New Nurse Next Door franchisees begin a 12 week Foundations Training program designed to take a deeper look at every aspect of the business before they open their doors. 

The Foundations Training is a week by week program that steps each franchise partner through all the areas of the business, covering operations, business necessities, people and culture, brand knowledge, sales and marketing. 

Nurse Next Door training 

Partner Immersion Week is one of the most important elements of this training program; it allows franchisees to use the systems and see the theory in practice.  

Co-CEO Amber Biesse explains.

“From heading out on the road with one of our Care Designers to visit clients and shadow a Caring Consult, to sitting in on a finance meeting with the Melbourne Team or experiencing Discovery Day training for new Caregivers, it really is a true immersion experience.”

Franchisees usually participate in Immersion week midway through the Foundations training program. This leads into the Countdown to Launch element which maps out on a calendar the final training steps to become operational.

Like most Nurse Next Door franchisees, Southern Gold Coast franchisee Lauren Macdonald and her husband Glen Parsons have no medical experience.

What they do bring are valuable skills in other areas, says Amber.

“Lauren brings customer service skills and understanding of the importance of what we call a WOW customer experience, as well as her passion for making a difference in the lives of vulnerable people.

“Glen brings invaluable knowledge as an HR specialist because recruitment and retention play an enormous role for every franchisee. Their strengths complement each other and provide them with a strong set of skills to seek out and develop an exceptional team of nurses, caregivers and support staff.”

Lauren recently took part in the training program and visited the Melbourne head office five weeks into the learning schedule.

Franchisee Lauren Macdonald was nervous about the numbers

“The most important aspect to convey during Partner Immersion Week is what we refer to as our “One Best Way”, our proprietary way of doing things, which differentiates us from our competitors,” says Amber. 

“Everything is clearly articulated in the Nurse Next Door operations manual and underpins every single thing we do.  The operations manual really is the ‘How’ behind the ‘Why’ and enables us to produce extraordinary results over and over.

“I’m so proud to stand behind the Nurse Next Door systems. These are systems that have been developed over years of research, practice and refinement. Systems that I continue to trial and test in real time, through our corporately-owned franchise location, to ensure each and every process is working as hard as our franchise partners.

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure, so for me, it’s not only about showing our franchise partners the systems we use to run the business, but also taking a deep dive into the numbers, so that each new partner understands why the business metrics are important and as a system, which ones we monitor for business health to maximise growth and profitability.”

Lauren has an airline industry background and spent time at home with her children, and numbers had never been part of her life. Understandably she was nervous about the financial aspect of the business. 

Amber says the team at Nurse Next Door, including performance coaches, work hard to ensure that the every franchise partner feels comfortable with this side of the business.

“It’s about explaining the numbers in a way that breaks them down and makes them so easy to understand that even those who consider themselves “not a numbers person” will walk away excited about the prospect of collecting and analysing data, interested in learning more,” she says.

The immersion process delivered on this, Lauren says.  “Amber has shown me the data behind the systems and it has literally been so many ‘aha’ moments.”

Partner Immersion Week brought all the pieces of the puzzle together, she says.

And that’s why the format is so successful as a starting point for newbie franchisees, Amber points out.

“All of Lauren’s concerns about her time out of the work force and  perhaps not having enough experience, fell away. The aim of the 12 week Foundations Training Program is to give franchisees the confidence and inspiration to head back home and “get the doors open”, says Amber.

“And above all, to be able to show Lauren, and any future franchise partners, that we have brought them into the system because we believe in them and that they have what it takes to follow our systems to build a successful Nurse Next Door business and, most importantly, that we are all better together.”