Some employees often lie at work for a variety of reasons. These might include having a strict boss or impressing the boss to seek promotions. They try to blame someone else for their mistakes and want to make you feel like they are angels. In fact, they are trying to fool you but if the employer is experienced enough, he would easily find out whether they are lying or speaking the truth.
As an employer, you care about your business the most and can't take the risk of your efforts. It is a mistake to expect loyalty from every employee because each person is different. There are all types of people in the world. Therefore, you must be ready to deal with all types of employees.
It is important for you to possess such a skill through which you could detect whether your employee is lying to you or not. Otherwise, you might end up giving the promotion to such employee who is less-efficient and less-productive for your business. It requires the study of the behavior of different people. Surprisingly, the behavior of a liar exposes his lie. The interesting part is that some behaviors are common in people and you can simply learn those behaviors and analyze the behavior of your employee in the light of your study. In this article, I'm going to share three most common behaviors that expose the liars.
1 - Unnecessary Pauses While Speaking:
When your employee pauses too often unnecessarily while speaking, it's a sign that he may be lying t you because of the fact that the truth makes you speak fluently without hesitations. Most people only hesitate when they are trying to make up stories by themselves.
Though it must be noted that it depends on the past pattern of your employee too. I mean, the word "too often" requires the study of his past pattern of interacting with you If it's his habit to pause too often while speaking then it's completely normal in his case but if it's not his normal pattern to speak and you suspect that something is fishy, then it is safe to assume that he may be lying to you.
2 - Avoiding Eye Contact:
This is the second most common behavior of a liar. If he is trying to avoid the eye contact from you then something is fishy for sure. Just like I said above, it requires the study of his past behavior with you. Though it may sound weird but some people naturally like to look elsewhere while talking. If that's the case here, then I doubt your hiring skills because such people are not often good for the company. How you can hire such a person who lacks the essential approach of talking with others?
If that's not the case, then it's possible that your employee is fooling you. As soon as you analyze his behavior, it's not good to get mad on your employee but rather do more research to find out whether he committed any mistake or lying to you (or whatever is the case) or not.
3 - Touching their noses;
It sounds funny but whenever we lie to someone, we often scratch our nose a bit. Same is the case with your employee. If you find that your employee is not following his normal pattern of answering you but instead, scratching his nose or touching his face, again and again, it means that he is hesitated to tell you the truth and is probably lying to you.
I believe that employers shouldn't be that strict. They should be open-minded because it helps the employees to speak the truth without hesitation as they'd know that you won't get mad immediately on them. I mean, you should be strict in enforcing the rules but not in conversation or else it can become a barrier between you and your employee and they'll always hesitate to tell the truth.
Images are public domain from Pixabay, except for top image, which is from the movie "Liar Liar" from Universal Pictures.
This is true. Some people also make abnormal gestures and would not have the nerves to look at you. But I think every boss should be liberal and flexible to avoid unnecessary behaviours that could mar the business. Thank you @communitycoin for sharing.
Good advice for bosses!
I've known about the first two behaviors that liars have, but never heard about the third one. I'm gonna definitely keep this in mind and always observe people if they scratch their nose or touch their face too much.
I've always been really interested in the human body language and I've been trying to read people just by looking at them. I can say, the more you do it, the better you start to understand people without even the need to talk to them.
This helped me detect when people are lying to me because of certain body movements or because of the way they talk.
Once you start observing people, you will immediately notice any kind of change in their behavior no matter what it is, and then you can identify the reason for the change.
Interesting stuff man!
Surely people are not easy! Chameleons'
Nice post overall. But I want to disagree with the point 1 which is; Unnecessary Pauses While Speaking.
So me people have mastered the act of lying so much that they speak freely and with confidence even when lying.
Good write up @communitycoin. It's indeed an educative post.
Thanks for sharing
Nice post amezing images...
Yeah, maybe it's true. Thanks for sharing with us...
I belive we need to start with the last advice. Those who are extremely strict or very judgmental usually push others to become liars. Not only in work but in every life situation. Thanks @communitycoin for sharing.
As an employer, you care about your business the most and can't take the risk of your efforts. It is a mistake to expect loyalty from every employee because each person is different. There are all types of people in the world. Therefore, you must be ready to deal with all types of employees.
This is so true :)
avoiding eye contact. that has been my all-time lie detector test
All that I've read in this article is nothing but stigma and shallow understanding of the non-verbal behaviour. I don't know where did you get the information from since you did not point out the sources but I would like to discuss some of the points with you.
Again, it's a common misconception that a liar would want to avoid eye contact. On the contrary - a liar would always want to look you in the eyes/face because by doing it he or she wants to know if you believed the story.
Again a shallow understanding of how the non-verbal communication works.
This is absolutely correct. But it does not rely solely on compulsive actions towards the face. There are a lot of other signs (including ambivalent shoulder positions, 'control' actions by the hand and others.)
While for some people touching the nose might be a sign for deceptive behaviour - for others - absolutely the opposite !
There are a lot of combinations of verbal, non-verbal and even para-verbal communication that one has to take in consideration when looking for deceptive behaviour.
Spreading shallow and stigmatized messages will not only be at any use, but it may even harm an innocent person. I really hope you understand what I'm saying in this comment !
I haven't really had a fellow employee lie at work, but I have had a neighbour do that.
He lies a lot in a bid to seem important and sometimes her stories don't align.