Tag Archives: non verbal communication

Non-Verbal communication (2): Listen with your eyes

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On the first part of these articles regarding Non Verbal Communication we spoke about the first impression when you meet your domestic cleaner for the first time. On this article, let us explain you what happen when you are interviewing your potential cleaner.

There has been a unanimous agreement between different psychologists regarding the perception of a person’s message. Basically, professionals consider that 55% of what we perceive when someone is talking to us is visual (that is body language), 38% is vocal (that is how the person sounds) and 7% is verbal (that is what the speaker is actually saying).

Everyone can do the maths on this matter: what someone is saying is not as important as how they say it. Do you remember that situation when you asked a friend that was crying if everything was ok and they just said “fine”? You didn’t believe them, did you? So keep reading and you will find some very useful tips on how to listen to your domestic cleaner and how much you can believe what she says!

There are some basic aspects of body language that you will need to check when interviewing your potential domestic cleaner:

·         Eye contact: Maintaining good eye contact shows respect and interest. If your future cleaner is looking at you without a blink or not at all, then you have something to worry about.

·         Arms: Extrovert people tend to use their arms very often, contrary to shy people. That is fine; the only thing you will need to check is if the potential cleaner has her arms crossed on her chest or has her hands on her hips as it is a very defensive and aggressive posture.

·         Legs: We know that we tend to move our legs a lot when nervous, and most probably your new domestic cleaner will be like a jelly on her first day, so be kind on this one. Anyway, if she is sitting with her legs crossed or her foot is kicking slightly, in general terms it will mean that she is bored.

·         Hands: They can say a lot, but again, there are many different gestures and culture differences may change meanings drastically. Generally, someone with their palms up is seen as open, friendly and sincere.  Someone tapping their fingers will most probably be impatient. And someone biting their nails will imply insecurity or nervousness.

·         Distance from others: Too close to you and you will see your cleaner as pushy; too far and you will consider her not to be interested. As with the hand gestures culture difference play a big part on this. Generally Latin cleaners will tend to get closer to you and Asian cleaners will tend to maintain a larger space between you.

Other gestures that you may have seen:

·         If your potential cleaner puts her hand on the cheek, most probably she will be evaluating something or thinking about something.

·         If she touches or rubs her nose, the meaning is clear: rejection, doubt or lying.

·         Is she fondling her hair? It usually is a lack of self-confidence or insecurity.

·         If she quickly tilts her head that means interest in what you are saying.

 There are thousands of different gestures that will tell you a lot about your domestic cleaner. You will not be an expert on the field on your first interview, but do not give up and keep trying!

Non-Verbal communication (1): The first impressions

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It has been said by some professionals that it usually takes about two minutes to create an opinion on someone. Others rebate this by saying 30 seconds. Actually, there are others saying that you only need 2 seconds to get an opinion on someone! You know now that, what it takes you to open your front door to meet your new cleaner would be more than enough to decide if you really like her or not.

As psychologists say, we humans are confronted on a daily basis with complicated situations, or maybe we are forced to decode important information quite quickly. On these cases, without even knowing it, we tend to our beliefs, values and attitudes to make a decision or create an opinion on the matter.

It is part of our nature. I suppose it is our animal instinct; we need to protect ourselves. But this natural reaction can have big implications on the way we communicate or relate to others. Imagine your first meeting: You open the door to your new long waited domestic cleaner and… you don’t like her, you just don’t like her! But still you need to give her a chance, let her in, do the interview and hopefully change your mind about her. There is only one problem: it is extremely difficult to change your feelings once you already made up your mind about your domestic cleaner.

These unconscious judgments that we make can be very tricky. On one hand, this “ability” (let’s call it this way) can bring on us our worst prejudices which will stop us from interviewing our prospective domestic cleaner appropriately. On the other hand, it can save our lives.

Now that you have this information, use it to your advantage! We know that there will be situations where our most hidden part of our minds will work by itself to create a general idea of our new cleaner when we meet her for the first time. At http://www.amycleaning.co.uk we consider important to try and force yourself not to react instinctively by creating a structured interview, writing down your possible questions in advance. It will help you a lot to get a better idea about the experience, skills and attitude of the domestic cleaner.