Keeping staff has always been challenging for fast-food operators – even more so in the tighter job market of the post-pandemic era. But the Miami owner/operator of one Chick-fil-A (Atlanta) restaurant recently came up with a formula to keep existing staff and bring in new hires: switching all of them to a three-day, 14-hour workweek, QSR reports. The results, thus far: total retention at the management level and a flood of 420 new staff-level applicants.
The condensed week gives employees better time to plan for their lives outside of work, Chick-fil-A operator Justin Lindsey said. The program started in February and thus far has held up well throughout most of the year.
On top of this location’s unique scheduling change, the chain’s 2600 restaurants all offer another built-in scheduling perk for workers: Chick-Fil-A is famously closed on Sundays, unlike virtually all of their competitors.