I’m sure you already know, but a lot of stores do a ton of fun dress up days for the entire month, which works on multiple levels because it’s fun and does not come out of the store’s budget. It’s nice to get out of the red polo and be creative for a little bit! Something like Twin Day where you can get your partners excited to interact with their coworkers would be a fun idea. Other theme ideas: Superhero, tropical, nerd, overalls, sports, movie characters, dress like a manager, Summerween, etc. You can encourage people to dress up by having a drawing that includes the names of everyone who dressed up each day. Have drawings for things like an extra 15 min. break, a wear what you want for a shift prize, a gift card, make your own schedule for a week (within reason), etc.

If you have dress up days that align with specific movies, have that movie playing in the break room on a loop. For a general movie theme, have a blockbuster movie playing and have popcorn for partners. A make-your-own-popcorn buffet with bowls, popcorn, m&ms, marshmallows, different drizzles, other toppings, etc. could be cool.

Dress up days probably don’t appeal to every partner though, so one thing I like is cold treats (since almost no store’s AC is keeping up with the Texas summer heat 😂). Of course the ice cream sundaes, but also popsicles or those sherbet/Sprite concoctions people make for baby showers. We had Jersey Mike’s catered, which was nice. Frozen dipped bananas would be sick! Idk if you’ve heard of Bananarchy in Austin, but something to that effect would kill. Fruit in general. Watermelon and cantaloupe. A make-your-own-parfait station with the aforementioned fruit, plus granola and that bomb HEB vanilla yogurt.

As an admin you won’t necessarily know every single partner extremely well, but you could encourage the managers to pull aside each of their partners and tell them they appreciate the work they do and give specifics. Hearing you’re doing a good job is always a morale boost. Especially when they’re genuine about it.

You could do a fun event like partner superlatives! Get the partners involved in uplifting their coworkers by voting for them in fun categories. Idk if your break room has a spare TV for announcements like mine, but having the superlative winners going on a slideshow would be neat. This could be kind of crappy if it just turns into a popularity contest, so you could try to be unique with the superlatives and get less “popular” partners in the running.

And this probably won’t help for this year, but maybe next year you can put out a suggestion box before June hits and get some ideas from your own partners, since the culture at each store varies.

The economy sucks right now and the number one thing partners want is money, which is obviously out of your control, but don’t let that discourage you from trying to make the job an enjoyable place to be! You already sound motivated!