How businesses in China can turn operating experience into a practical franchise operations manual

Running company-owned outlets smoothly does not mean that their operating know-how is ready to be passed on to franchisees. Many essential practices still reside in experienced employees’ habits: when to carry out checks, whom to contact when something goes wrong, and what counts as a completed task. Before opening up to franchising, a business needs to turn this unwritten knowledge into an operations manual that outlet staff can navigate, understand and use in practice, giving the franchise network a shared basis for its work.

1. Distinguish legal obligations from the manual’s purpose

Article 14 of China’s Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Franchising expressly requires franchisors to provide franchisees with a franchise operations manual and to continue providing operational guidance, technical support and business training in the agreed scope and manner. Handing over a document is no substitute for ongoing support.

Article 6 of the Measures for the Administration of Commercial Franchise Filing requires the submission of the manual’s table of contents, stating the number of pages in each chapter and the total page count. Where the manual is provided through the franchise system’s internal network, an estimated printed page count must also be supplied. The requirement to include a table of contents in the filing documents does not mean that a business can prepare only a contents list without producing a usable manual.

The manual’s role is to explain how work should be done, not to create contractual obligations on its own. Article 11 of the Regulations on the Administration of Commercial Franchising requires the written contract to cover key matters including support services, quality standards and quality assurance measures. Before drafting, therefore, map each contractual commitment to the relevant manual section. The manual must not omit services promised in the contract, and matters such as new charges or shifts in responsibility cannot be dealt with simply by adding a sentence to the manual.

2. Organise around role-specific tasks, not head-office departments

Asking finance, operations and procurement to submit their policies separately usually produces a document pack that is convenient for head office to file, but not necessarily useful for outlet staff. A more practical approach is to build a task index around a typical day at the outlet, then identify the role responsible for each task.

For example, the main sections could cover pre-opening preparation, handovers during trading hours, closing procedures and non-routine matters. Managers can then go straight to their responsibilities, while staff do not need to understand the head-office organisational structure first.

Use a consistent template for each task:

• Trigger: When the task must be carried out, and whether it is triggered by a time, an event or a system notification.
• Responsible roles: Who performs the task, who checks it, and who takes over if the designated person is absent.
• Procedure: The actions, tools and required inputs, set out in the order they are needed on site.
• Completion criteria: What constitutes an acceptable result, and what circumstances require staff to stop or escalate the matter.
• Record-keeping: Which form to use, whom to submit it to and where to store it.

Do not simply write ‘carry out pre-opening checks properly’. Specify what must be checked, the criteria to check against, the route for reporting problems and who is authorised to confirm completion. Matters involving licensing or safety requirements should be reviewed by the relevant person responsible; established outlet practices must not automatically be treated as compliance standards.

3. Gather evidence on site, then test independent execution

Writers should shadow staff performing complete tasks, recording the tools they use, the basis for their decisions and the questions that commonly arise, rather than relying solely on interviews with management. When employees say ‘it depends on the situation’, ask further questions: which circumstances matter, how do they assess them, and whom do they contact when a decision exceeds their authority?

Once the draft is ready, select people who were not involved in writing it but have the basic qualifications required for the role. Under appropriate supervision, ask them to complete the task using only the manual’s instructions. For activities involving safety or consumer rights, retain the necessary oversight and stopping criteria. Safeguards must not be removed for the sake of testing.

The focus should not be on how much employees remember, but on whether the document is clear enough:

• Can they quickly find the relevant task, rather than searching several documents and guessing the answer?
• Are there steps where they cannot proceed without an experienced employee’s verbal explanation?
• Do different people interpret the same completion criteria differently?
• Do the supporting forms ask for information that is unavailable on site?

Record every verbal clarification as a point for review. First establish whether the problem is missing text, an impractical process or a gap in the employee’s basic skills. Then decide whether to revise the manual or provide additional guidance. Do not use increasingly lengthy explanations to disguise a process that cannot actually be carried out.

4. Deliver a complete toolkit and maintain verifiable version records

A usable package should include the task instructions, supporting forms, necessary examples and a quick-reference index. Attachments referenced in the text must be accessible, and images should show key actions rather than serve merely as decoration. For matters that only head office can handle, identify the role to contact and the information to submit, so that outlet staff are not left wondering what to do after being told simply to ‘contact head office’.

Whether supplied on paper or electronically, the manual should clearly state its version number, publication date, applicable outlet types and document owner. Keep a delivery checklist and acknowledgement records showing which sections and attachments the franchisee received. Where an online system is used, check that the account has working access to read the documents; sending a link is not enough.

Before publication, cross-check the manual against the contract, training materials and tools actually available at the outlets. For example, if the manual requires staff to complete a particular form, that form must already have been supplied. If it requires a system function, that function should be available at the outlets concerned. Archive superseded documents separately from the access point for current procedures to prevent staff from using them by mistake.

Practical starting point: Choose one frequently performed outlet task with a clearly defined scope, and take it through the full cycle of observation, drafting, independent execution, revision and delivery before expanding the approach to the whole manual. Judge whether the manual is complete not by its page count, but by whether outlet staff can use it to do the job correctly.