Report: HRM Issues, Analysis, and Solutions for Afterpay Company

This report examines the management issues within the Australian financial technology company, Afterpay. Using primary research, including a questionnaire, the report identifies key problems such as work-life balance, job satisfaction, and financial concerns. The analysis reveals that employees experience a lack of work-life balance and neutral job satisfaction, with financial issues potentially impacting the company. The report recommends flexible working hours, improved communication, and enhanced public relations to address these issues. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of a healthy employer-employee relationship for the company's success, providing a foundation for growth and a productive workforce. The report aims to guide Afterpay towards a more sustainable and employee-friendly operational model.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Management issues
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

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Executive Summary
This report analyses issues that persists in an Australian company known as Afterpay. The
report uses primary research method to prepare a questionnaire and tries to analyses the
response to figure the issues that exists within the management system. The report also
suggests possible solutions to the issues. The report concludes with acknowledging Afterpay
and employees relationship and looks at proper implementation of the recommendation.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
About the company................................................................................................................3
Research findings...................................................................................................................4
Analysis of Issues.......................................................................................................................6
Work life balance...................................................................................................................6
Job satisfaction.......................................................................................................................6
Financial issues......................................................................................................................6
Recommendation........................................................................................................................7
Flexible working hours and benefits......................................................................................7
Appreciation and effective communication...........................................................................7
Improving PR and maintaining finances................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Businesses contribute enormously to the economy. Since small businesses often rise
within a community, it usually addresses local needs and contributes to the development of
the community. They help to provide employment to the local population and use local
resources, it also helps to knit the community together better. However, they are not without
problems, new businesses often face management issues and find it difficult to manage
finances and employee satisfaction. The report examines a business in Australia, the Afterpay
an Australian financial company with headquarters in Melbourne. The report analyses the
issues pertaining to the company and aims at recommending possible solution.
Discussion
About the company
Nicholas Molnar who is the current CEO and founder, founded the company Afterpay
in 2014. The company is an Australian financial technology company that has now spread in
UK, US and New Zealand (Stuart, 2017). It became Afterpay Touch group in 2017 after a
merger. The main idea of the company is to allow people to buy products and pay for it in
their own time in instalments. The company gained much popularity for its pay later side of
the company that catered to a consumerist society and fuelled furious sales. The company has
tie up with various retailers, which allows the customer using Afterpay to buy a product
without incurring the traditional credit system and pay the price in four instalments without
any interest. However, when customers fail to make their fortnightly payments they are liable
to pay a late fee. The customers also need to be 18 years of age to be able to use Afterpay.
Afterpay merged with US company called Matrix Partners to expand it to the US market and
currently has over 2 million users and 6500 traders in America alone. The business also
provides services such as Touch System platform, that has services such as fraud protection,

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data collection and regulatory compliance to protect customer from cyber fraud and create a
safe payment for the all the users.
The following report uses primary and secondary research to analyse the management
of the company in discussion. The following is the primary research that consist of questions
that is intended to be asked to the employees to understand the various aspect of the human
resource management within the company.
Research findings
The result of the above questionnaire was to find out about the nature of the
organisation as well as to understand the attitude of the employers. The first question helps
to understand the size of the organisation with most common answer is 100-120 that shows
that the organisation is a small organisation with the help of primary research. The journal
discusses, when the organisation is small, it allows the business produce better quality
product and create a market niche of its customers. It encourages being experimental and
allows a more creative atmosphere for the employees. There is more control of the decision
and business design; it also allows the leadership vision to grow (Krajňáková, Navikaitė &
Navickas, 2015). Secondary research tells us that, small businesses also face a constant
financial risk from large companies, and may have difficulty in paying the employees causing
stress in the work environment. The risk and uncertainty attached to small businesses from
the internal and external environment may cause to jeopardise the position of the company
and have direct impact on the employers and the employees (Stuart, 2016).
The second question allows throwing light on the attitude of the employee’s job
satisfaction through primary research. The most common answer said they had a neutral
attitude, which shows that the employees are neither happy nor are they satisfied with the
work environment (Scrima, 2015). Through secondary research we can understand that, job

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satisfaction is an important factor to consider by the management as it has a direct impact on
the work production. People’s attitude influences their work greatly that is why there is an
increasing interest by the organisation to improve the working conditions of the employees. A
happy employee has an increased productivity and commitment attached to the workplace,
motivation is an important driving force that ensures growth of the company. Secondary
research shows that employees often notice few characteristic on the job on the basis they
determine their job satisfaction. The management’s attitude towards the employees, inclusive
nature, opportunities for personal growth, stress management, feedback for their work and
others (Hoboubi et al, 2017). The leadership of the company also plays an important role, as
the employees look up to the leader for motivation. In recent events, Afterpay came under
fire by AUSTRAC for alleged money laundering and counter terrorism financing Act 2006.
This type of allegations questions the effectiveness of leadership roles (Colin Kruger, 2019).
The third question examines the work life balance in the organisation. When
employees of the company were asked about it, most of them believed that there was no work
life balance. Work-life balance refers to the prioritisation between personal and professional
life. Before there was distinction between work life and private life, as employees could not
take work back home. However, technology has merged that, working from home is a
common phenomenon and so is taking work back home therefore the previous work and
private life has altered significantly. Employees often feel they are never free and are always
at work and it increases the work stress. Often in small businesses employees need to multi
task owing to a small number of workers, these tends to be stressful when employees lose
control over private and workspace. The management has responsibility of the employees’
health and need to ensure that their employees are well rested, relaxed and ready to work. The
constant feeling of having to perform is very hectic for the employees. The management
needs to place their employees systematically without upsetting the work-life balance.

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Analysis of Issues
Work life balance
Work life balance is a major issue that Afterpay faces; it is crucial to address the issue
as it effects the mental health of the employees and eventually effects the quality of the work
(Lambert-Slythe et al, 2018). Therefore, owing to a smaller size of employees, employees are
expected to perform multiple roles with the network. In a small business, the quality of work
is very important as it sets it apart from its competitors. Hence, Afterpay should understand
the downside of the issue may have on the production.
Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction was another important finding, which is crucial for any company.
Secondary research shows, ensuring employee satisfaction means less resource spend on
hiring and training new professionals (Stuart, 2017). It results in building an efficient and
dedicated team. Afterpay is a small business with tremendous marketing with a large turnover
of $46.8 million annually but that does not mean it should keep hiring new professional if
few leave.
Financial issues
Small business face financial crunches from time to time. Afterpay has managed to
retain a sizeable portion of the profit, which is certainly commendable. The recent news about
money laundering has affected the share prices and caused it to plummet. The investors
believe the company stocks is volatile. Small businesses need to always pay extra care to
their reputation and keep their finances very clear. Rocky relationship with consumer and law
can jeopardise the good name of the company and effect the finances of the company (Graca
& Arnaldo, 2016).

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Recommendation
Flexible working hours and benefits
In recommendation using secondary research, it can be said that Afterpay is a
contemporary work environment therefore; it could have a flexible working hour where the
employees choose their own timing, providing required gadgets to work flexibly from
anywhere. The management team should ensure that the work roster is constructed in a way
that allows proper holiday for all the employees. Reducing multi-tasking from few employees
and distributing the work equally, motivating with perks and benefits when multitasking. The
reward system helps to encourage employee participation considerably (Zheng et al, 2015).
Appreciation and effective communication
In recommendation, the company should ensure that the employees feel appreciated
and there is a proper communication between all the layers of management. Foster an
environment that allows people to grow and work harder for the team (Hoboubi et al,2017).
When employees see the company provides chances to grow, it allows the company to retain
employees and reduce expenditure on hiring and training. An inclusive environment, which
listens to the employees as much as the employers, is always beneficial (Barak, 2016).
Improving PR and maintaining finances
Recommendation for Afterpay will be to clear its name, because that influences the
investors, customers, stakeholders and eventually the company as well. It is always good to
maintain clean records of finances. Once finances begin to crash it affects the employees
greatly as they are at risk of losing their jobs.
Conclusion
Afterpay is a good organisation that function well on the surface. However, there are
internal issues that the management needs to resolve. The issues mentioned here are all

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interrelated. Employer employee relationship is the building block of any company, therefore
it is crucial that there is healthy work environment, which will allow the individuals to grow
within the company and the company will benefit from a productive and dedicated team of
workers.

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Reference
Barak, M. E. M. (2016). Managing diversity: Toward a globally inclusive workplace. Sage
Publications.
Colin Kruger, C. (2019). Afterpay investors shrug off Austrac concerns. Retrieved 28
September 2019, from https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/afterpay-
investors-shrug-off-austrac-concerns-20190607-p51vh9.html
Graca, C. A. M., & Arnaldo, C. (2016). The role of corporate reputation on co-operants
behavior and organizational performance. Journal of Management Development,
35(1), 17-37.
Hoboubi, N., Choobineh, A., Ghanavati, F. K., Keshavarzi, S., & Hosseini, A. A. (2017). The
impact of job stress and job satisfaction on workforce productivity in an Iranian
petrochemical industry. Safety and health at work, 8(1), 67-71.
Krajňáková, E., Navikaitė, A., & Navickas, V. (2015). Paradigm shift of small and medium-
sized enterprises competitive advantage to management of customer satisfaction.
Inžinerinė ekonomika, 327-332.
Lambert-Slythe, A. F., Gilbert-Ouimet, M., Duchaine, C., Vézina, M., Aubé, K., Mantha-
Bélisle, M. M., ... & Brisson, C. (2018). 810 Healthy enterprise standard (hes)
evaluation: impact on work-life balance and self-rated health.
Scrima, F. (2015). The convergent-discriminant validity of the Workplace Attachment Scale
(WAS). Journal of Environmental Psychology, 43, 24-29.
Stuart, D. (2016).). Small business and entrepreneurship. Macmillan International Higher
Education.
Stuart, D. (2017). In sync: Payment pioneers. Company Director, 33(2), 18.

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Zheng, C., Molineux, J., Mirshekary, S., & Scarparo, S. (2015). Developing individual and
organisational work-life balance strategies to improve employee health and wellbeing.
Employee Relations, 37(3), 354-379

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Appendix
Research questions
1. Number of employees in your organisation.
50-100
100-120
120-200
200-300
Most common Answer:- 100-120
2. How do you feel working in this organisation?
Satisfactory
Happy
Neutral
Not happy
Most common Answer:- Neutral
3. How is the work-life balance?
It is satisfactory
It could be better
Cannot say
No work life balance
Most common answer:- no work life balance