New Horizons corporate policy towards their instructors

What follows is a re-creation of a memo from New Horizons founder Mike Brinda to all of the owners of New Horizons franchise locations. Underlining, use of ALL CAPITALS, and spelling errors are recreated exactly from the original memo.

Following the memo is an explanation presented by a New Horizons employee.

My counterpoint follows that explanation.

To: All Franchise Owners
Date: February 2, 1994
Re: Instructor Life Cycle
 
What two things do the following people have in common:
 
Steve Albin
Bill Baker
Al Batinga
Mike Brinda
Joe Devartanian
Carolyn Evans
Stevan Fisher
Marshall Henley
Ed Hyner
Charlott Johnson
John Mercer
Paul Muldoon
Kent North
Vince Rowe
Tom Steele
Bob Villareal
Mark Winburn
 
1. They all started out their employment with New Horizons in Santa Ana as Instructors, but that is not the most important point;
 
2. The other item they all share is the most important: they are no longer Instructors. Why, and what can you learn about Instructor
management from that fact?
 
I'll tell you what I have learned about the Instructor life cycle, but first, take a look at what these former Instructors did after their life
as an Instructor:
 
Steve Albin    Instructor, Operations Manager
Bill Baker    Instructor, Courseware Manager
Al Batinga    Instructor, General Manager, President
Mike Brinda    Instructor, Take your pick
Joe Devartanian    Instructor, Training Manager
Carolyn Evans    Instructor, Training Manager
Stevan Fisher    Instructor, Facilities Manager
Marshall Henley    Instructor, Sales Manager
Ed Hyer    Technician, Instructor, Sales Manager, General Manager
Charlott Johnson    Instructor, Training Mangager
John Mercer    Instructor,  Operations Manager
Paul Muldoon    Instructor, Account Executive, Franchise Support Manager, Vice-President of Franchise Support
Kent North    Instructor, Training Manager, Vice-President of Operations
Vince Rowe    Instructor, Training Manager, Franchise Support Manager
Tom Steele    Instructor, General Manager
Bob Villareal    Instructor, Training Manager, Sales Manager, General Manager
Mark Winburn    Instructor, Training Manager, Sales Manager, Director of Franchise Sales
 
Now, in regards to the above and what it means to the Instructor life cycle and Instructor management, here is an important stat you
should know, and more importantly, manage your instructors by:
 
Only 2 out of 10 Instructors you hire will stay with you past two years, and here's the BIG point, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO FOR
THEM AS INSTRUCTORS.
 
Let me say it again, but differently: 8 out of every 10 Instructors you hire ARE GOING TO QUIT WITHIN TWO YEARS, NO MATTER
WHAT YOU DO FOR THEM AS INSTRUCTORS.
 
When I say "NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO FOR THEM AS INSTRUCTORS" I mean you can:
 
- give them more money
- give them fewer teaching days
- give them more prep days
- give them more time off
- send them to special events like Novell "Brainshare"
- allow them to teach / not teach what they want
- never work them on double shifts, nights or weekends
 
Hear this clearly: doing the above for any Instructor who has been with you about 18 months or less is a grave mistake. It poisons
the culture. Here is the philosophy, which revolves around the old saying, "When you get a lemon, make lemonade". Let's say what
I am telling you is a lemon: would lead to too much Instructor turnover (which is a wrong conclusion). How do we make lemonade?
 
1. Accept what I am telling you and use it in your Instructor management.
 
2. Follow what I am telling you: unless and until an Instructor has been with you 18 months or more, they run the Instructor gauntlet.
What is the Instructor gauntlet? (this is the lemonade part)
 
- do not give them any more money (save it for something else)
- do not give them fewer teaching days, give more (and save the money of hiring more Instructors)
- do not give them more prep days than you feel is right (and save the money of hiring more Instructors)
- do not give them more time off (and save the money of hiring more Instructors)
- do not send them to special events like Novell "Brainshare" (save the money for something else)
- do not allow them to teach / not teach what they want (and you will avoid creating a little prima-donna blackmailing dictator)
- work them on double shifts, nights or weekends when necessary (and save the money of hiring more Instructors)
 
3. The 2 out of 10 that like teaching will only surface while running the above gauntlet. And EVERY Santa Ana Instructor - past,
present, and future - will run it. For the two out of ten that like teaching, and only AFTER they run the gauntlet, they are the rocks
you build your company on. They paid their dues. Therefore:
 
- give them more money
- give them fewer teaching days
- give them more prep days
- give them more time off
- send them to special events like Novell "Brainshare"
- allow them to teach / not teach what they want
- never work them on double shifts, nights or weekends unless urgent
 
During the time your Instructors are working in this environment, LOOK CLOSELY and you will find your own Al Batinga's, Ed
Hyer's, Bob Villareal's, etc, etc. You may not know this, but not a one of the managers listed above has the background on paper to
do their job. But I'm not interested in paper qualifications, let's talk real world. In the real world the process of running the Instructor
gauntlet surfaces the true CHARACTER in the person. The CHARACTER in the person is key. I am telling you from experience,
those that are unwilling to pay their dues YOU DON'T WANT FOR THE LONG HAUL. It's not bad that they move on, it's good!
 
For proof what I'm telling you is not only true, but has the added benefit of actually working, I invite you to talk to any manager on
the above list and ask them if we didn't do anything short of work their butt off when they were Instructors. That process told me of
their character. You give me somebody with character, and I'll make a manager out of them.
 
The upshot of what I am telling you is that you can do nothing to stop Instructor turnover, so make it work for you. To be blunt, why
blow your money, fool yourself into thinking you have a happy camper Instructor, only to have them come in and quit anyway? If you
try appeasement, you will simply waste your time and money. Don't do it. I have been doing this long enough to tell you only two
people in ten will make the Instructor position their career, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. Therefore, work those other eight through
the gauntlet. Not only will you get your moneys worth, latent management material will surface (cream rises to the top and all that
sort of cliche stuff) and you will begin to build your management team.
 

I hope you will accept another article from me. Since you posted the "Instructor Life Cycle" memo, I feel compelled to respond. As I said in my earlier submission, I have been an Instructor at the St. Louis center for almost six of its eight years. Three or four years ago I saw the memo. That is too long to remember the exact words, but the one posted here certainly seems to be it. The tone and ideas are definitely the same. So, why am I willing to "admit" that I have seen it, and even to "confess" that many franchisees take it seriously? That is what prompted me to take keyboard in hand again. I would like to respond to the memo on three levels: what the memo actually says (as opposed to how it is interpreted), how it is interpreted in actual NH centers, and its timing.

As to the content, I stipulate that the tone is quite blunt. Some are put off by bluntness, but others (myself included) are not. I very much appreciate knowing exactly where I stand without having to parse facial expressions, voice tones, or meeting schedules to figure it out. You should also know that when an instructor is hired at NH (unless they come from another center) it is considered an entry-level job designed for people who are changing careers or starting their first real career. In 1994 (about which more later) very few people stayed in their first job very long in any industry or company. It was in the nature of starting a career: get enough experience to look good on a resume and move on. The memo is simply acknowledging that fact and drawing from it the business conclusion that there is no reason not to get the most you can from them before they leave. It is not the same as hiring fully qualified, experienced professionals. Placed in the context of much hand-wringing, this can be made to sound evil, but-evil or not-it was perfectly normal in 1994, and still is in many companies today. The new people get the assignments and hours no one else wants, little if any vacation and the expectation that they will learn the ropes on their own.

To me, its is the second part that is surprising. The memo recommends that after an instructor has been with the company for 18 months to consider them "proven" and having "paid their dues" and to give them whatever it takes to keep them: "more money, fewer teaching days, more prep days, more time off, send them to special events, allow them to teach / not teach what they want, never work them on double shifts, nights or weekends." I challenge anyone to find a company where entry-level newbies pay dues for only 18 months, and then become highly privileged. You might run the question by a couple of doctors or public school teachers.

The words on the page, while blunt, reflect business reality (especially as it was in 1994): new entry-level hires run gauntlets. It goes on to recommend extraordinary largess a year and a half later-an extraordinarily short time. Sure doesn't sound evil to me.

The memo's interpretation is another matter. To begin with some franchises have taken the "first 18 months" bit to extremes. I have even heard of owners and managers using it as an excuse to be personally abusive of instructors: calling them names, etc. Please notice that the memo never advocates, or even condones such behavior: it is the behavior of a personality disordered individual who has acquired a degree of power over others. Even when I have screwed up royally at our center no one ever called me names-the subject was always and only my behavior. When I mentioned to our owner that I had seen the memo, he told me that many franchisees pay no attention to the second part. According to the memo one of the two reasons for the first part is to find out who to pamper. Ignoring the second part is just plain dumb: turnover will eat your lunch.

You also have to remember that 1994 was a long time ago. Systems that cannot adjust to changing circumstances are doomed. Up through '96 or '97 the hiring seminars at our center were packed to the rafters. Over the last few years, though, the flood of applicants has dwindled to the point that we now have a full-time Corporate Recruiter on staff. Our center stuck to the memo (both parts) for a while, but when the high tech labor started drying up and almost no one stayed, our owner decided that we couldn't afford the turnover and put a stop to it. New instructors get a minimum of two weeks training before hitting the classroom which includes taking some of the classes they will be teaching and test teaching classes in front of Training Supervisors and senior instructors. It is not uncommon for a new instructor to get "straight 10s" on their first class. Everyone gets a prep day for each day of a new class: our utilization goal is 80% (one prep day per week) but newbies get MANY more than that. We are all paid well, receive excellent benefits and are treated with enormous respect as professionals and as people. We have almost no turnover, and I can't remember the last instructor who left because they didn't want to work here. One left because she missed teaching children so badly, one left to stay home with her new baby, and a couple moved for personal or family reasons.

Finally, a bit of personal witness: I am 51 years old, and this is the best job I have ever had. I am paid what I think I am worth (and how many can say the same?). I am treated like royalty. I have the best boss I have ever had and her predecessor was the best I had ever had up to then. The atmosphere in the office is so up-beat that sometimes it is hard to tear myself away to go home (Ok, not a LOT of times, but sometimes).

I don't want to give the impression that all NHs are great. They are independently run and I am sure some are just as bad as many of the postings here would have you believe they all are. I can tell you that I know there is at least one that is as good as a company can be, and have heard of others. I hope you will hear from some of them.

Mark Russell
Principal Instructor

My response to Mr. Russell and general thoughts on the matter:

So, exactly what is my problem with the memo?

Instructor quality. Nowhere in this memo is this mentioned. Not a single word in the 1000+ word memo distinguishes between a dedicated, qualified, professional instructor and a half-brained slacker who's barely getting by. The standards set forth in the memo are, in simplest terms, time served and good behavior, the same things a parole board looks for when trying to decide whether to cut a prisoner free or keep him locked up for the rest of his term.

And exactly what constitutes good behavior?

• They'll work for peanuts and not expect a raise for 18 months.

• They won't ask to go to conferences where they could keep abreast of the latest information about the product they're teaching.

• They will accept any amount of garbage management wishes to dump on them, and respond with a cheerful, company-line-toeing, "Thank you sir may I have another?"

• They won't bother you for the prep time they'll need to teach a new course.

• And, far more important than being willing to work 6 days a week, double shifts, etc., an employee exhibiting good behavior will never, ever object to teaching a course he or she is not prepared or qualified to teach. When an employee fails to exhibit good behavior on this matter, he or she is a "little prima-donna blackmailing dictator"

Before I address Mr. Russell's points, there is one more thing to say about the memo itself. While the following doesn't really bother me, I find it a near shoo-in for an irony award. This is Mr. Brinda's statement with regard to the instructors who've run his "gauntlet" and are now in management positions:

"You may not know this, but not a one of the managers listed above has the background on paper to do their job. But I'm not interested in paper qualifications, let's talk real world.

I just can't fathom anything more ironic than the founder of a company which makes a good portion of their income by providing "paper qualifications" for their customers saying, in effect, Who cares about their paper qualifications, I'm only interested in their real-world qualifications.

Now, to address the points brought up by Mr. Russell.

First, I'd like to acknowledge that Mr. Russell is speaking of his center, and is realistic about other centers interpreting the memo in a very different manner. I will take his word for NH St. Louis pulling its collective head out and making sure that they are not putting a useless instructor in front of a class full of paying students, being up front with their new hires, and running them through "the gauntlet" for a more reasonable length of time. Now, on with the show...

Am I distressed by the blunt tone? No, blunt seldom bothers me. As Mr. Russell states, sometimes it's nice to know exactly where you stand. And while the St. Louis New Horizons may make everything crystal clear to newly hired instructors, based on the emails I've received from former instructors throughout the system, it appears that not all franchises bother to do so.

Does a Doctor or Public School Teacher have to wonder if there's a light at the end of their long tunnel? No, they don't. The doctor knows that within a very few years of the completion of their schooling, they will have total autonomy over their future, and will not be lacking for money regardless of the number of hours worked. The public school teacher knows that there is a pay scale that is fixed, based on time served and education level achieved (don't get me started on the lack of a tie between actual performance and teacher pay.)

Even the 18-year-old Army enlistee goes in with his eyes open, and ought to be at least decently, if not fully, informed. He couldn't even watch a movie that depicts basic training and then claim he didn't have any idea that he was about to sign away his right to breathe until instructed to do so. He'd also have to realize that he isn't going to get rich being a soldier.

Do most New Horizons franchises tell applicants for instructor jobs that they're going to be worked like dogs, paid as little as possible, made to teach any course the GM decides that they should, and denied the time to prepare for their classes properly? Are the instructors made aware that, if they survive until the magic moment (whenever that is,) they will suddenly be given the money they could have earned elsewhere, the weekends off and single shifts that most other workers enjoy, and will finally receive the prep time necessary to do their job well?

I can't tell for certain one way or the other, but I'd have a heck of a hard time believing that the same organization that sells and sells and relentlessly sells, with a big smile and a big promise that everything will be wonderful, will be up front and brutally candid with new hires. Pardon my cynicism.

Even assuming the best, that all NH franchisees are up front and candid with their new hires, are they equally up front with the students who will rely on those ever-changing new hires for instruction? Will a paying client be told that they will be receiving instruction from a 20 year old with two weeks experience? Will they be told that their instructor's motivation is provided only by whatever personal pride they may or may not have, the desire to avoid being fired, and enough money to stave off starvation and homelessness?

With regard to the summing up of thoughts on the treatment of new hires, "The new people get the assignments and hours no one else wants, little if any vacation and the expectation that they will learn the ropes on their own," I'd have to say I have no problem whatsoever with the first two conditions, and a HUGE problem with the third. Bad hours to newbies? You bet! Everybody pays their dues. No vacation to newbies? No problem here, I don't get any free money for not working. But as to learning the ropes on their own, people are paying for instruction from NH Instructors who already know the ropes. Unless your sales force is actually using the dental school / beauty college method, whereby you only pay a tenth of what it would cost for a qualified person to teach you, why in heaven's name would anybody shell out the cash to be taught by somebody who's floundering about trying to learn the ropes?

To sum up, if a center wants to put their new hires into a boot camp situation, that's fine with me, on several conditions that I view as simple common sense:

1. Under no circumstances does a new hire teach until he or she is ready. If they aren't ready fast enough, shake their hand and send them on their way. Most are not going to get better at absorbing new materials than they were the day they first set foot in the door.

2. Under no circumstances does any instructor, new or not, teach courses that he or she is not competent to teach. Ideally, competence would be determined not by Microsoft's rather ridiculous guidelines for their MCTs (If you've got an MCT and an MCSE, you can teach ANYTHING,) but rather by satisfying those requirements and being judged by other competent instructors to be effective at teaching it.

3. Under no circumstances are students given the impression that their instructor has more qualifications than the instructor really has. I wouldn't necessarily run screaming from an inexperienced teacher, but I'd certainly want to audit a class to see if he or she is able to teach it.

4. Under no circumstances are new hires given inaccurate information about their status. If they are to be low-wage-slaves for six months, then tell them so. Don't blow the same smoke that is blown at potential students about how much money they'll make in their first paycheck, and how they'll be treated like gods. If they have a shot at more cash and god status after running "the gauntlet," then let them know that too. Otherwise you aren't allowing the cream to rise to the top, you're screening out everybody with an ounce of self-respect and ability, because they'll run for the hills long before they reach the magic date.

5. If there are problems, as there always will be, then be honest with the students, and be prepared to address their concerns. If your MCSE-holding 803 teacher has a flat tire, and your five-month trainer who's been studying the 803 material has to fill in for a night, don't try to put a smiley face on the situation by exaggerating his certs or experience level. Even if the fill-in spends one day stumbling through the book, it's SOMETHING, and the regular instructor can hopefully pick up any slack in tomorrow's class. Is it technically kosher with Microsoft? Probably not. Will it satisfy most of your students? Probably, and the ones who are ticked off and feel betrayed will probably be very grateful for a tiny refund of perhaps half of the amount of that one day's tuition.

Again, I assume that NH St. Louis complies with most of the above conditions, and if so, I congratulate them and any other center that does so.