Fraud at work remains an ongoing issue, and various studies over the years have proposed interesting ways to curb unethical behavior at work.  For instance, one study suggesting photos of eyes can encourage better behavior because they prompt employees to believe they’re being watched.

A recent study from Washington University in St. Louis continues this theme, and suggests that pictures of family and friends can produce the same results.  The research found that when people looked at photos of friends or family before filing an expense report, they ended up claiming $8 less than peers who didn’t do so.

“If numerous employees submit monthly expense reports to a company, it’s easy to imagine the financial impact of the reduction in unethical behavior over time,” the researchers explain.

The researchers explain that around 70% of us tend to have photos on display in our workspaces, with companies signaling the kind of culture they want by the kind of photos that are deemed acceptable.

Best behavior

The researchers hypothesized that having pictures of those we’re close to in view would, in their words “decreases the hegemony of an economic schema in people’s minds”.  This basically means that having photos of loved ones in easy view reduces the priority we place on self-interest, which in turn reduces our likelihood of misbehaving.

They go on to say that photos are a visible cue to ourself, and indeed to others, about our values and interests.  How this translated into our likelihood to transgress at work was something that had been previously unexplored.

Across four experiments, they discovered a negative relationship between those employees who had photos of family or friends, as opposed to landscapes, and their likelihood of financially transgressing.  This includes common sources of workplace fraud, such as over-reporting earnings, padding expense reports, and so on.

“Our findings are relevant for individuals at work. For example, individuals who want to guard against their own unethical behavior could display photos of friends and family in their workspaces,” the researchers explain.

It’s a finding that the researchers believe should encourage employers to prompt employees to display photos of their family and friends in their workspace.

“More broadly, companies and individuals alike should be mindful of how their physical surroundings may be influencing their behavior,” they say.  “Whereas some organizations encourage segmentation of work and life by penalizing those who bring outside topics into work, our findings suggest that this segmentation may have an unexpected downside in terms of unethical behavior.”

These subtle changes to our physical work environment can prompt changes in our behavior, therefore it seems a very low cost and low effort way of reducing fraud in the workplace.