--- title: Idea Harvest™ Results | Tell Jules description: For almost three decades, the people closest to the work have surfaced improvements leadership never saw. See the proof, and what Tell Jules can surface for you. --- [Skip to content](https://www.telljules.ai/idea-harvest/results#main-content) - About Tell Jules - [Why Tell Jules Why leaders choose Jules to improve operations and protect margins](https://www.telljules.ai/why-tell-jules) - [How Tell Jules Works See the problems and fixes your people already know](https://www.telljules.ai/how-it-works) - [Idea Harvest™ See why this operations method has worked for almost three decades](https://www.telljules.ai/idea-harvest) - Use Cases - [Operational Visibility See the problems your reports never show you](https://www.telljules.ai/use-case/operational-visibility) - [Continuous Improvement Keep the improvement pipeline full between events](https://www.telljules.ai/use-case/continuous-improvement-pipeline) - [Operational Efficiency Find the quiet waste that's adding up](https://www.telljules.ai/use-case/operational-efficiency) - Industries - [Franchises Spread what your best location already figured out](https://www.telljules.ai/industry/franchises) - [Retail Hear what your store teams see every day](https://www.telljules.ai/industry/retail) - [Manufacturing Catch the floor problems your reports miss](https://www.telljules.ai/industry/manufacturing) - [Financial Services Hear the ideas that could lower operating costs](https://www.telljules.ai/industry/financial-services) - [QSR & Restaurant Chains Find the waste and slowdowns your crews know how to fix](https://www.telljules.ai/industry/qsr) - Resources - [Blog Get practical ideas for closing your operational visibility gap](https://www.telljules.ai/blog) - [Guides Free frameworks, templates, and tips you can put to work today](https://www.telljules.ai/resources/guides) - Company - [About Us The team and story behind Tell Jules](https://www.telljules.ai/about-us) - [FAQ Quick answers to how Tell Jules works](https://www.telljules.ai/faq) [Book a conversation](https://www.telljules.ai/book-a-call?hsLang=en) Idea Harvest™ results # Over $5 billion in savings and new revenue, uncovered by employees For almost three decades, Harvest Earnings has helped major companies uncover costly problems their employees already knew how to fix. Through Idea Harvest™, companies have found more than $5 billion in savings and new revenue by listening to the people closest to the work. Here are some of the results they reached, and the employee ideas that made them possible. [See how an Idea Harvest™ works](https://www.telljules.ai/idea-harvest?hsLang=en) Companies that have used Idea Harvest™ ## Major companies that invested in listening to their employees - ![H.J. Heinz logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined.webp?width=1500&height=629&name=undefined.webp) - ![PNC Financial logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-Sep-04-2026-05-59-58-9078-PM.webp?width=1280&height=388&name=undefined-Sep-04-2026-05-59-58-9078-PM.webp) - ![Manpower logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-4.webp?width=1280&height=248&name=undefined-4.webp) - ![KeyCorp (KeyBank) logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/KeyBank-logo.webp?width=4700&height=2800&name=KeyBank-logo.webp) - ![NYSEG logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/nyseg-1-logo-png-transparent.webp?width=2400&height=2400&name=nyseg-1-logo-png-transparent.webp) - ![Pier 1 Imports logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/Pier_1_Imports_Logo.svg%20(1).webp?width=1280&height=373&name=Pier_1_Imports_Logo.svg%20(1).webp) - ![Birds Eye Foods logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/birds-eye-4-logo-png-transparent.webp?width=2400&height=1412&name=birds-eye-4-logo-png-transparent.webp) - ![American Eagle Outfitters logo](https://www.telljules.ai/hs-fs/hubfs/american-eagle-outfitters-logo-black-and-white.webp?width=2400&height=2043&name=american-eagle-outfitters-logo-black-and-white.webp) The stories below are anonymized. They draw on Harvest Earnings' client records, the book *Low-Hanging Fruit*, and the podcast *The Elephant in the Boardroom*. Real Idea Harvest™ results ## What can companies uncover when they listen to the people doing the work? Even well-run companies have problems and ideas that are hard to spot from the top. Employees across different departments, locations, and roles see things that don't always make it into leadership reports. The companies in these stories made a deliberate effort to hear from those employees. Here's what they uncovered, and what happened when they acted on it. ### Ideas that cross departments When different teams hold different pieces of the same picture, valuable ideas can go unnoticed. Hearing from employees across the business connects those pieces. - $500,000+ a year in recovered capacity An operator's idea stopped a costly production jam At a global food manufacturer, a sauce line kept jamming because the tomato pieces were too large. Every jam meant stopping production, cleaning the line, and losing part of the day's output. The operator knew the cause and suggested cutting the pieces smaller. R&D and Marketing controlled the recipe and the taste, though, and his idea hadn't reached them. Once the company started asking the people closest to the line, his idea reached R&D and Marketing. They tested the smaller pieces, customers preferred the smoother sauce, and the line stopped clogging, recovering more than $500,000 a year in production capacity. - Millions in new revenue a new retail line An employee saw how to turn a restaurant dessert into retail At a packaged-foods company, one division made a dessert customers loved in restaurants. Another division had the relationships to sell products in grocery stores. Because the two worked separately, the company was missing a way to bring an existing product to a much larger market. A brand manager saw the idea, but it needed to reach the division that could sell the product. Once employees across the business had a way to put ideas forward, the brand manager's idea reached the division that could sell the product. They launched a retail version, including distribution through a national grocery chain, generating millions in new revenue. - Supplier markup, eliminated it was made in-house already One factory paid outside for parts another factory made At a food company with plants across Europe, one factory was buying pasta shapes from an outside supplier, paying a markup on every order. Another company factory already made those same shapes, but the plants operated separately and couldn't see each other's capabilities. The plants had no shared view of each other until the company collected what each one knew, and the overlap came to light. The purchasing and production teams moved the work in-house, eliminating the outside supplier markup. - 20 varieties cut to 4 lower cost, better taste Employees cut 20 ingredient varieties down to four At a frozen-food manufacturer, different recipe teams had independently chosen their ingredients. Over time, the company ended up buying more than 20 kinds of pepperoni in small, expensive quantities. Each team knew what its recipes needed, but no one had a complete picture of how much the company was spending on different varieties of the same ingredient. Pulling together what each team knew gave the company one view of its ingredient spending for the first time. Testing showed four varieties could replace the original set while improving taste scores, lowering ingredient cost and raising product quality. - Hundreds of thousands recovered across plants One engineer's fix recovered lost output across factories At a manufacturing company, an engineer had solved an equipment leak that was reducing output at his plant. Other factories used the same machinery and were losing production to the same problem every shift. His solution worked, but it hadn't reached the people responsible for those other locations, so the losses continued. When the company gathered improvement ideas from employees across its plants, the engineer's fix surfaced and was shared with the other locations, where the same repair recovered hundreds of thousands in lost output. - $100M in savings six times the estimate A bank grew procurement savings from $16M to $100M At a national bank, procurement expected to save around $16 million by renegotiating supplier contracts. Employees in the business units using those services had a closer view of where more cost could come out. Listening to those units turned up savings that contract talks alone never would. The team used that knowledge to strengthen its negotiations and widen its savings, reaching $100 million, more than six times the original estimate. ### Smarter ways to work Over time, even useful rules and routines can turn expensive or outdated. The employees who work with them every day can point to where a change would save time and money. - $5M in capex payback under a year An old investment rule was blocking projects that paid for themselves At a manufacturer, plant managers believed every capital investment needed a 55% return to get approved. As a result, they stopped proposing projects that could improve operations and pay for themselves quickly. When the company asked managers about ways to improve their plants, the investment rule came up. A closer look showed the 55% figure came from an old memo about selling a single plant. Once leadership clarified the real requirement, managers brought those projects forward. The company approved $5 million in capital projects, each expected to pay back in less than a year. - $2M saved in retooling and waste Factory employees revealed the hidden cost of packaging changes At a consumer-goods company, Marketing frequently changed packaging colors and designs. The changes looked inexpensive from Marketing's side, but each one forced factories to stop production, retool equipment, and discard materials. Factory employees saw those costs firsthand, but the full impact wasn't visible to the people requesting the changes. It took hearing from the production teams for the true cost of those changes to land with the people requesting them. The company cut the unnecessary ones, saving $2 million in retooling and waste. - Hundreds of thousands in staff time, in weeks Hours spent each week on reports managers barely used At a large company, teams spent hours each week producing recurring reports. Many managers needed only one page, and others barely used the reports at all. The employees preparing them had no clear way to know which information was useful, so the work continued week after week. Asking both the people building the reports and the managers receiving them showed what was actually needed. The unnecessary reports were reduced or cut, recovering hundreds of thousands in staff time within weeks. ### What the people closest to the work could see The person who can see the fix is often the furthest from the authority to make it. When their idea reaches the people who can approve it, even a small change can pay off. - $63,000 a year in paper no longer wasted A machine operator's simple fix ended daily paper waste At a commercial print shop, cutting machines were wasting paper on every job. The waste was small each time, but it happened all day, every day, steadily raising material costs. The operator knew inexpensive cutting guides could solve it, but he didn't have the authority to make the change. Once the company made room for ideas from the people doing the work, his suggestion reached someone who could approve it. The guides went in, the daily waste stopped, and the company saved $63,000 a year. - $178,000 a year in outsourcing, ended A mailroom employee ended an unnecessary outsourcing bill A company was paying an outside vendor to sort its mail while its own sorting machine sat unused. The machine had been written off as unusable, so the company kept paying the vendor every month. A mailroom employee who knew the equipment believed it still worked, but no one had asked him. His knowledge only moved once the company started collecting ideas from the people doing the work, reaching the team behind the outsourcing decision. They tested the machine, confirmed it worked, and brought sorting back in-house, ending $178,000 a year in outsourcing cost. - Fewer abandoned orders sales recovered Call-center staff caught a checkout problem losing sales At a retailer, customers kept entering promotional codes wrong because they couldn't tell a zero from the letter O. Frustrated customers gave up before finishing their orders, costing the company sales every day. Call-center employees heard the same complaint over and over and understood the cause. Another team controlled the codes, though, so the feedback hadn't reached the people who could fix them. The reps' feedback finally reached the code owners once the company started listening to its customer-facing staff. They replaced the confusing characters, and fewer customers dropped off at checkout. The scale of an Idea Harvest™ ## What happens when you hear from employees across an entire company? These stories are a few examples. In one company-wide Idea Harvest™, employees surfaced thousands of ideas, and the company evaluated nearly all of them. - ~6,000 ideas evaluated - ~5,900 given a clear yes or no - ~3,000 approved for action Each idea began with an employee who saw something worth improving. By listening across the business, leadership found the problems and ideas it could evaluate, prioritize, and act on. Where Tell Jules fits into Idea Harvest™ ## Start uncovering your own employees' ideas with Tell Jules These results came from full Idea Harvest™ engagements led by Harvest Earnings. The method helps companies gather employee ideas, weigh their financial value, and approve the ones worth pursuing. Tell Jules handles the first stage of an Idea Harvest™: gathering employee problems and ideas faster and at a much larger scale than manual interviews. Employees share what slows them down and how they'd fix it through short, guided conversations by phone or chat, at their own convenience. As they take part, Tell Jules organizes everything into one sortable app view, with the employee's idea, what to check to estimate the financial impact, and which teams to involve. You can use Tell Jules independently, without hiring Harvest Earnings or committing to the full 100-day Idea Harvest™ process. [See how Tell Jules works](https://www.telljules.ai/how-it-works?hsLang=en) Start your own Idea Harvest™ with Tell Jules ## What could an Idea Harvest™ uncover inside your company? You've seen what companies achieved by listening to their employees: millions in savings, new revenue, and costly problems solved. Now you can take the first step of that same process with your own team, free for two weeks. Tell Jules lets up to 25 employees share their problems and ideas in short conversations, bringing everything into one sortable report so you can see which opportunities are worth investigating. [Start your free trial of Tell Jules](https://www.telljules.ai/book-a-call?hsLang=en) Free for two weeks, one team of up to 25 employees, no commitment. [![logo (1)](https://www.telljules.ai/hubfs/logo%20(1).svg "logo (1)")](https://www.telljules.ai/?hsLang=en)  [The Problem](https://www.telljules.ai/?hsLang=en#the-problem)    [How It Works](https://www.telljules.ai/?hsLang=en#how-it-works)    [Results](https://www.telljules.ai/?hsLang=en#results)    [FAQ](https://www.telljules.ai/?hsLang=en#faq)    [Contact](https://www.telljules.ai/book-a-demo?hsLang=en) [Blog](https://www.telljules.ai/blog?hsLang=en)  © 2026 Tell Jules. All rights reserved.  [Privacy Policy](https://www.telljules.ai/privacy-policy?hsLang=en)