50 Great Ideas

The top industry ideas we've spotted in the last year

50 Great Ideas

19. Buddy system

At Pennsylvania State University, managers ask students and full-time employees if they have a best friend at work. Management says it’s a great measurement of employee morale.

50 Great Ideas

22. Champion for retention

The Pilot Flying J convenience store chain has potential hires meet with “role champions,” employees who excel in the position. The champions talk with applicants about expectations and demands and pr...

On one of the walls at Magpies Softserve ice cream shop in Los Angeles hangs a jumbo roll of butcher paper listing the day’s specials. The low-tech board is easy to update, with a staffer simply rippi...

Punch Bowl Social offers a blue plate special but takes the colored plates a step further. The eatertainment chain offers a green plate special—a plant-forward dish catering to the increase in diners ...

Servers at Snooze, an A.M. Eatery’s Scottsdale, Ariz., location get to pick a table or two each day to receive a free pancake or another signature menu item. The freebies serve as an incentive to gene...

The KFC Foundation, a nonprofit funded by KFC franchisees, launched MyChange, a personal finance program for employees at participating U.S. KFC locations. The goal of the program is to promote financ...

The dining team at Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa.,  makes hash browns using low-carb vegetables such as celery root, rutabaga and kohlrabi. The team says the menu item is a way to appea...

The director of dining services at Purdue University sends a weekly Friday Follow-up email to connect with staff on all levels. It outlines what happened that week and what is coming up as well as pra...

The Veggie Grill chain has developed a tech stack that includes computer modeling to improve service time. Its first restaurant in Chicago, where it launched the program, has monitors that allow for o...

To help staffers feel empowered, Cava launched a Just Say Yes campaign. The Mediterranean fast casual wants staffers to feel they have ownership of the guest occasion, CEO Brett Schulman said at the R...

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