5 ms·

That’s how Chick-fil-A is in the US. Staff is very well paid, well trained, offered support for college. Customers gush about how well run the places are. Duri

That’s how Chick-fil-A is in the US. Staff is very well paid, well trained, offered support for college. Customers gush about how well run the places are. During parts of the worst sections of the labor shortage, I was seeing CFA owners on my Facebook feed saying that they couldn’t hire anyone offering $19-23 / hr so they couldn’t imagine what everybody else must be going through.

throw0101a 5y ago
Non-unionized FedEx is supposedly having issues with staffing currently, while unionized UPS isn't.
- exhilaration 5y ago
  And it seems to be paying off. I'm a manager at a large Unnamed Parcel Service, we had a big conference call 2 days back where the execs were raving about how much business we were winning from FedEx. They still make us go through a yearly training on how to prevent unionization though...
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  FedEx using the name FedEx for Express (employees? more highly paid?) and Ground (contractors? Cheap labor?) seems stupid to me. Fedex has come up in conversation over the past year as the worst logistics company, even from people who know nothing about logistics. All they see is that if it is coming via FedEx, then it very well might not come when it says it will. Why would you want to tarnish your entire brand image like that? Would you not want FedEx Express to be a different name than FedEx Ground so that people still think to go to your more valuable product than just thinking screw it, I am going with UPS or USPS?
seibelj 5y ago
It will all sort itself out. If you can’t hire employees at a certain wage then either wages increase or the job changes. There is no other option. The “job changing” could also be changes to make it more palatable.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Or you change your product/market in a way that is more tolerant of higher wages even if it changes your target customer in a way that excludes a segment of your previous market.
  - seibelj 5y ago
    You can increase the price of your product. This is what’s happening throughout the entire economy - workers demand more money, wages go up, prices increase, inflation hits 5%. It’s not surprising.
    - HarryHirsch 5y ago
      The obvious other adjustment would be to decrease the rent, but that would affect loan valuations, and we can't have another round of bank failures. (The other problem is the building materials shortage because you can't inflate yourself out of the shortage of available housing, you need to actually build new construction, but we are getting sidetracked.)
    - ghaff 5y ago
      Maybe. It depends if the wage increases are going to the buyers of your product or not. If the wage increases are indeed flowing to low-paid fast food workers and others in the same general category who eat a lot of fast food, then you can probably just increase the price of Quarter Pounders. If someone who doesn't eat Quarter Pounders is getting the money, not so much.
    - rackjack 5y ago
      Isn't this inflation also caused by the Federal Reserve printing a lot more money? edit: Wait the TREASURY prints money, not the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve just... greases the wheels of banks, I guess?
    - alphabettsy 5y ago
      Or this narrative is being used to drive price increases. McDonald’s increased their profits and increased their prices last I heard and one didn’t necessarily drive the other.
TylerE 5y ago
I suspect part of the difference is that all CFAs are corporate owned, whereas most chains are franchised. You see a similar thing with gas stations, where the "nicer" ones (Buckees, Sheetz, Wawa) are corporate owned, whereas BP, Shell, etc are franchised. Not that there aren't GOOD franchised locations, but it's much more variable.
- causi 5y ago
  Untrue. Many CFAs are franchise locations. Anecdotally, the corporate locations are much better to work at.
  - brightball 5y ago
    I think they are 50-50 owned corporate and franchisee. No franchisee owns it outright.
- tbyehl 5y ago
  CFA has this unusual model where operators are buying the job of running a location. Hardly any locations are "Corporate Owned" but that's more technicality than reality. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-costs-to-open-a-chick-fil-a-2016-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-costs-to-open-a-chic...
- irrational 5y ago
  Eh, the two CFAs in my area are both franchises. My daughter has worked at both. One has amazing owners who treat the staff fantastic and have low turnover. The other is run by a totally disengaged guy who is not very nice - the place is a disaster with high turnover.
  - brightball 5y ago
    We had one that went bad where I live. Corporate stepped in and forced the guy out. They take that stuff very seriously.

throw0101a 5y ago

Non-unionized FedEx is supposedly having issues with staffing currently, while unionized UPS isn't.

exhilaration 5y ago
And it seems to be paying off. I'm a manager at a large Unnamed Parcel Service, we had a big conference call 2 days back where the execs were raving about how much business we were winning from FedEx. They still make us go through a yearly training on how to prevent unionization though...
lotsofpulp 5y ago
FedEx using the name FedEx for Express (employees? more highly paid?) and Ground (contractors? Cheap labor?) seems stupid to me. Fedex has come up in conversation over the past year as the worst logistics company, even from people who know nothing about logistics. All they see is that if it is coming via FedEx, then it very well might not come when it says it will. Why would you want to tarnish your entire brand image like that? Would you not want FedEx Express to be a different name than FedEx Ground so that people still think to go to your more valuable product than just thinking screw it, I am going with UPS or USPS?

seibelj 5y ago

It will all sort itself out. If you can’t hire employees at a certain wage then either wages increase or the job changes. There is no other option. The “job changing” could also be changes to make it more palatable.

ghaff 5y ago
Or you change your product/market in a way that is more tolerant of higher wages even if it changes your target customer in a way that excludes a segment of your previous market.
- seibelj 5y ago
  You can increase the price of your product. This is what’s happening throughout the entire economy - workers demand more money, wages go up, prices increase, inflation hits 5%. It’s not surprising.
  - HarryHirsch 5y ago
    The obvious other adjustment would be to decrease the rent, but that would affect loan valuations, and we can't have another round of bank failures. (The other problem is the building materials shortage because you can't inflate yourself out of the shortage of available housing, you need to actually build new construction, but we are getting sidetracked.)
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Maybe. It depends if the wage increases are going to the buyers of your product or not. If the wage increases are indeed flowing to low-paid fast food workers and others in the same general category who eat a lot of fast food, then you can probably just increase the price of Quarter Pounders. If someone who doesn't eat Quarter Pounders is getting the money, not so much.
  - rackjack 5y ago
    Isn't this inflation also caused by the Federal Reserve printing a lot more money? edit: Wait the TREASURY prints money, not the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve just... greases the wheels of banks, I guess?
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    Or this narrative is being used to drive price increases. McDonald’s increased their profits and increased their prices last I heard and one didn’t necessarily drive the other.

TylerE 5y ago

I suspect part of the difference is that all CFAs are corporate owned, whereas most chains are franchised. You see a similar thing with gas stations, where the "nicer" ones (Buckees, Sheetz, Wawa) are corporate owned, whereas BP, Shell, etc are franchised. Not that there aren't GOOD franchised locations, but it's much more variable.

causi 5y ago
Untrue. Many CFAs are franchise locations. Anecdotally, the corporate locations are much better to work at.
- brightball 5y ago
  I think they are 50-50 owned corporate and franchisee. No franchisee owns it outright.
tbyehl 5y ago
CFA has this unusual model where operators are buying the job of running a location. Hardly any locations are "Corporate Owned" but that's more technicality than reality. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-costs-to-open-a-chick-fil-a-2016-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/what-it-costs-to-open-a-chic...
irrational 5y ago
Eh, the two CFAs in my area are both franchises. My daughter has worked at both. One has amazing owners who treat the staff fantastic and have low turnover. The other is run by a totally disengaged guy who is not very nice - the place is a disaster with high turnover.
- brightball 5y ago
  We had one that went bad where I live. Corporate stepped in and forced the guy out. They take that stuff very seriously.