What A Soda Vending Machine Can Teach Us About Employee Engagement

Inspiration can be a curious thing.

I’m always amazed at how seemingly unrelated pieces can stir up new ideas or perspectives about our world and the way we live and conduct ourselves within it. Take, for example, this commercial released on YouTube last week by Coca-Cola called the “Happiness Machine”.

While the commercial is effective in creating this idea of Coca-Cola being a source of happiness, there’s also a valuable lesson here that can be imparted to business leaders in how they interact with their employees.

It’s not hard to see that this social experiment by Coca-Cola led to a dramatic change in the mood of the students at this university cafeteria. Indeed, the level of enthusiasm and yes, happiness, created by this exercise probably made most of the students head off to class brimming with more energy to take on their assignments (and not just as a result of the expected sugar rush).

Where this gets interesting, though, is if we imagine seeing this kind of response in our employees.

What would it be like to have your team demonstrating the level of excitement and energy displayed by these students in this video? I’m sure it’s obvious to all of us the benefits of creating such a condition in our workplace, both to overall productivity as well as job satisfaction.

So how can we duplicate these results in our business or teams? Aside from the obvious giving stuff away for free, let’s look at what exactly Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Machine” did that created this sense of collaboration and engagement among the students:

1. Offer something unexpected
Obviously, when these students started using this vending machine, they had no idea that they would be receiving more than the bottle of Coke they were purchasing. And while initially, there must have been some personal satisfaction at getting these surprise bonuses, it becomes clear that as the situation moves on, the level of engagement and excitement moved beyond the participant to include everyone in the cafeteria.

Of course, this doesn’t mean businesses need to orchestrate something as elaborate as this “Happiness Machine”. After all, remember from the vantage point of the students, all that made this different was that the machine was giving out all sorts of stuff for free. In other words, it was simply turning what would normally be an unremarkable event into a simple gesture that would leave a much more lasting impression.

So instead of having another typical team meeting, secretly plan to end it early and surprise everyone by bringing out cocktail platters and giving your employees time to just relax and enjoy their work environment. Or announce an impromptu hockey game in the office parking lot – with a request for spectators needed to cheer the game on. The point is it doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate to plan – the only objective is to break up the routine and offer something to motivate your employees and raise team spirit.

2. A little kindness goes a long way
This is something we’ve all been told countless times by our parents and school teachers, but watching this video you can see the evidence behind this statement.

Granted, in this case, we’re talking about students getting free bottles of soda, flowers and even a massive submarine sandwich. But the real lesson to be learned here is that these students were not given these things as rewards for passing a difficult exam or getting an “A” grade on their latest paper. Instead, they were simply given these gifts as a gesture of appreciation with – as the machine’s name implies – the hope of generating happiness.

Bringing this back to what we can do in our businesses, again this has less to do with giving employees a material gift as it does the reason behind the gesture.

While it’s common practice for businesses to offer incentives for employees to take on a new task or assignment, it’s sadly a rare occurrence for leaders to offer praise or appreciation to employees for their own initiatives or efforts. In other words, instead of simply thinking one’s role is to evaluate and judge the performance of others, leaders need to understand the importance of validating what their employees see as their contribution to the company.

As before, this doesn’t require any huge effort or expense for companies. It could be something as simple as taking the time to stop by an employee’s desk after a meeting and thanking them in person for the contributions/insights they provided to the discussion. Or perhaps writing a personal note of thanks to an employee for the initiatives they undertook on a recent project, leaving it in their cubbyhole as an unexpected surprise in their day (a perfect tie-in to the first point made above).

Without question, Coca-Cola’s “Happiness Machine” video does a great job promoting the idea that their product can help spread smiles and good times amongst a group of people. What they probably didn’t expect was that they also demonstrated the value of fostering a sense of engagement and appreciation for those we work with.

UPDATE: I got a tweet from the Coca-Cola company on Twitter telling me not only how much they enjoyed this piece, but also that they were going to forward this piece to the team behind the “Happiness Machine”.  A wonderful example of the power of social media.

NOTE: Be sure to check out these two follow-up pieces on employee engagement:

Why Employers Need To Engage With A Purpose, which looks at the what employers will gain through having an engaged workforce.

Employee Engagement Is Not Just For Leaders, which offers tips on what employees can do to foster an engaged workplace even if their management doesn’t want to.

20 comments on “What A Soda Vending Machine Can Teach Us About Employee Engagement

  1. What a great message for all leaders, sometimes the simplest acts bring us back to basics, it's always about treating people positively and finding the good in any situation. The life of work has enough stress already.

    Thanks for sharing this great tie in to Employee Engagement, no doubt these students will give that extra "discretionary effort".

  2. Hi Sharon,

    Thanks for the kind words. It's great to see a message of treating our employees with respect and appreciation resonating with so many.

    In understanding that it's through simple gestures, and not elaborate or expensive tactics, we can foster a more productive environment, there's little reason for companies to not re-examine their 'managerial approach' to their staff.

    Thanks again for stopping by and sharing your thoughts on this. 🙂

  3. Truly excellent post, Tanveer. I will be referencing this in an upcoming post on my own blog. In the meantime, let me say how much I agree with this statement:

    "While it’s common practice for businesses to offer incentives for employees to take on a new task or assignment, it’s sadly a rare occurrence for leaders to offer praise or appreciation to employees for their own initiatives or efforts. In other words, instead of simply thinking one’s role is to evaluate and judge the performance of others, leaders need to understand the importance of validating what their employees see as their contribution to the company."

    That is so true. I just completed a webinar today with Dan Pink (author of the new book Drive) in which he commented on a great deal of research that supports the value of this. Employees are so much more motivated by autonomy (ability to take on those tasks they see as contributing), mastery (their own desire to continually improve, which is reinforced through feedback, the most effective and positive of which is frequent recognition from peers and managers), and purpose (the knowledge that what they do matters in their work).

    Thank you for posting this video and for the very important insight you offer on it. I very much enjoyed it.

  4. Thanks Derek, for the wonderful comment. I'm glad you enjoyed this piece and please do let me know when you post your piece on your blog.

    I couldn't agree more with Dan Pink's categorization of these three motivators, as well as his point that we need to recognize that even in business, humans are complex creatures. For too long, we've been pushing this idea that, in business settings, people need to reflect a black-white spectrum. With competition now moving to a global scale, the reality businesses are facing is that we need to move past even shades of gray to looking at human behavour as encapsulating the full colour spectrum.

    Of course, there are still some leaders who can't see the value in this and worse still, employees who are grappling with the reality of working under management that refuses to put any stock in employee engagement. Those are two issues I'm planning on addressing in two new posts I'll be sharing here next week.

    Thanks again, Derek, for adding your thoughts and insights to this discussion. I'm glad to hear how much you enjoyed it. 🙂

  5. Hi Roberta,

    It's nice to see you here. Thanks for mentioning me in your post – very kind of you. I'm definitely going to check it out, as I'm curious to read about your ideas on employee engagement and the Wii machine.

    Thanks again, Roberta, for stopping by and it's nice to make your acquaintance as well. 🙂

  6. I really like how you went beyond just the tangible incentives provided by the Happiness Machine. It’s not the incentives themselves that make people happy about their work, it’s the pat on the back and validation from the employer behind it. I love this line:

    “…leaders need to understand the importance of validating what their employees see as their contribution to the company.”

    Incentives are good but surprise ones, like you mentioned, would make a much more lasting impression than one that’s expected. Thanks for posting this video! Wish we had a Coke machine like this at my college!

  7. Hi Drew,

    Without question, what truly matters to employees is not the monetary value of the gesture, but the reason and sincerity behind it. It’s why I’ve been writing about making business personal again because treating our employees with respect and appreciation will serve not only to create a better work environment, but will also foster the means for companies to become better competitors on the global market.

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this Drew.

  8. Tanveer, good to make your acquaintance and follow you on Twitter. Great post. I was actually writing my own post on how the Wii is a good example of how to engage employees when I read your post.

  9. Wow! Amazing… Isn’t it time we all became our own Happiness machine. In our work, in our schools, in our homes…. it is so easy and yet so hard… It is intriguing how cynical we have become that small acts of kindness can really move us. It is unbelievable to see how contagious happiness is. Just watching the clip made me a little bit happier and I wasn’t even there. We need to use these principles everyday. We can change the world, one small gesture at time. Thanks for inspiring me with this post to write another one about it in hope that the idea of the happiness machine will spread!
    Elad

    1. Hi Elad,

      You’re right that it’s unfortunate how we’ve become fixated on the idea that only big gestures, big ideas can create real change or improve things. As I discussed in a piece about how to overcome those big challenges/problems we face, we don’t appreciate how in focusing on making these small efforts, we can create the conditions that will allow for change to occur.

      Naturally, the same thing applies to how we create an environment where people feel empowered simply by making the effort to show them that their efforts are being noticed and most importantly, making a valuable contribution to the greater whole.

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Elad. And I’m glad to hear this piece inspired you to write one of your own. 🙂

  10. Hey Tanveer,

    A great reminder that offering something unexpected that's not attached to performance or a task can work wonders to make someone happy and feel appreciated, not to mention more productive.

    Looking forward to an impromptu game of foosball this Friday!

  11. Hi Xurxo,

    Thanks for your comment on this. One of the excuses we make for not working toward engaging our team is because we think this effort is costly or time-consuming. As this piece shows, though, it’s really not about the cost, nor does it have to be something that takes up a lot of time. Essentially, it just comes down to recognizing the efforts of your employees and showing appreciation for the fact that you have them on your team.

    I’m looking forward to that impromptu foosball game as well. In fact, I better start practicing. 🙂

  12. Tanveer, wanted to let you know my post on this went live today.

    Thanks again for the inspiration!

    1. Hi Derek,

      Thanks for letting me know about your post and I'm glad to hear I helped to inspire you about this issue. Looking forward to reading your piece. 🙂

  13. This is what tons of people had forgot. People have forgot that a little kindness and attention goes a long way… customers appreciate when you help them with a little show of human goodness and relation.

    1. Absolutely Francois. I've been reading a lot of articles talking about how this year will be the year that social media truly takes hold in business. Unfortunately, most of these pundits are mostly pointing out how businesses have no choice but to be on these social platforms, and not pointing out what they need to do to really make their efforts worthwhile. As you pointed out, what most of us want is to know that businesses and their leaders are paying attention to what they're being told by those they serve, whether they're employees or customers.

      Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this piece.

  14. In that video, the same thing happened to me, once!! Only…The soda machine only vended out three sodas for the price of one. …And, there was no pizza or hoagies of which to speak. But it did make two other people happy who I shared it with! =)

    Seriously, though, I've been working my tail off all day trying to get some marketing done for an online business I have, and when I see this, it makes me think that just doing business as I've been told to do business, I'm lucky to get a few people to notice. I'm a creative person, why should I lose that in business? And I like to make people laugh. Yet I'm a very by the book person. While i have no employees of which to speak, it puts in my mind more creative marketing ideas!

    Anyways, I'm also on a Pepsi high right now (sorry, Coca Cola) so might be biting off more than I can chew, but I feel a little better about my business now. Thanks.

  15. Really loved the post! And the video!
    Employee engagement is highly underrated. Small gestures that show respect and approval can go a long way in increasing the motivation of your employees, and ultimately, the productivity of your organization. Breed an environment that gives and you'll certainly get back a lot more.

    -Sindoora

    1. Thanks Sindoora, glad you enjoyed this piece. While we're all expected to do our job, it's still important that leaders take the time to tell their employees how much their appreciate their efforts. After all, what better way is there for an employee to know that their efforts matter than hearing from those above how much they value their contributions.

      Thanks again, Sindoora for sharing your thoughts on this piece.

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