For most of that time, there was something called 'store appreciation', around November, where everybody salaried had to travel to a WalMart store and work a full day there. And it had to be a Saturday, in addition to the normal Monday-Friday.
Most of my peers really complained about it, and it was kind of a pain in the ass, but it was usually illuminating and interesting. More than once, my experience there directly illuminated stuff I was working on or could work on back in tech land.
Inspired by that, I started to strongly encourage everyone on my team to spend a day in the NOC or Field Support (the two help desks we supported more than others) once a quarter or so. Again, a lot of complaining but most of the time we'd come back with some really useful insights.
EDIT: To be clear, 'everyone salaried' definitely included all of the executives, who would make a big deal out of it during big meetings, and often talk about their own personal findings.
It went back to a very "in the store, hands on" style from the founder, Sam Walton.