Improving Employee Morale: Work Flexibility and Incentives Report

This report examines the challenges faced by Thrive Consultancy due to recent policy changes, including increased employee absenteeism and dissatisfaction. The study highlights the negative impact of reduced work flexibility, altered shift hours, and the removal of coffee provisions on employee morale and motivation. Utilizing both motivation theory and the JD-R model, the report analyzes qualitative data collected through employee interviews to understand their perspectives. Findings reveal a strong correlation between job satisfaction, work flexibility, and the availability of workplace resources. The report concludes with recommendations for improvement, emphasizing the importance of employee training, increased resources, and improved communication between managers and employees to address these issues and enhance overall productivity.

Running Head: WORK FLEXIBILITY AND INCENTIVES
WORK FLEXIBILITY AND INCENTIVES
Student ID
Name of the University
Authors Note

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WORK FLEXIBILITY AND INCENTIVES
Executive Summary
The report focuses on the problems faced by the Thrive consultancy due to the change
in policies. As a result of the changed policy, the number of employee absenteeism is seen to
be increasing in the company. Moreover, from the interview transcript, it has been found that
the employees are not able to communicate with the HR managers. The change in policy has
changed the shift hours within the organisation and have taken away the coffee provisions.
As a result of which employees are not motivated to work in such an environment due
to the lack of resources. This has been proved in the literature review with the use of
motivation theory and JD resource theory. However, the study has been conducted through a
qualitative method of research that has helped to deduce the viewpoints of the employees
regarding the issue. Lastly, the report has elucidated some recommendations such as
employee training, increased resources and communications between managers and
employees to solve the issue.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Overview of the business problem.........................................................................................3
Overview of the literature review...........................................................................................3
Overview of the theory...........................................................................................................4
Motivation theory...............................................................................................................4
Intrinsic motivation.............................................................................................................5
Extrinsic motivation............................................................................................................5
The early JD-R Model........................................................................................................5
Revised JD- Theory............................................................................................................6
Methods and results....................................................................................................................6
Qualitative analysis................................................................................................................6
Data collection........................................................................................................................7
External and internal validity.................................................................................................7
Findings and analysis.................................................................................................................7
Recommendations and conclusion...........................................................................................11
Reference list............................................................................................................................13
Appendices...............................................................................................................................15
Appendix 1: Interview on Job satisfaction...........................................................................15
Appendix 2: Interview on Work flexibility..........................................................................16
Appendix 3: Interview on Training and communication.....................................................17

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WORK FLEXIBILITY AND INCENTIVES
Introduction
Overview of the business problem
Thrive consultancy is an organisation that deals with consultancy operation. The
consultancy has 50 staffs member that is functioning for almost 15 years. The company
provides advice to other companies on human resource consulting activities such as human
resource solution, policy renewal and KPI development. However, The Company has been
struggling due to low morale as the well poor performance of the employees that has resulted
to a huge amount of employee absenteeism.
The CEO has assumed that problems are taking place due to the introduction of new
policy within the organisation and due to the cut down of funds. As a result of this new
policy, the employees are facing problem in maintaining work flexibility in the workplace.
Moreover, due to the cut down of funds, the office kitchen do not offer beverages and snacks
for free. These activities are making it difficult for the employees to work in such an
environment.
Overview of the literature review
Today organisational results are highly dependent on the motivation of the employee.
It is, therefore, highly important for the company to find out the way to enhance employee
morale and the way to motivate employees for obtaining improved results. However, Taylor
and Earl (2016) stated that the appropriate resources and materials in the workplace can help
to boost up the employees and help to improve their dedication towards work.
According to Price (2016), research on employees found that almost 89% of the
employees claimed that flexible working hours are the best motivating factors that could help
to boost productivity at the workplace in comparison to these, 77% of the respondents
claimed that financial incentive is necessary. On the contrary, other research by Taylor and

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Earl (2016), found that 43% of the employees want to have the flexible working environment
as a part of staff benefits.
The research also outlined that a flexible working environment is necessary. In this
context, Shin and Konrad (2017) stated that more than 77% of those who are aged in between
18-34 are working full time to manage flexibility.
Overview of the theory
Motivation theory
Motivation is the desire of the employees to accomplish beyond their expectations,
they are often being driven by internal and external factors for staying involved with the
continuous drive for improvement. Chan et al. (2016) state that motivation in this context is
a psychological method that results from the communication between employees and the
workplace environment. Employees will be willing to expand their working effort if they are
properly motivated with incentives and reward for a desire to obtain something.
According to Fallon and Rice (2015), motivation theory tries to illustrate the reason
behind people’s behaviour, specifically the way they behave in accordance to their
effectiveness in striving towards the achievement. The specific model of motivation is started
by a conscious or an unconscious identification of unsatisfactory need. These needs create
wants, according to these wants, goals are set for achieving it. In this context, if the goals are
obtained, then the behaviour of the employee is likely to be repeated in terms of similar
needs.
If the goal is not obtained the same reaction is less likely to take place. Therefore,
managers are needed to motivate the employees through a different method such as salary,
promotion and work incentives. On the contrary, Nie et al. (2015) states the employees as
well can motivate themselves by seeking work based on their individual needs and wants that

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is to be achieved. However, there are two major types of motivation intrinsic motivation and
extrinsic motivation.
Intrinsic motivation
This type of motivation refers to the motivation that comes from an inside of the
individual. According to Hine et al. (2016), this type of motivation is usually generated
through the satisfaction that the individual achieves after the completion of the task. Factors
that influence this kind of motivation are organisational environment, self-capabilities and
increasing opportunities.
Extrinsic motivation
This type of motivation is something that is done for motivating others. This type of
motivation comes from the factors such as increase in salary and grades. This kind of rewards
inside the organisation provides satisfaction to complete the task. Gunawan (2015) states that
this type of motivation generally has an immediate and powerful impact on the employees.
The early JD-R Model
This model was founded by the scholar Demerouti et al. (2001) in an effort to
evaluate the antecedents of burnout. In this model, eight kinds of job demands and thirteen
job resources were recognised as the probable effect of burnout and some of them found on
the structural model of burnout. Nielsen et al. (2017) illustrated that job demands like”
physical, social, and organisational context of the job that required consistent physical and
psychological support.
For instances, factors such as additional work pressure, interpersonal conflicts and job
insecurity may be implied as job demand. According to Schaufeli and Taris, (2014), the early
model of JD-R proposed that there are two major processes for the establishment of burnout.
The first one is that long-term excessive job, from which staffs do not sufficiently recover

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may result in long-term activation. In addition, this may eventually lead to exhaustion.
Secondly, insufficient resources within the workplace may reduce the job satisfaction of the
employee. In this theory, withdrawal and reduced motivation of the employee is the major
component of burnout.
In support of this analysis, Bakker et al. (2014) stated that the JD-R model predicts
that increased job resources may help to resolve the negative influence of the job demands
resting in exhaustion. In this context, Schaufeli and Taris (2014) reported that almost 60% of
the possible interactions in between individual job demands and resources of the job were
significant and in the hypothesized path. On the contrary to this, there was no significant link
effect found in counter to this expectation.
Revised JD- Theory
The revised JD-R theory presented that burnout and work involvement are the
mediators in relations to job demands, health issues, job resources as well as increased
turnover. The revised JD-R model focused inherently on the motivational qualities of the job
resources. According to Nielsen et al. (2017), following the theory of effort recovery it can be
said that the work environment that offer a huge amount of resources may help in fostering
the workers. Moreover, it will help to provide their efforts and abilities in work. Therefore,
job resources play a crucial role in motivating the employees in fostering attainment of
objective. On the contrary, lack of job demands, and job resources may demotivate the
employees resulting in employee absenteeism.
Methods and results
Qualitative analysis
Qualitative research analysis in this study emphasises on numeric data such as
transcripts, coding of the transcripts that seeks to elicit the model along with the classification

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through iterative coding and other processes of qualitative data (Lewis 2015). This research
will help to understand the impact of the employee’s job satisfaction and flexibility occurring
due to lack of organisational resources and improper working shift within the Consultancy. In
order words, analytical research in this context helps in understanding the needs of the
employees and it can also help the business to understand the way in which the customer
observe themselves within the workplace.
Data collection
Data has been collected through an in-depth interview of the employees to establish
queries for building rapport with the participants before introducing into serious questions.
The in-depth interview has been conducted as a part of qualitative research method that
involved with the conduction of intense interaction with a limited number of respondents
(Smith 2015). This interview helped to examine the perception of the employees in the
existing situation that has taken place in Thrive Consultancy. All the questions are addressed
to evaluate the level of satisfaction of the employees and to evaluate the working flexibility
of employees resulting due to change in the policies and shift timing.
External and internal validity
The data gathered from the interview are reliable and valid because the participants
who took part in the data determined the results reflecting the phenomenon that is being
studied. For internal validity, the method of triangulation of the data has been carried out to
verify the originality of the multiple perspectives. On the other, external validity of the
collected data, has been done by generalising the results by applying it in similar settings and
situation.
Findings and analysis
Table 1: Are you happy with your job?

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Theme Sub-theme
(categories)
Direct quote Job
satisfaction
rate
Coding
Job satisfaction Workplace
environment
 Office space
 Parking space
“I get my own
office, which is
great”
Poor- 2
Moderate- 2
High- 1
2
Opportunities
 Training
workshops
“I help design
and implement
training
workshops for
other companies
which are heaps
of fun. I really
enjoy running
them”
1
Highly satisfied Moderate Poorly satisfied
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
Job satisfaction Workplace environment
Discussion
From the interview, it has been found that job satisfaction is highly related to the
motivation of the employee and job resources present within the working environment. From
the first query that is based on the level of job satisfaction amongst 5 employees, it has been

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found that, 2 amongst 5 are not satisfied with the change in policy and shift in working hours
as well as HR operations (refer to appendix 1). On the contrary, some of them are highly
satisfied with the workplace environment wherein they have admitted that they get perks of
the office parking and training provisions.
Table 2: How have the changes at work affected you and the office in general?
Theme Sub-theme
(categories)
Direct quote Level of
impact
Coding
Work flexibility Organisational culture
 Changed shift
 Lack of coffee
“
Well the lack of
flexibility isn’t
great”
High:1
Moderate:1
Poor:3
2
Opportunities
 Extra working
hours
 No work from
home
“They took away
the coffee
machine! I can’t
believe they did
that hey. I was so
cranky I
basically run on
coffee. ”
1
Highly satisfied Moderate Poorly satisfied
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
Job satisfaction Workplace environment
Discussion

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From the interview transcript, it has been found that most of the employees are not
satisfied with the change in policy, shift timings and lack of coffee in the workplace. 3
employees are highly dissatisfied with the flexibility of shift hours. Again, some are worried
about the lack of coffee availability, as they have to get coffee from outside that adds extra
cost to their living (refer to appendix 2). As for working hours, most of the employees have
expressed that they have faced issues, specifically female candidates have to face huge
pressure due to extra working hours. Most of the problems are faced by the HR and
administration female employees who have to work on weekends as well to keep up with the
balance in family.
Table 3: Is there anything else that you would like us to know?
Theme Sub-theme
(categories)
Direct quote Level of
impact
Coding
Training and
communication
HR operations
 No leaves
 Lack of
resources
“
I am so happy
working here”
High:1
Moderate:1
Poor:3
2
Opportunities
 Extra working
hours
 Problems in
communicating
“Like can’t they
stop and think
about what it’s
really like
working here?
Do you really
think any of the
people in the
chicken coop are
happy”
1

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Highly satisfied Moderate Poorly satisfied
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
2 2
1
2 2
1
Job satisfaction Workplace environment
Discussion
In the interview, surrounding the additional queries based on the requirements of the
employees, it has been found that 2 of the employees are not satisfied with the HR operations.
They have expressed their viewpoints saying that increased training is required for the
employees whereas the other respondent admitted that the HR department is slow in
responding to the emails and other operations (refer to appendix 3). On the contrary, one
employee was extremely happy with the all the working operations and one of the employees
was extremely dissatisfied with the working environment and the resources within the
workplace.
Recommendations and conclusion
From the above study, it can be said that the working culture of Thrive consultancy is
demotivating for some of the employees. It is mostly due to the change in policy and shift
hours that employees are not able to cope up with the changing environment. As a result of
these issues, the number of employee absenteeism is increasing within the workplace.
Changing working culture is highly influencing the interpersonal conflicts and problems in
balancing their personal life as well. Apart from these, the lack of effective communication