In the About Us page on this blog, I mentioned some of the ways my pictures have been used. I jokingly mentioned that my photos have never appeared on a coffee mug or mouse pad. Well, one of those has changed.
Often, a company has an employee lunchroom or staff lounge in the workplace. A not uncommon problem is that some employees leave behind dirty cups or other types of mess on a table or in the sink.
Enter behavioural psychology.
As a fun experiment, a small Toronto office has given each of its employees a free coffee mug with their business portrait on it. Their mug on a mug. The office will no longer buy disposable cups.
Since each person now has their own coffee mug with their face on it, the company hopes that the employees will be motivated to clean up after themselves. If someone leaves behind a dirty cup, everyone in the office will immediately know who the culprit is.
The company is wondering whether employees who clean their own coffee mug will also feel obligated to clean any of their other food messes in the lunchroom.
The employees may think they got a free coffee mug but they really got entered into a psychology experiment.
