CEO Matt Murphy receives AAFD award for Griswold from America’s franchisees
Home care franchising chain Griswold Home Care announced on August 22 that it has returned to franchising. After stopping the sale of franchises for three years, the franchisor has begun again to actively look for franchise owners.
In its 35 years, Griswold has developed a chain of more than 100 franchise owners, which it calls franchise directors, in 200 locations in 32 states. The franchisor stopped selling franchise licenses in July 2014 amid concern over changing home care regulations and the demands of its franchise owners to create a more equitable contract for them. Its franchisees turned to the American Association of Franchisees and Dealers to form an independent franchisee association to negotiate on their behalf in order to push for change. The result of their efforts was a new and improved franchise contract, finalized in late 2016.
“There was much uncertainty, both in terms of where the industry was going from a regulatory standpoint and our own relationship with the Griswold Home Care Franchise Association, so we felt we needed to take a break from bringing new franchises on board until this all played out,” said Griswold CEO Matt Murphy. “We used that time to make sure we were in compliance with Department of Labor mandates and to hammer out a more durable franchise agreement that was more focused on their [franchisees] success.”
The contract has been lauded by the many franchisees of the American Association of Franchisees and Dealers (AAFD) as “groundbreaking,” and earned Griswold the honor of receiving AAFD’s 2017 Franchisor of the Year award. The award is recognition by franchisees of America’s various franchising brands that Griswold has collaborated with its franchise directors to draft an outstanding contract that they judge is friendlier to business-format franchise owners than any other brand in any sector — e.g. home care, restaurants, convenience stores, hotels, business services. Franchisees and their legal representatives use the AAFD’s franchisee bill of rights as a metric to assess the fairness of a franchise contract.
Source: Buying a Franchise