Happy St. Patrick’s day all!
Fun fact: Did you know that St. Patrick’s day was not celebrated in Ireland until the 1960’s? Ireland actually spent the day in mourning and bars (gasp!) were closed. Only in the 1960’s did the country decide to adopt the more “festive” nature of the holiday by following American Irish traditions (click here for the full story).
Today’s post has nothing at all to do with Ireland. In fact, its topic is the opposite of what you can expect in any bar in America today: silence. Here is a quick snippet:
“As an HR professional using silence effectively is critical in our day-to-day. For example, if you are investigating an employee complaint you spend a lot of time interviewing those involved. During interviews it is critical that you let people speak until they are finished and then wait a few seconds before you ask follow up questions. The five -ten second pause is critical to making sure that the interviewee doesn’t have anything additional to add and if they do, they can speak to it.”
My post is full of other tips on using silence at work. Click over to PIC to read the rest.