These award-winning franchise brands are showing off their grand efforts in franchisee training and support
By Hannah Foulger
Every year at the Canadian Franchise Association Annual Convention, two outstanding franchise systems take home the Award of Excellence Grand Prize in the traditional and non-traditional franchise categories. These distinctions are awarded based on the franchisees’ own input, demonstrating the ways these systems go above and beyond in supporting their franchise owners as they develop successful businesses in a changing consumer landscape.
Grand Prize – Traditional Franchise
Oxford Learning Centres
Oxford Learning Centres, a longtime part of Canada’s franchise landscape, has burst through to win the Grand Prize this year thanks to the brand’s culture of transparency and mentorship.
By focusing on the cognitive elements of learning and the way they engage with material across all subjects, Oxford’s system and teachers are able to hone in and build skills that are applicable across a full range of disciplines. Students are cognitively assessed at the start of their program, which is used to develop a learning profile. By focusing on core cognitive skills, teachers help their students improve in specific subject areas like math, science, language, and more.
Founded in London, Ontario in 1984, Oxford Learning Centres has grown through their unique educational approach to 143 locations across Canada.
“What’s unique about our program is that we get to the root cause,” Josh Cadoch, president of Oxford Learning Centres says. “We teach children how to learn. We are very much a human-centric brand. We believe that students learn best when they are working pencil to paper and sitting in front of another human who is engaging in dialogue with them in a Socratic style, asking them questions about what they’re learning, having the student explain to the teacher what they’ve just learned. That interaction is essential.”
Oxford’s “Human Imperative” is a guiding principle as they work towards moments of brilliance from their students. Oxford wants parents and customers to feel a genuine human connection with the franchisees—who also feel connected to their franchisor.
This prize signals that there’s “a real relationship of trust that’s been built between franchisors and franchisees, and it’s validating of the direction that we’re heading in, because, all these awards that we won were based off of direct feedback from the franchisees,” Cadoch says. “Everything from our direction to their own success in their centers, and you know the brand promise, all those things are aligned. That’s what winning that award tells us. Franchisees feel supported, happy, and proud. As you get bigger as an organization it’s hard to reach alignment and appease franchisees. The fact that we won in the largest category means we have that alignment.” Cadoch adds, “We just want to make sure that as we grow and scale towards 200 franchises, we are maintaining those same systems that got us here.”
This franchise system is constantly refining its tools, practices, and training. With each new franchisee training, they do a “postmortem” to see what makes their training most effective, and where might they improve. As an education company, this self-reflection is part of that human-centric concern that makes Oxford Learning Centres so special. In a time where technology in education is rapidly expanding, and the focus is on screen-based learning, Oxford Learning Centres has not and does not plan to teach students through AI, but they continue to grow and evolve their systems by employing this human-centric approach.
When they roll out new systems, they communicate the how, the why, and the when of these new tools. “We try to facilitate a culture of mutual mentorship and collaboration,” Cadoch says.
Oxford holds regular monthly webinars and regional events for franchisees to gather, and for veteran franchisees to take a mentorship role with the newer owners. Through this culture of mentorship and collaboration, they’ve earned their Grand Prize Award.
GRAND PRIZE WINNER – Non-Traditional Franchise
PAUL DAVIS RESTORATION
Founded in 1966s in Florida by Paul Davis himself, Paul Davis Restoration is proudly celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. With 370 stores in North America—including 65 in Canada, where it’s been operating since 1985—this property restoration franchise offers 24/7 emergency service and a 30-minute response window for commercial and residential properties.
The brand’s franchises have access to unique contracts with insurance companies across the continent, and working under the national banner allows streamlined access to work approved by the insurance companies. As a partner with the Red Cross, Paul Davis Restoration franchises can access job sites quickly after emergency services leave as well.
“This is a tough job, but very rewarding from the financial and from the emotional side as well,” Andrew Horton, director of franchise development says. Ninety per cent of their jobs are due to everyday wear and tear. However, with the increase of major weather events, Paul Davis runs specific training and a Catastrophe (CAT) Response Team. When a major weather event affects a community, separate franchisees mobilize to send equipment and workers to that site to support insurance companies and property owners.
Paul Davis Restoration has also placed an emphasis on sustainability, which is an area of interest for insurance companies, in response to the increase of major weather events. Franchisees try to save and restore as much as possible, and they separate the refuse material to maximalize recycling.
“Instead of ripping up the whole drywall, you can put holes in the bottom baseboard and dry it in place, which has a high success ratio,” Horton says. “Those are the things we train our owners on, and we work with them to make sure they are environmentally aware of our footprint in the restoration world.”
While AI will be speeding up some of the process of booking jobs and identifying how certain items may be repaired, restoration remains a manual business. “The technology is making the work easier and more efficient, but it is not removing jobs,” Horton explains.
Paul Davis Restoration keeps up to date on the ways in which technology is evolving to increase safety and efficiency. This acts as an information conduit for their franchisees to keep them apprised on the development of technology that can assist restoration specialists.
This technological adeptness isn’t the only reason that Paul Davis has won the Grand Prize. They understand that restoration is a holistic business that requires collaboration and emotional support, as operators are often supporting customers in crisis situations.
“This is a very emotional job. You show up at someone’s house, all their pictures, a lot of their memories are flooded. We are trying to get people back to the lives they had before,” Horton says. “How do we move forward with a homeowner? We support them, keep them engaged, show them our service basics, our mission, and value. It’s a good day when you [return] the keys back to them and say things are done.”
With over 2,000 training hours and the resources on the brand’s training hub, franchise owners are prepared on everything from accounting to software training, as well as the emotional aspects of the job. As a democratic franchising system, owners get a say in the future of the company and how this training evolves. At the yearly franchise conferences, new ideas are put forth and voted on by the collective of franchise owners. These franchisees feel strongly enough to put Paul Davis at the forefront of non-traditional franchises at this year’s CFA Awards Program.
