do you ever use things like Kolbe assessments?

Graeme: One of the most important aspects of the franchisee onboarding process is some form of behavioural assessment, whether that involves using DISC profiles or Insights profiles, or another method. To Jen’s point, it’s not about good or bad – it’s just about understanding. For example, some of those assessments will include things like how you’re likely to behave when under stress. So again, it’s about knowing what that individual needs and what they’re likely to need in those scenarios. So yes, there are plenty of tools out there, but for me it starts with mindset. Some franchisors have a goal to simply sell as many franchise units as possible, regardless of the specifics. In my experience, having experienced that right in the beginning of my career, it creates a joyless business.

I was in the firing line of providing crisis management at the beginning of my franchising career. When that includes people either being physically or mentally impacted by these things, and in the worst-case scenarios, losing everything, that’s not where anybody wants to be. It’s also not what great franchising is about. So the more we can do up front, the better.

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