Engaged Employees and Ramen Noodles

I love ramen noodles. I rarely eat them anymore, but I remember a time in my youth where I might have eaten them 6 times a week.  By choice.  When I was a University student, or even when I was young adult in my first job, I used to love eating ramen noodles.  I used to budget spending $40/week on groceries.  For 6 days of the week, I tried to live on less than a dollar a day.  That sounds like nothing, but it was actually a lot of money.   Ramen noodles were about $.19/package and this was my dinner.  Sometimes I could buy a case of noodles on sale and it would work out to $.11/package. That would be my dinner and leave me with $.89 left.  A lot of money.  I would have a piece of fruit for breakfast.  Usually an orange, sometimes a grapefruit, some grapes, sometimes a banana. Whatever was seasonal and whatever was the best value.  Lunch also gave me options.  I would have two hard boiled eggs.  Sometimes cans of tuna would be on sale so I could have half a can with two mashed eggs and a little mayo.  Sometimes a can of green beans.  Sometimes, some toast with peanut butter.  I shopped about every two days for something fresh.  I always bought day old bread out of clearance and put it in the freezer.  It would last me a month.  Once a month, the store that I shopped had double coupon week.  I collected coupons and would be there right when the store opened on double coupon week, I was in line because I knew that they didn't restock the items that had really good coupons.  I used to collect the coupons that others threw out.  I remember one of my biggest coups.  I had 10 coupons for stewed tomatoes.  The coupons were $.50 off each can.  Double that.  So, I had 10 coupons for $1.00 off stewed tomatoes.  Stewed tomatoes were only $.88/can.  That meant, I had $1.20 credit towards the rest of my groceries.  Plus ten meals for free !!  Heat a can of stewed tomatoes and add a couple of cubes of cheese and you had a pretty good meal.  The possibilities were endless.  So, spending $6.00 on six days meant that I still had $34.00 dollars in my budget for the one day.  At that time, it was a pretty good night out on the town.

Sorry to regress, but, that was a simpler, happy time in my life.

Back to my ramen noodles.  You think I would be bored having them every day but that wasn't the case.  I could cook them, drain the water, and add a little butter,  Delicious.  I could keep the water, add some soy sauce, and maybe a cooked onion, or a grated carrot and have a delicious soup. Sometimes I would use the flavour packet; sometimes not.  It didn't seem to matter.  The flavour was consistent with or without.

Today, I went online and discovered there was lots of recipes for ramen noodles.  I could find atleast 20 recipes to upscale my beloved noodles.  All of the recipes involved discarding the flavour packet.

All anecdotal evidence suggests that putting the flavour packet in with ramen noodles seems to be a waste of time.  So, why do they do it?  If they didn't add the flavour packet, perhaps ramen noodles would be even cheaper !!

It was the same reason that instant cake mixes were a resounding failure when they first came out. All you had to do was add water and bake.  No one wanted to buy them, because they were making this cake to serve to someone.  They wanted more of a role so that they could feel like they were actually making a cake.  So, now, most instant cake mixes require you to add a couple eggs, plus water and then bake.  You actually feel like you are making a cake.

And that is how you engage employees.  Simple, but true.  Employees want to feel like their individual contribution is contributing to the overall mission of the company.  They are not satisfied "just adding water".  They don't want to do a job that just anyone can do.  They want to feel that their unique approach to their tasks are making a difference.  How do leaders ensure that employees feel engaged.  They use common sense.  They notice and they comment.  Why did I keep eating ramen noodles night after night when I could have afforded something more?   Because I was making a contribution to my Mission statement.  I was saving money so that I could have one night out on the town without guilt.  It was easy for me to see that.  I kept my receipts on my fridge so I could look at them.   So, if I was craving a steak or something, I could look at the receipts and have a visual reminder that my goal was to have a steak out at the end of the week.

Common sense but you achieve engaged employees by connecting the dots for them.  Remind them how their contribution leads to an actual contribution to the company mission.  You don't have to tell an engaged employee that they have done a good job.   If they can actually connect that they are contributing to an overall purpose, they will do a good job, and then they will come up with their own ways to do a great job.  In essence, they will find a way to dress up their ramen noodles so it will be more palpable for them.

Common sense.  If you want engaged employees, explain to them the value of their contribution to the overall mission of your company. 

If they are just "adding water" then anyone can do that and you won't have a very engaged employee.

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