HOA Brands

Powering Learning & Development Across a Global Franchise

HOA Brands is the parent company and franchisor of the iconic Hooters and its fast-casual concept, Hoots Wings restaurants. The company oversees over 350 Hooters restaurants across the US and 28
other countries.

HOA Brands provides access to a variety of learning programs to Franchisees, focused on exceeding expectations when delivering against Brand standards. With over 10,000 corporate users and nearly 3,000 franchise users, the learning and development (L&D) team needed a flexible learning management system (LMS) that could be configured to accommodate its complex business model yet simple and intuitive so all users could get started with training right away.

“One brand with one voice” team member training

A top priority for the HOA Brands L&D team is to ensure training is standardized across each Hooters location so guests have a great experience no matter which restaurant they visit.As the parent company, HOA Brands has a responsibility to provide consistent, state-of-the-art learning programs to all within the brand. They sought a user-friendly LMS to serve as a gateway for franchisees to access all learning programs, as their previous platform was difficult to use and confusing.

HOA Brands selected Schoox to power eCompass, their central hub for all learning and communication across their global extended enterprise.

Intuitive and engaging learning experiences for frontline team members.

As a restaurant operation with domestic and international locations, thousands of Team Members cycle through the HOA Brands system each year. Since turnover is a significant and ongoing challenge for any service-based business, the HOA Brands L&D team strives to deliver modern training experiences that make a positive first impression, prepare people for success, and keep them curious and engaged throughout the Team Member lifecycle.

Through eCompass, all Team Members can access content and features relevant to their role in the business. At the same time, more classified training programs are safeguarded and restricted to authorized users—such as leadership development courses exclusively for those in roles higher than store level leaders.

“Our focus is to get the right people in the door and engage them with modernized learning experiences,” shared Cole. “We’ve got to train people so they’re competent and confident, but do it in a way that doesn’t frustrate today’s workforce because they’ll turn around and go on to the next company.”

Mobile-first learning for wherever work happens

The L&D team worked with their CIO and multiple subject matter experts to select a new LMS. Mobile capabilities were a primary consideration for all members of the group. The organization needed an LMS intentionally designed for mobile-first learning experiences. The rich functionality of the native Schoox mobile app and the flexibility to customize it to reflect the Hooters iconic brand was ultimately a major reason the company selected Schoox.

Schoox is the only LMS to offer a comprehensive, feature-rich native mobile app for iOS and Android at no additional cost. The app gives learners full access to training content and resources whenever needed, within their workflows, on their own devices. It eliminates accessibility issues for deskless workers and can even be translated into 32 different languages, making it a perfect fit for a global organization.

Career development at the heart of company culture.

HOA Brands considers talent development a critical part of its “unique L&D DNA.” The goal of Hooters L&D is to equip all Team Members with the skills to thrive within the brand, whether it’s progressing within the organization or achieving success outside of it. This way, Hooters contributes to their Career Journey no matter where they go in life. They accomplish the objective of providing meaningful professional development opportunities for their people by:

• Defining the Vision for the future. This encompasses building and empowering a strong team of L&D professionals, defining Career Journeys available to Team Members, and determining how the organization will measure success for individuals across the business.

• Navigating Next-Generation technology solutions. HOA Brands strives to design and deliver learning experiences that resonate with increasingly younger, more digitally native Team Members. This involves crafting and sharing compelling narratives, modernizing user experiences with better technology, and getting innovative with content—like offering Team Members a digital library of suggested books to read, podcasts to listen to, and eLearnings to engage with all via Schoox.
  
  
• Accelerating Adoption of learning programs to encourage greater participation in learning and development. The L&D team aims to foster alignment between stakeholders and company priorities at the outset of a new initiative, automate data reporting to give managers and operators time to focus on what matters, and sharing program wins to demonstrate impact.

Schoox empowers HOA Brands to provide a personalized learning platform that Team Members across their enterprise want to use from day one and keep using as they grow in their roles. The L&D team carefully designs each Career Journey based on core competencies defined by the organization as necessary for advancement through each role and segmented the learning experiences for each Career Journey via four career milestones: Newly Promoted, In Place, High Potential (HiPo) and Ready Now.

Whether one starts as a Hooters Girl, Heart of House Team Member, manager, or other role, individuals can explore tailored Career Journeys to successfully grow on their path at the company and beyond.

Schoox also allows HOA Brands to go beyond training and learning to performance management and true professional development. The company utilizes Schoox to replace traditional performance management and connect performance reviews back to the overall learning experience, allowing for more personal, dynamic, and valuable feedback for learners.

Tools to measure business impact

With so much investment in L&D, the company knew they needed a learning platform to easily measure and demonstrate the impact of their efforts—and more importantly, the efforts of each learner—on various areas of the business.

HOA Brands leverages Schoox’s business impact tools to assess the effects of different training programs on crucial performance metrics (KPIs) like operational efficiency, sales, and guest satisfaction at specific restaurants or across the entire company. Schoox’s flexible functionalities help the L&D team establish and adjust KPIs for each program, improve the capacity to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of training and enhance future development initiatives.

HOA Brands is eagerly looking to the future and embracing a new generation of Team Members. They are enthusiastic to discover additional ways to utilize Schoox to inspire them to remain engaged, focused on development, and be a proud part of the Hooters family.

Interested in learning how Schoox can help your organization reimagine learning and drive your business forward? Visit our resource hub.