Crumbl Cookies franchise owner Christian Bankhead struggled to keep applicants engaged through the hiring process. Between initial screenings and interviews, he estimated only 5% of applicants returned to complete the hiring cycle. He also lost up to 75% of new employees before they ever started, and retention remained a major hurdle. Managing recruiting, hiring, and onboarding across six locations with multiple tools created delays and confusion, including requiring new hires to download seven different apps. He implemented an all-in-one HR platform to centralize recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and employee access to key information. The rollout replaced multiple disconnected systems with one employee-facing app for workers and managers. Interview scheduling became automated by allowing applicants to choose from an open schedule without back-and-forth coordination. The platform also streamlined hiring-to-onboarding so his team could bring people on quickly when weekly staffing demands changed. The changes shortened the total hiring cycle from about three weeks to one week, which improved hiring speed and reduced drop-off. Time spent hiring across all six locations fell from 15 hours per week to five. Consolidating seven apps into one simplified the employee experience and reduced administrative friction for managers. Faster turnaround also helped him extend offers more quickly than competitors when candidates were considering multiple jobs.

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Jimmy John’s 12-location franchise group relied on manual, paper-based hiring and onboarding that created piles of paperwork and frequent delays. The executive VP and her team spent several hours each week on hiring-related tasks, while area managers and GMs also spent time auditing work. Without an online application method, every form had to be completed by hand, and missing information pushed back start dates. The group digitized hiring and onboarding with a platform designed for hourly hiring. Managers adopted text-to-apply so candidates could apply via text message and get responses without coming into the store. New hires completed onboarding paperwork on their phones, replacing the prior manual packet process. The rollout required about a day to prepare documents and about a day to train everyone. The change reduced time spent on weekly hiring tasks from four hours to as little as 30 minutes. The 25-page manual paperwork process for onboarding was eliminated in favor of digital documents and signatures. Managers spent more time on in-store work instead of payroll and HR items, and the team improved responsiveness to job seekers.

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Culver’s needed to hire quickly across restaurant locations, but its process slowed decisions and made it harder to keep hiring moving. Candidate screening and scheduling added friction and extended the time it took to make hiring decisions. The organization wanted a faster, more efficient way to move applicants through the funnel. Culver’s implemented VoiceAI technology in its hiring process. The AI-powered voice solution streamlined candidate screening. It also handled scheduling to keep candidates progressing without delays. This made it easier for restaurant locations to manage applicants and coordinate next steps. The implementation dramatically accelerated hiring. Culver’s reduced time to hire by 3x. Streamlined screening and scheduling enabled faster hiring decisions across restaurant locations. Overall, the process became more efficient for both hiring teams and candidates.

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Low applicant volume made hiring feel impossible for a franchisee staffing 14 restaurants. Free job sites often delivered fewer than 20 applicants per month, while paid postings became expensive, costing up to tens of thousands of dollars a month. With so few applications, hiring managers missed notifications and potentially strong candidates. A long, form-heavy application process also deterred younger applicants, and phone follow-ups often led to ghosting before interviews. The franchise implemented digital hiring processes with automated workflows to streamline hiring for both applicants and managers. Job postings were managed across multiple sites from a single dashboard, with the ability to sponsor posts from the same system. Candidate communication shifted to text-based outreach through the application link to improve response rates and simplify follow-ups. Interview scheduling was automated so applicants could book interviews via text based on manager availability. The franchise saw a 500% increase in applicant volume, improving the chances of hiring quality workers. Sourcing became less time-consuming as managers consolidated posting management in one place. Automated interview scheduling helped more applicants come in for interviews than before, especially among younger candidates who preferred texting. Hiring managers saved time on phone calls and securing applicants, allowing more focus on the applicant and employee experience.

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Viking Restaurants, a Burger King franchise group, struggled to get enough applicants to staff its 26+ restaurants across Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota. One location had not been fully staffed for almost two and a half years. Over a 12-month period, that restaurant received only 40 applications, and not all were qualified. Scheduling interviews also took too much time because applicants often did not answer calls or could not align on times, which contributed to poor customer service. The team implemented a customized, mobile-friendly application experience and enabled candidates to complete applications on their phones. They also introduced self-scheduling so applicants could pick interview times that worked for them. Managers set available interview windows so they knew exactly when interviews were coming and could be organized. Real-time text notifications alerted managers whenever someone applied, supporting faster follow-up. The franchise group completed 10x more interviews on average after the changes. Interview completion rates increased 10x, helping managers connect with more candidates. Manager response times became almost immediate due to text alerts, improving the applicant experience at the start. The shift also reduced time spent calling applicants and coordinating schedules, which the Director of Operations described as a financial savings.

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Bojangles faced time-consuming workforce management across its restaurant operations. Manual scheduling required significant effort to build and adjust shift assignments. This created an ongoing administrative burden for the team. Bojangles implemented an AI-powered scheduling system to improve how shifts were assigned. The scheduling capabilities were used to optimize shift coverage across locations. This reduced the need for manual schedule creation and updates. Bojangles saved 33 hours in workforce management. Shift assignments were optimized through intelligent scheduling. Manual scheduling effort was reduced across restaurant operations.

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Restaurant Management Corporation’s 14-location Hardee’s franchise struggled to keep stores fully staffed due to manual hiring processes. General managers spent too much time sifting through unqualified applications and still couldn’t close staffing gaps. Interview scheduling required time-consuming back-and-forth, and applicants often waited days to be contacted. By the time interviews were set, some candidates had already moved on. The team implemented an HR platform that streamlined recruiting, interview scheduling, and onboarding across locations. Applicants were able to self-schedule interviews based on hiring manager availability. Text-based communication simplified follow-ups and reduced delays in coordinating with candidates. General managers also centralized employment forms and documents in one place and used a mobile app to manage hiring tasks more efficiently. The franchise reduced average time to fill open positions from two weeks to three days. This change represented a 78% faster hiring process and helped maintain a steady flow of applications. General managers reduced weekly recruiting and onboarding time from 10+ hours to 2–3 hours. As a result, staffing up became less stressful and stores stayed fully staffed and running smoothly.

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Georgia Foods, a 41-location Bojangles franchisee, faced hiring challenges and operational inefficiencies across its restaurants. Some locations averaged only 2–3 applications per month, which made it difficult to keep stores staffed while the business grew and acquired new locations. Job postings and applications on employment sites were managed manually, pulling time away from training and developing crew members. Leaders questioned whether they lacked job seekers or simply weren’t reaching them effectively. The team implemented a more user-friendly hiring platform to simplify hiring for both applicants and managers. Candidates used text-to-apply and completed applications on their phones instead of relying on in-person paper applications. The onboarding process was streamlined by reducing duplicate data entry, so information was captured once and reused. The operations team also used pre-hire and post-hire data to organize retention monitoring at 30, 60, and 90 days. Within 60 days, previously struggling locations averaged 30–40 applications per month, with increases of as much as 1400%. Application-to-onboarding time dropped from about 20 minutes per candidate to approximately 1 minute. The organization supported hiring at an average of 50 hires per week across all 41 locations. Hiring leaders reported they could get someone in the door within an hour after an interview, helping keep restaurants fully staffed.

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Firehouse Subs faced slow employee onboarding that kept new hires from getting work-ready quickly. Traditional onboarding methods made it harder to complete required paperwork and training efficiently. The company needed a faster, more streamlined way to prepare new employees to start working. Firehouse Subs implemented a digital onboarding platform to move onboarding steps online. The solution streamlined how new hires completed paperwork and training modules. This made the overall onboarding process more efficient and easier to complete. Firehouse Subs achieved 5x faster employee onboarding times. New hires completed paperwork and training modules more efficiently than with traditional methods. As a result, employees were ready for work faster.

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OM Group, a Dunkin’ franchisee, was losing applicants to competitors because its hiring process was slow and manual. In the context of an ongoing labor shortage and high turnover, the team needed a more efficient way to recruit, interview, and hire hourly workers. The process required extensive manual resume sifting and interview coordination, often handled by a single person. Applicants frequently waited too long for responses and moved on to other opportunities. OM Group implemented an hourly hiring platform that automated key recruiting and scheduling tasks. The team posted roles across multiple job boards at once and used mobile-friendly text-to-apply and QR-code posters to attract candidates in-store. They customized applications by role to test and optimize the questions asked for different positions. They also shifted applicant communication to text and enabled candidates to self-schedule interviews based on manager availability. The new process helped speed up hiring and improve the applicant experience across the organization’s Dunkin’ footprint. Automation freed up leadership to support locations more effectively while empowering restaurant managers to take a more active role in hiring. Text-based engagement produced faster responses and improved interview turnout among younger applicants. Interview ghosting decreased once candidates could schedule interviews themselves via text.

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BCS Northern, a Smoothie King franchisee, struggled to reach and communicate with job applicants across its 30 locations. When recruiters got busy or meetings interrupted outreach, interviews were delayed. Applicants often felt ignored and ghosted interviews. The team’s phone-and-email process made timely, two-way communication difficult. They implemented an automated hiring approach with two-way messaging to keep candidates engaged from application to interview to offer. Ann Miller and the recruiting team used a mix of automated and personal messages at critical touch points. They also posted jobs to several job boards simultaneously, replacing a manual process that required copying and pasting ads up to 15 times. The platform supported ongoing adjustments to the application steps and improved collaboration among recruiters and hiring managers. They reduced time spent on hiring tasks by 80%, cutting weekly hiring administration from 15 hours to 3 hours. The improved communication helped keep applicants engaged throughout the process. The multi-board posting expanded reach to support ongoing hourly hiring needs. The team averaged 100 hires each month while managing a workforce of over 350 hourly employees.

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