5 Things Michael Gomez Fixes First When He Walks Into a Franchise Group (And what a two-location operator can copy)

When Michael Gomez takes over HR for a franchise group he does five things in order: he writes the plan before changing anything, he stops the labor issues that arrive without warning, he separates what brands can share from what they cannot, he tells people exactly where the performance bar sits, and he reads the payroll contract before signing another one.

Michael Gomez is President of MGI International, LLC, an executive search and HR consulting firm. He spent about 30 years in human resources at AT&T, PepsiCo, The Walt Disney Company and McDonald's Corporation. Most recently he ran HR for a franchise group operating Burger King, Dunkin', Baskin-Robbins, Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut, with roughly 7,000 employees across 23 states.

I built 720 Sweets from one shop to seven locations, then sold it. At Workstream's On the Clock 2026 in Atlanta, I sat down with Michael for half an hour. He has walked into more turnaround situations than almost anyone I have interviewed, and he does the same five things every time. Here is each one, with the version that fits a two location operator.

1. Write the plan before you change anything

Michael joined McDonald's as a multi department head in San Diego. The business unit was doing about $850 million in revenue with more than 10,000 employees, company stores and franchise stores together.

His first move was not a hire or a policy. It was a gap analysis. He wrote down where the business stood and what was missing.

"I wrote the first human capital plan for McDonald's Corporation."

Michael Gomez

He is still slightly surprised that it was a first. His reaction at the time was that this is simply what you are supposed to do. He had come out of PepsiCo, which he rates as one of the strongest HR organizations in the country. There a written plan was second nature.

The plan got the attention of the CEO, who then asked everyone to write one. Michael was moved to corporate headquarters in Oak Brook to lead the re-engineering of the HR function. He worked with a consulting firm and a team of 18.

What you can copy: before you buy anything or hire anyone, spend your first 60 days writing down where you are and what is missing. The writing matters more than the finished document, because you cannot fix a problem you have never written down.

2. Write the handbook before the next labor problem arrives

Walk into most groups and you inherit a pile of unfinished labor problems. Michael's description of that first stretch is the most honest thing anyone said to me all week.

You find yourself reacting to a lot, and the reacting is not satisfying, because while you are doing it you cannot do anything else.

"These serious labor relations issues don't wait for an invitation."

Michael Gomez

His first fix was a handbook. There was one being built when he arrived, but it had never been delivered. He finished it and rolled it out to 7,000 people with electronic signatures.

He is specific about why a handbook is more than a formality. It sets the tone for the culture: the mission, the vision, the benefits, how people will be treated, what is expected of them. Plenty of companies have that written down. His did not.

He also names the policies he thinks have to be in it. An arbitration agreement, which he says changes how a dispute gets settled. A biometric policy, covering anything that scans a fingerprint or a face. Paid time off and sick pay. And a defined route for resolving workplace disputes.

What you can copy: you can write a handbook for two locations in a week. Getting every person to sign it electronically costs you almost nothing. Workstream's guide to building a restaurant employee handbook is a decent place to start. The signature is the part people skip and the part that matters.

3. Work out what your brands can share and what they cannot

Michael's group ran brands that compete with each other on the same road. Burger King and Taco Bell and KFC and Pizza Hut, under one owner.

His answer comes in two parts, and it works just as well at two locations as at four hundred.

Some things cut straight across brands. A payroll and technology platform can be shared. So can a long list of policies: paid time off, sick pay, bereavement, nepotism, general manager and hourly pay policy.

Other things cannot. Compensation programs are tied to a balanced scorecard coming from each brand's corporation, so they have to stay aligned to that. And the brands themselves are genuinely different. The food is different, the preparation is different, the history is different.

"Colonel Sanders isn't leaving KFC anytime soon."

Michael Gomez

His conclusion is that onboarding has to be tuned to each brand's history rather than run from one template. Teach people the history of the brand and try to get them to embrace it.

What you can copy: if you run two concepts, put your admin on one system and keep your onboarding separate. Most operators do the opposite and run two payroll setups while onboarding everyone with the same slide deck.

4. Tell people exactly where the bar is

This is the section I would hand to any operator who has ever had a review go badly.

Michael's view is that one of HR's biggest jobs is keeping people aligned to the plan. If people are even slightly off that plan, he says, it can be the difference between a business that grows and one that does not.

He breaks performance planning into three parts. Accountabilities, which most people know as KPIs. Evaluation standards. And a development plan.

The middle one is the part he says gets missed.

In his words, it is the evaluation standard that sets the bar for the employee. The standard spells out what outstanding looks like, what excellent looks like, what good looks like, and what is unsatisfactory.

Without it you get the review conversation every manager has had. Someone is told they met expectations. But the plan they hit was one the company was not sure it could hit at all. They walk out deflated.

"People want to know where the bar is. They want to jump over and be rewarded."

Michael Gomez

His weighting is 70% on accountabilities and evaluation standards, 25% on competencies, and 5% on the individual development plan. The competencies matter because how someone gets a result is as important as the result, and Michael ties them to merit pay increases. His group ran a framework of about 72 competencies across positions.

For the software he used PerformYard. The useful part was loading the actual performance plans into the tool. The same structure then carried into the next year with only small changes.

I asked him directly whether this holds for someone with two to five restaurants. He did not hesitate: yes. People need to know what the expectations are, clear and concise.

What you can copy: write down the four levels for one role this month. Not a system, just the four sentences. Then read them to the person before the review period starts, not after it.

People cannot meet a standard they cannot find. Every hour a manager spends hunting for last year's review or re-writing a job description is an hour they are not coaching. Workstream's HR platform keeps the job description, the standards and the review history in one record, so the same bar is still there next year. Explore Workstream →

5. Read the payroll contract, then stop adding portals

Michael's last move is the one almost nobody does, and it takes an afternoon.

"The last one I had was 104 pages."

Michael Gomez

That is his payroll contract. His advice is practical: feed it into an AI tool, ask it questions, and get the answers back. Then hold the provider to what you are actually paying for. If they are not delivering the service level in the contract, leave.

He is equally blunt about what happens when the core platform is weak. If the payroll technology is old, and built broadly to serve many industries rather than yours, the tools inside it are not good enough. So you go and buy better ones elsewhere. And then your managers are logging into one more system: another application, another portal.

His answer is one integrated platform rather than a core system plus a pile of add-ons. Asked to describe Workstream in a sentence, he called it a fully integrated, flexible, AI driven technology platform for payroll and HR needs. His closing advice to operators was to go with the cutting edge leader.

Putting everything on one system is not only about convenience. Running locations across several states makes compliance genuinely hard. Paid time off and sick pay are the hardest part, because the rules change state by state. Michael's group did not have a fully developed sick pay policy for every state it operated in. A labor investigator called. He was looking at a fine in the region of $50,000.

What saved him was timing. The system had just been rolled out, so he could show what had been done and why. They came through it without a penalty. Workstream has a breakdown of compliance for multi state operators if you are in more than one state and unsure where you stand.

What you can copy: print your payroll contract. Find the service levels. Then count how many separate logins your manager needs to finish a normal Monday. If the answer is more than two, you have found your next project.

The short version

• Write the plan first. A gap analysis in your first 60 days beats a year of reacting.
• Write the handbook. A signed handbook with real policies in it is the cheapest structure you will ever add.
• Share the admin, not the onboarding. One platform for payroll and policies, a separate welcome for each brand.
• Write down the standards. Four sentences describing what each performance level looks like, before the review period starts.
• Audit the contract you already signed. Then reduce the number of portals rather than adding to it.

None of this needs a 7,000 person payroll. It needs someone to write things down and then hold people, including the vendors, to what was written.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should a new HR leader do in their first 60 days?

Run a gap analysis and write a plan before changing anything. Michael Gomez did exactly that on arriving at a McDonald's business unit with more than 10,000 employees, and produced the company's first human capital plan. He treats the written plan as the thing that makes every later decision defensible rather than reactive.

How should a multi brand franchisee handle HR policy across competing brands?

Share the policies that are genuinely universal and keep the rest brand specific. Michael Gomez shares a payroll and technology platform plus policies like paid time off, sick pay, bereavement, nepotism and pay policy across brands. He keeps compensation programs separate, because they tie to each brand's own scorecard, and he tunes onboarding to each brand's history.

How should performance reviews be weighted?

Michael Gomez recommends 70% on accountabilities and evaluation standards, 25% on competencies and 5% on the individual development plan. He argues the evaluation standard is the piece most companies leave out. It is what tells an employee what outstanding, excellent, good and unsatisfactory look like, before the year starts.

Is a formal performance system worth it for a small restaurant group?

Yes, and Michael Gomez says so directly when asked about operators with two to five locations. His reason is that people at any scale need clear and concise expectations. The small operator version is writing down the four performance levels for a single role rather than buying software.

What are the compliance risks of running restaurants in more than one state?

Paid time off and sick pay are the hardest, because the requirements change state by state. Michael Gomez's group lacked a full sick pay policy for every state it operated in. A labor investigator called, and the exposure was around $50,000. They avoided the penalty because a compliance system had just been rolled out. That let them show an investigator exactly what had been fixed and when.

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About the author. Wilson K Lee built 720 Sweets from one shop to seven locations and sold it. He now runs wilsonklee.com, where he publishes real numbers and playbooks for food and beverage owners, and he hosted the speaker interviews at Workstream's On the Clock 2026.