Straight from the Heart(land): All Ideas Welcome Here

Bob Carr is founder (in 1997) and still leader of Heartland Payment Systems, the fifth largest credit card processor in the country. Its Jeffersonville-based Heartland Service Center was recently honored in the seventh annual Best Places to Work in Indiana program. Check out their story.

One nugget that didn’t make the story cut was Heartland’s "I have an idea" program. Think of it as a suggestion box on steroids. Not only can anyone (including customer advocates, or call center reps in training) offer their thoughts, but they all go directly to Carr in his Princeton, New Jersey office.

This is a company with more than 2,600 associates across the country. Carr either responds directly or enlists someone on the management team to find out more information about the proposal before answering the employee.

Jeff Nichols, head of operations in Jeffersonville and a 15-year member of the Heartland team, explains: "We recognize if we have to make decisions and don’t take in information from every channel, we’re limited by our own creativity. Anybody in the company can send in an idea. We’ve implemented hundreds and hundreds. Some are very big and save the company money. Some are just simple things."

Kudos to Carr and Heartland, along with rest of the Best Places to Work winners. Learn more about these organizations in the current BizVoice.