Business Analysis for Thrive Consultancy: Impact of New Policy and Funding Cuts on Employee Morale and Performance

Thrive Consultancy introduced a new policy and funding cuts that resulted in low morale and performance of employees. In-depth interviews were conducted with five employees, and the data were coded and transformed into graphs through thematic analysis. The findings showed a moderate impact of the changes on the employees, and recommendations were made, such as training of the HR department, two shift hours instead of one, lower price coffee and tea in the office, and appreciation of the employees.

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Business Analysis
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Executive Summary
Thrive Consultancy offers services in Human Resource consultation, strategic planning, and
advertisement consultation. The new policy of the company prevented the employees from
work hour flexibilities, and the funding cut means they would not get free tea, coffee
anymore. Subsequently, the employees have shown a low morale and performance that lead
to absenteeism. In order to understand the reasons for this, in-depth interviews have been
conducted with five employees of the company. In this qualitative study, the data have been
coded and transformed into graphs through thematic analysis. The finding o the research
showed that there is a moderate level of impact of the changes on the employees, and further
indicated that the HR department lacks in skills. Therefore, recommendations, such as
training of the HR department, two shift hours instead of one, lower price coffee and tea in
the office, and appreciation of the employees, have been made.

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Literature Review...........................................................................................................3
Motivation..................................................................................................................3
Factors Related to Absenteeism.................................................................................4
Workplace Culture.....................................................................................................5
Job Satisfaction..........................................................................................................5
Research Objectives and Questions...........................................................................6
Methodology..................................................................................................................6
Findings..........................................................................................................................7
Recommendations........................................................................................................12
Conclusions..................................................................................................................13
References....................................................................................................................15

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Introduction
Thrive Consultancy is a well known consultancy company in Australia that offers
services in human resource consultation, strategic planning, and marketing consultation for
fifteen years. The company confers with other companies on their HR solutions, renewing
and developing policies, developing KPIs, training, career and leadership development, and
employee relation and communication. Thrive Consultancy also assists companies to create a
sustainable business in terms of globalisation, technological advancement, and
marketingthrough is strategic planning workshops. The purpose of the marketing consultancy
programs of the company is to help other companies comprehend the clients’ perception of
those companies, branding, marketing, advertising, and how to use social media.
Recently, the company has introduced a new policy and funding cuts. According to
the new policy, there would be a fixed Monday to Friday 9-5 working hours, which means the
employees would not get the flexible shift timing and work from home option. The cut in the
funds indicates that the office kitchen would no longer provide free coffee, tea, biscuits, and
milk. After this change, the company has been facing low morale and performance of the
employees which is resulting into increase of absenteeism. The CEO wishes to find out the
reason for this reason for this recent tendency of absenteeism.
Literature Review
Motivation
The success of an organisation depends on its workforce and the efficiency of it.
Hence, it is crucial that organisations retain the employees and keep the rate of absenteeism
low. According to recent researches, there are many reasons, for which absenteeism among
the employees happens, such as lack of job satisfaction, salary, career growth, management

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and leadership, and reward and incentives (Arokiasamy, 2013; Aguenza & Som, 2018). These
elements play as the motivational factors for employee retention in organisations. According
to the job demand-resources (JD-R) theory, in times when the job is demanding and stressful,
job resources like positive feedbacks and social support reduce that stress and the impact of
job demand (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). In addition to this, job resources, such as the
assistance and support of other employees, also motivate employees to work efficiently in
situations where the job demand is high (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). Therefore, it can be
said that any inadequacy in these resources could result into absenteeism and employee
turnover.
Factors Related to Absenteeism
As discussed by Gangai (2014), absenteeism is a well recognised problem in
organisations and steps should be taken by the executives to prevent it. There could be two
types of absenteeism – involuntary and voluntary. Employees could have genuine reason for
being absent such as sickness. This is termed as involuntary absenteeism, which means being
absent for unavoidable reasons. There are situations when employees do not provide
justifiable reasons for being absent or make a habit of taking unscheduled leaves. This
situation is defined as voluntary absenteeism. On this regard, Kocakulah, Kelley, Mitchell
and Ruggieri (2016) observed that sickness and family problems are the major reasons for
unscheduled absenteeism. Sickness, personal and family issues along with stress effect the
employees, and as a result productivity reduces and absenteeism increases. Gangai (2014)
suggested that providing incentives on those factors that are making them absent is an
effective way to motivate employees to be present at office. Kocakulah et al. (2016) also
supported this claim and further indicated that apart from creating a positive work culture and
giving incentives, flexible schedules along with childcare facilities could have a powerful
impact on the employees and reduce absenteeism.

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Workplace Culture
As one of the crucial determinant of the financial gain of the organisations is the
productivity of the workforce, it is vital for the organisations to retain the employees and
reduce the rate of absenteeism (Idris, 2014). The researcher specifically mentions that
benefits such as flexible shift time and opportunity of working from home create job
satisfaction of the employees and increases the productivity. On the other hand, even though
Allen, Johnson, Kiburz and Shockley (2013) agree that there is a relation between the work-
family conflict and flexibility in workplace, their research claim that it is lesser in magnitude
than assumed. Despite their findings, McNamara, Pitt-Catsouphes, Matz-Costa, Brown and
Valcour (2013) observe that flexibility in working hours has a greater influence on the job
satisfaction as it is the key factor in maintaining a balance between work and family
responsibilities. They assert that when the organisations make supportive policies that help
the employees balance their work and family life, and provide options that are suitable to the
needs of the employees, it reduces the stress level of the employees and increases their job
satisfaction.
Job Satisfaction
Among the factors that influence job performance and absenteeism, job satisfaction is
one of the most significant. Lack in job satisfaction leads to employee absenteeism and
eventually, employee turnover (Kabungaidze, Mahlatshana & Ngirande 2013). Thereafter, it
is crucial for the organisation to keep the employees satisfied in terms of job in order to
increase their performance and productivity. As opined by Gayathiri, Ramakrishnan,
Babatunde, Banerjee and Islam (2013), when an organisation provide quality work life that is
flexible work environment and facilities, incentives, and work life balance, it is evident that
the job satisfaction level of the employees increase and the absenteeism reduces. Dugguh and
Dennis (2014) also suggest that the job satisfaction of the employees directly affect the

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productivity of the organisations, employee relation, and absenteeism. Hence, it can be said
that workplace flexibility and incentives play critical roles in increasing job satisfaction and
thus, the performance of the employees. Lack of these factors leads to job dissatisfaction and
consequently, employee retention and absenteeism.
Research Objectives and Questions
The CEO of Thrive Consultancy has decided to comprehend whether the new policy
and funding cuts are the reasons for the low performance and morale of the employees, or
there are other reasons at play.
The research objectives are –
i. To find out the effect of the new policy and funding cut on the employees.
ii. To understand the reasons for the recent increase of absenteeism in the company.
iii. To recommend strategies that would reduce the rate of absenteeism.
Therefore, the research questions are –
i. What is the effect of the new policy and funding cuts on the employees?
ii. What are the reasons for the recent absenteeism in the organisation?
iii. What measures can be recommended to reduce the absenteeism?
Methodology
This research follows qualitative research method in which the researcher employs
observation in order to gather non-numerical information. This method is used to understand
characteristics, definitions, descriptions, concepts, symbols, and meanings of various ideas of
social science (Silverman, 2016). People are centre of this type of research study. Therefore,
it can be said that qualitative research is related to the study of intangible issues and inexact
ideas belonging to the experiential realm of life.
In this study, the primary data has been collected through in-depth and open-ending

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interviews with five staff members of the company from multiple posts. The interviews took
almost twenty minutes for each employee. They followed a semi-structured interview style
with an interview protocol. The interviews were conducted in a quiet meeting room within
the office premises.
Each interviewee was asked three questions and the transcript of the gathered data
from the interviews was transformed into tables through the process of coding. With the help
of coding and thematic analysis, themes were developed and the theme structure was
interpreted into graph (Vaismoradi, Turunen & Bondas, 2013; St. Pierre & Jackson, 2014).
The validation of the interview is that all the three questions were situation and relatable to
the job. The identities of the interviewees were withheld and they were all signed in the
consent form before the conduction of the interviews.
Findings
Theme Sub-theme (categories) Direct quote
Job satisfaction Workplace environment
 Office space
 Parking space
“I get my own office, which is
great”
“It has a couple of perks like
parking.”
“Oh I couldn’t be happier.”
Opportunity
 Training workshops
“I help design and implement
training workshops for other
companies which is heaps of
fun. I really enjoy running
them”
“I would like some more

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training for my job.”
“I would really like some
help now and then.”
Workplace culture Flexibility at work
 Family responsibility
 Suitable timing
“I just wish they hadn’t
made the changes to the
working hours.”
“Well the lack of flexibility
isn’t great.”
“I used to work from home
on a Friday and that was
good. Kind of made me a bit
happier.”
“I’m just so exhausted all
the time.”
Leadership
 Ineffective
communication
 Lack of concern
“The supervisor is nice but
she doesn’t really lead too
well.”
“I keep trying to tell them
that this is really limiting me
and making it harder but
they don’t seem to care.”
HR operations Communication
 Lack of response
 Delay in work
“She is too busy to help me
and doesn’t really reply to
emails on time.”
“I tried to explain that to

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her [supervisor] but she just
dismissed me like it’s not her
problem.”
“HR sometimes the
supervisor takes a while to
get back to me.”
“My work gets held up
waiting for their department
[HR] to respond to a query
or give me some help.”
“They aren’t listening to me
or helping me.”
“HR [department] could
answer emails faster.”
Training
 Incompetency
“The supervisor should do
one of the leadership
courses.”
“I’m not too sure what I
should be doing and feel like
a bit more guidance might
help.”
Incentives Motivation
 Funding cuts
 Lack of appreciation
“They took away the coffee
machine!”
“It adds up to like twenty-
five dollars a week just for

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one a day and I really need
one to get through the
afternoon.”
“It’s just hard to come here
when you don’t really feel
appreciated.”
Low
Medium
High
Chart 1: Rate Job Satisfaction after the change
Low
Medium
High
Chart 2: Effect of workplace culture after the change

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Low
Medium
High
Chart 3: Effects of the incentive system after the change
Hvae issues
Do not have issues
Chart 4: Issues with the HR operations
The findings of the research suggest that there is a noticeable decrease in the rate of
job satisfaction among the employees after the introduction of the new policy regarding shift
hours and funding cuts for the office kitchen. Twenty percent of the employees have lower
job satisfaction now where 40% have medium level of job satisfaction. On the other hand,
40% of the employees are still fully satisfied with their jobs and the change did not affected
them. Analysing the factors of job satisfaction in the company, three different reasons came

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out – work culture, incentives, and HR operations. Whereas the first two reasons were in the
research topic, the third reason came was unpredicted.
Workplace culture includes two subthemes, flexibility at workplace and leadership
competency of the management. Among all the employees, 20% has experienced the change
in the workplace culture highly, whereas the effect was medium and low among 40% of the
employees each. Similar results have been found in the effect of the incentive system also –
20% was effected highly, 40% was effect medium, and the rest 40% was effected low. The
incentive system involves funding cuts and appreciations. The research further showed that
many employees are dissatisfied with the HR operations. Sixty percent of the employees
stated that the HR department does not response in time or make proper responses at all,
which lead to their delay in work and decrease work performance. It has also been observed
that the HR department lacks in appropriate skills for their work.
Recommendations
According to the results, it was found that the new policy and fund cutting have an
impact on the morale and performance of the employees, though in a lesser magnitude than
expected. The research further pointed out that the incompetency of the HR department
negatively affects the performance of the employees. Based on these findings, the below
recommendations are made –
 Trainings and workshops should be immediately arranged for the HR department.
 Instead of one specific shift timing, the management could offer two shift timings
according to the needs of the employees.
 Employees, on whom the effect of the change has been the most, should be
appreciated for their cooperation and loyalty to the company.
 The company could offer low priced coffee, tea, biscuits, and milk to the employees

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inside the office premise.
It is expected that by following these recommendations, the CEO of the Thrive
Consultancy would be able to increase the morale and performance of the employees and
reduce absenteeism.
Conclusions
Thrive Consultancy is a consultancy company that advice other organisations on their
Human Resource operations, strategic planning, and advertising. The company has been
facing challenges regarding the low morale and performance of the employees, which
subsequently lead to increase of absenteeism. The reasons behind this, according to the CEO
of the company, are the new policy that changes the flexible working hour system, and the
funding cuts in the office kitchen, which takes away the free coffee, tea, biscuit and milk
offerings. The CEO intends to find out whether these are the reasons behind the business
problem or any other factor is at play. The literature review demonstrated that absenteeism
has a strong relation with incentives and flexibility in workplace. It indicated that job
satisfaction explicitly depends on incentives and flexibility in workplace. Thereafter, lack of
job satisfaction decreases performance and increases absenteeism.
A qualitative research has been conducted for which in-depth and open-ended
interviews have been taken from five of the company employees. The results of the
interviews were coded and transformed into charts through thematic analysis. The findings of
the research showed that, although the recent change in the company has affected the
employees, it is lesser in magnitude. On the other hand, a novel fact came out from the study
that the HR operations of the company lack in skills. Based on these findings, training for the
HR department has been strongly suggested. Along with that, increase in the number of shift
timings, appreciation, and low price beverage offerings have been suggested. In conclusion, it

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can be said that these recommendation are made after conducting an in-depth study of the
situation o the company and hence, would solve the business problem of the company.

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