When Arizona Subway franchise owner Les White’s business started to grow, he saw he was losing some of the personal contact with his employees that is central to his business philosophy. Although he presides over an expanding $20 million franchise of 26 restaurants and more than 300 employees in the Tucson area, White prides himself on developing the individuals in his organization.

However, he was apprehensive about using computers to communicate with individuals in his growing organization. “I look at computers as distancing yourself from your employees,” he says. So White sat down with representatives from Cisco Systems, Subway restaurants, and Dallas-based software development company IPcelerate, Inc. to explore other options.

White presented his top-10 list of objectives and challenges, and he and his tech-savvy business partners set out to develop a new solution that could start a trend in the quick-service industry. White decided to implement a system of Internet Protocol (ip) telephones that feature a color touch screen and speakerphone capability that can be used for much more than simple telephone calls.

The system, currently installed in five stores, has the potential to dramatically change many operations in White’s business. Where he used to use a dry erase board, a fax machine, and a point-of-sale system, White and his managers can now work with a secure network of IP phones that can save costs and improve employee performance.

The phones, utilizing their speaker capabilities, can be programmed to remind employees at all of the restaurants they are installed in of their basic duties. These task alerts sound at different times during the day for different tasks, and employees must go to the phone and acknowledge the alert within three minutes. If the employee neglects to do so, his or her manager will receive a text message alert on their cell phone sent from the IP phone.

These alerts are the IT extension of White’s custom-made operations manual for his Subway restaurants, the Red Book. He is familiar with the tasks of the frontline employees and used that experience to make an efficient handbook. “When you work in your business, you can write a guide for the 16–22- year-olds who work there,” he says.

Aside from keeping up on employees, the phones have also been programmed to congratulate and motivate them. White awards an Employee of the Week, every week. The IP phones alert each store with the name of the weekly winner and the prize: dinner with the boss. Furthermore, White has set up the phones to relay a daily motivational message to employees, a practice he hopes will improve the attitude and personal character of his employees.

The IP phone function that might be most useful in saving time is its ability to remedy scheduling problems. Employees in the restaurants that have the phones now clock in and out on the device. White says that when his employees didn’t show up for work in the past the store manager or opener employee would have to search for a replacement. “Thirty seconds to a minute is a lot of time in this business,” he says. “We schedule a skeleton crew according to volume.”