Electronic Communication: Extra Credit

Subway offers optional online courses to reinforce consistency across its vast system.

By Maya Norris, Managing Editor -- Chain Leader, 10/1/2007

While Subway believes there is no substitute for classroom and in-store training, the Milford, Conn.-based QSR is harnessing the global reach of the Internet to supplement its training program for franchisees, managers and hourly employees. The sandwich chain offers optional courses on its Intranet that let employees enhance and refresh the skills they learned during training.

Advanced Education

Subway rolled out its online training component, called the University of Subway, last year to ensure consistency and quality across a system with 28,000 stores in 87 countries. These optional courses are housed on the company’s password-protected Intranet and available to employees for free to use at their convenience. They consist of management courses such as marketing and accounting procedures, Microsoft Office courses, and Subway-specific courses including the history of the brand, bread baking and customer service.

“They’re very interactive,” says Director of Worldwide Training Bonnie Zownir. “They were designed specifically for the 16- to 24-year-old who is used to training or using computers. They have used them in their educational history, or they have used them for gaming. So it’s not a foreign concept to them. I think because the employees are willing to take this kind of training is partially why it is catching on.”

About half of the stores are taking advantage of the optional courses—more than the 10,000 the company had expected would use the online program.

Franchisees use different incentives to encourage their employees to take the online courses. Some offer one-time bonuses, pay raises and prizes such as movie tickets, while others promise their employees opportunities for advancement.

Customer Relations

Although Subway says it’s too early to tell whether the online training has affected sales or turnover, it has seen a 45 percent drop in customer complaints related to untrained employees. The company credits that reduction in part to its online training, which it says helps boost employees’ confidence in their skills and interaction with guests.

“A lot of reason for doing this is to get a consistent message across the Subway universe,” says Public Relations Coordinator Les Winograd. “And anything that we can do to bolster what employees know, giving them a larger frame of reference and being able to back that up with something that they can easily access is extremely important.”

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