Hampered by the coronavirus pandemic and the impact that COVID fears have had on attendance at in-person meetings for most organizations, the Small Business Administration will host its annual Small Business Week Summit virtually again this year. The 2021 SBA Small Business Summit will take place from 11:00 AM until 6:00 PM ET on September…
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Summer 2021 is being billed as a return to “normal,” as vaccinations against COVID-19 continue and businesses resume regular operations. But, behind some of the rosy projections for the resumption of life as we knew it, there are some hard realities facing business owners in every sector, particularly quick-service restaurants. In this edition of “What’s…
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The coronavirus pandemic has had a profound impact on the restaurant industry. By the beginning of Q4 2020, more than 1.4 million jobs in franchised businesses were lost and more than 32,000 franchised businesses had closed. Now, with states opening up and a gradual return to business as usual, we are cautiously approaching the light…
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When you stop and think about it, the amount of change we have endured over the last 15 months is astonishing. Without warning, virtually every aspect of our lives changed. But, at the same time, certain fundamental principles remained the same. Among those, that franchise owners have to protect themselves from uncertainty and unfair practices.…
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As franchisees address the many employment issues related to the pandemic, the question now is what to do about vaccines. When considering how best to proceed, franchisees must be familiar with the employment law issues that are implicated. We’ve chosen several to highlight here. Vaccination Relaxes Quarantine Mandate Stopping short of eliminating quarantine requirements for…
Read More »There was some legal and legislative headway made this past week on the question of business interruption protections being applicable during the pandemic. First off, the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio ruled last week that a claim for insurance protection under business interruption coverage by a multi-state restaurant owner was valid…
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No doubt the pandemic has caused stress, financial hardship, and loss across the world. But it’s also brought attention to the good acts people perform in order to help others. Many of those thoughtful deeds took place at Dunkin’ stores across the nation. Whether it has been franchisees, employees or customers performing acts of kindness,…
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Desmond Lim is the co-founder and CEO of Workstream.us. A former restaurant operator and the first in his family to immigrate to the United State and attend college. A graduate of MIT and Harvard University, Desmond has helped hundreds of franchisees from Dunkin’ and other major brands with HR issues, recruiting, technology and software. When…
Read More »It’s beginning to look like we’ll have to wait until the Georgia runoff elections are over and decided until we see any further movement on a new COVID relief bill out of Congress. Although momentum seemed to be building over the past week or so, control of the US Senate may be getting “in the…
Read More »A couple of days ago, Starbucks was upbeat hosting its 2020 Investor Day, at which the company announced that it will be rolling out an oat milk platform in 2021. At the same time, CEO Kevin Johnson also reported that US comp sales are currently negative low mid-single digits and that they’ve softened further in…
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