5 Ways to Spot a Workplace Energy Vampire

Noble Systems share five intriguing ways to spot employees that might be draining the energy from your contact centre.

What is an energy vampire? According to Judith Orloff, MD, University of California Los Angeles Psychiatric Clinical Faculty, it is “somebody who literally zaps your energy dry”.

Healthline.com notes that they sometimes drain your emotional energy intentionally.

In the workplace, an energy vampire’s behaviour drains the positivity of co-workers.

Moreover, in businesses with call centres, they can even affect customers.

Spotting them and slaying their unproductive behaviours can save an entire team from wallowing in a motivation wasteland.

Also, it can minimize the damage done to customer satisfaction.

So, without further ado, here’re five ways to detect workplace energy vampires – and what to do when you find them.

1. When your best employees are not shining bright, look out

Talent and expertise are favourite targets of energy vampires. They are adept at turning these traits against individuals and teams. For instance, repeatedly asking for help from your most knowledgeable agents, preventing them from servicing customers.

2. Notice what happens in meetings

Team meetings are a hotspot for energy, with multiple people coming together for a productive purpose. These employees love to hijack meetings, monopolizing attention and sucking up time.

3. Be aware of bullying and intimidation

Workplace energy vampires often use dehumanizing tactics to prey on co-workers’ insecurities and build up their own egos. This can manifest as harping on others’ mistakes, or over-sharing their own achievements.

4. Locate the centre of the drama

These employees are drama-magnets. They are almost always the common thread in issues between employees. Or if there are recurring problems with customers, they are likely involved.

5. Take account of lack of accountability

When problems arise because of their behaviour, these employees often lie low or shift attention onto others to avoid accountability. Are CSAT scores poor for the entire call centre? It will always be the fault of a co-worker, according to an energy vampire.

How to Handle a Workplace Energy Vampire

Once you find an energy vampire, what do you do? While it may be tempting to line their cubicle with garlic, this is not likely to solve your problem.

The reason they are a negative influence on the rest of the team could be a lack of training, direction, or inclusiveness.

Even an energy vampire can turn into a paragon of duty with enough attention and motivation.

Here are some ideas:

Train or Retrain

Sometimes the energy vampire needs to be shown their own reflection regarding job knowledge and skill development.

More training on key aspects of their job, or even retraining on fundamentals, may be required.

Training presents the opportunity to understand what is needed to motivate and help them succeed.

Establish Goals

Setting and clearly communicating goals will provide direction for these employees and help them focus on what’s important (so they’re not spending their time sucking the life force of the rest of the team).

Once goals are established, recognizing and rewarding progress and accomplishment will reinforce positive behaviours.

Build a Sense of Belonging

There is a good chance that your energy vampire feels like an outsider.

Providing options for collaboration and best practice sharing between this employee and peers or their supervisor will make the vampire feel less isolated and strengthen your team overall.

Gamification – A Defence Against Workplace Energy Vampires

Learning, goals and collaboration are a lot easier with a gamification technology solution.

Gamifying day-to-day work and introducing friendly competition, status levels, and other game elements can make dull jobs fun and exciting.

With gamification, you can set up contests in minutes and deliver digital rewards in an instant. Most importantly, it will help align your employee activities with business objectives.

Check out this video to learn more about aligning goals and behaviour with gamification.