Dig Restaurant Group is Introducing the Four-Day Workweek to the QSR Industry

Dig Restaurant Group, a chain of locally farm sourced restaurants, is taking a page from the corporate world and introducing four-day workweeks to the quick service restaurant (QSR) industry. While salaried office workers tend to be the most popular cohort trialing the four-day workweek, hourly workers at some of Dig’s locations will be getting the same perk.

The company started considering the four-day workweek prior to the onset of COVID-19 when it began taking off in Europe among Scandinavian countries. But when the pandemic temporarily closed some of Dig’s restaurants, it started testing the four-day workweek with its hourly kitchen staff, giving them the option to work full-time hours compressed into four days.

Dig Restaurant Group has locations in New York City, Philadelphia and Rye Brook, among other East Coast cities, but found an opportunity to start trailing the idea in Boston. During the height of the pandemic, only one restaurant out of five remained open, making it an appropriate time to try the new schedule. Workers were given the opportunity to come in one fewer day a week, if they chose, but still work the same number of hours.

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Even before introducing the four-day work week, Dig was already unusual in the restaurant industry in that it offered its employees 40-hour workweeks. To keep the same number of hours, workers who chose to switch to the four-day week had to change to ten-hour days. Unlike a fast-food restaurant, Dig’s kitchen staff spend most of their time prepping the farm-to-table food, so the longer shifts make sense.

In the six pilot restaurants, Dig found that 90 percent of team members selected the four-day workweek option and of the 45 employees surveyed, it found that 87 percent said they’d recommend the shortened workweek model to a friend, according to an internal survey. 

The new schedule came with other perks too. Other benefits included additional kitchen training to those interested in pursuing culinary careers. And as of May 2021, all Dig employees can receive paid parental leave. The company is now rolling out these policies to more restaurant locations in the coming year, including the four-day workweek option which will expand to five additional locations in the first half of 2022.

However, Dig Restaurant Group is not the first chain of restaurants to implement a four-day workweek. Fast-casual chain Shake Shack began testing the schedule in 2019 to help recruit managers. But due to the pandemic’s labor shortage, the burger chain had to put the four-day workweek on pause. Meanwhile, Dig saw the pandemic as an opportunity to test the new schedule.

Dig’s new workplace initiatives were announced last fall, when the company announced a $65 million Series F funding round, bringing the company’s total funding to $71.5 million. The latest investment will help fund the new benefits to attract and retain employees as it continues to study how well the new schedule works for its employees.

Dig Restaurant Group is hopeful its initiatives will encourage other QSRs and food industry players to implement similar policies.