Chick-Fil-A Employees Are Venting About Staffing Problems On Reddit

These are tough times for the food industry. Amid ongoing disruptions caused by the pandemic, many restaurants and fast food chains have been struggling to hire enough workers. In July of 2021, 78% of restaurant operators surveyed by the National Restaurant Association named their number-one challenge as "recruiting and retaining employees," according to CNBC. With the situation showing little signs of improvement, many chains have responded by raising wages, offering employees better benefits, and even reducing hours to compensate for a lack of staff.

Although Chick-fil-A is extremely popular, even this chicken chain is not immune to the staffing problems that are plaguing the rest of the fast food industry. A shortage of employees at the quick-service restaurant means that workers are putting in extra time and effort to keep things running smoothly. One Chick-fil-A worker recently took to Reddit to vent about their location's staffing problems. "Anyone else's store REALLY understaffed? We have had to shut down delivery and dine-in because of this," u/thatfixhyguy asked their fellow Chick-fil-A workers.

Evidently, that Reddit user's Chick-fil-A is far from the only one facing a staff shortage, as the replies to the post were full of other Chick-fil-A workers commiserating over the same problem at their locations. "Yes! We are understaffed so we close two hours earlier now for the next two weeks," u/Katsushikai posted. "We are down 3 people in BOH atm, but surviving very tired thankfully I don't work a full 8, but I'll probably be asked to stay longer," replied another user. "Everyday I come in another person is gone...." lamented another worker.

Others chimed in with some of the solutions their locations had put into place to help get through staffing woes. "Yesterday we only had two team members for the last 4 hours of the day. We ended up putting a headset on the breader with an iPad," u/Think-Yesterday8708 replied, while another employee said their store has "started bribing people with free food and merch to come in." It seems that these Chick-fil-A workers are doing their best these days, which may encourage customers to remain patient when visiting the chain.