Background Information of Thrive Consultancy

Thrive Consultancy is a consultancy firm in business from past 15 years. It has a staff of approximately 50 employees. It offers consultancy in three main areas namely Human Resource Consulting, Strategic Planning and Advertising/Marketing Consultancy. The staff comprises of ten people in HR department, one in Strategic planning and five in Advertising/Marketing department. The company has a CEO and three people working as the administrative staff.

The problem pertains to low morale of workers and employees resulting in lower productivity and performance. The policy changes regarding working hours and reduction in incentives seem to be building resentment under the surface and therefore resulting in absenteeism.

Participants	Problems facing by the participants
Participants 1 Save Time On Research and Writing Hire a Pro to Write You a 100% Plagiarism-Free Paper. Get My Paper	This participants thinks that he/she needs training so that he/she can understand about his/her roles and responsibilities in the organization.
Participant 2	The new policy change of the organization has affected this participant as he is highly dependent on coffee and the organization has taken away the coffee machine.
Participant 3	The participant is incurring a huge expense as he has to keep his children in the child health care, which is very expensive.
Participant 4	The loud noise of keyboards and the phone calls is affecting this participant as a result he is not able to concentrate.
Participant 5	He is not affected by the policy change and thinks that he will achieve the target by working extra hours in the office.

This literature review has been carried out in order to focus on the perceived effects of flexibility in work hours and incentives on improving employee efficiency and performance. This report will critically analyse the present literature on the incentives and work hour flexibility and tries to find solutions as to what extent this is applicable. The paper will detail about nature of work of the employees in the consultancy firm, Thrive Consultancy and why the productivity, efficiency and performance fluctuates as a result of changes in management policies. It will also explain this in context of job demands and resources. The literature review will analyse the benefits and disadvantages of work flexibility and incentives and how they influence the employee. It will elaborate about the relationship and the theory will be used to investigate this business problem, using Job demand-resources (JD-R) theory (Cheng et al., 2014). Along with this, a decision statement, corresponding research objectives and research questions will be stated.

The existing research focuses on job demands and resources, used to explain burnout in employees but it can be used to explain the various types of employee well-being (Bakker & Demerouti, 2017). The interactions can be both positive and negative. Positive interactions between job demands and resources lead to motivational processes while negative interactions instigate health impairment. As a result, it may either lead to more productivity and general wellbeing or stress and burnout.

Flexibility in work time arrangements such as remote working, shorter work weeks, and flexibility in time hours was formulated because they were beneficial to the organisations. Today, they have become a comprehensive area of the work culture due to the changes in socio demographic structure of the society. Organisations strive to provide flexible work arrangements as it can be advantageous to both organisation and employees (Anitha, 2014) (Albrecht et al., 2015). But the way of application provides more benefits to organisation rather than the employee. The organisation is not able to provide same flexibility and incentives as it expects from them as the employees belong to different socio-economic conditions with different work styles and profile. The incentivised employee is the happy employee, more satisfied, more productive.

Problem Statement

Flexi work hours give and create a good environment. For the organisation, it promotes employee wellbeing, satisfaction, reduces absenteeism, and office infrastructure costs (Swensen & Shanafelt, 2017). However, for the employee, it allows control of the day; adjust family needs, personal time, and other things important for living well (Kossek et al., 2014).

With flexible timings and incentives, colleagues may become friends and build harmonious relationships (Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2018). On the contrary, too little interaction because of different work times may lead to reduced face to face meetings and aloofness. There may be health risks associated with flexitimes as employees will work evening and off days impacting their personal and family life.

The research question pertains to identifying and finding the extent of impact of flexibility in work hours and incentives on employee satisfaction, performance, productivity and wellbeing.

The objectives of this research are

1. Identifying the relationship between work flexibility and incentives and employee productivity and efficiency.
2. Analysing and reviewing the literature on the relationship and the job demand and resource theory.
3. Conducting an interview with employees.
4. Analysing and interpreting the data.

This report aims to provide an answer to the impact of flexitimes and incentives on work environment, it was imperative to choose a qualitative method. Apart from conducting secondary research, reviewing existing literature on impact of work time flexibility and incentives in the organisations, primary research was also conducted.

Qualitative analysis is basically an exploratory research analysis (Mayer, 2015). It assists in the understanding of human behaviour, their feelings, values and reasons behind it. A qualitative analysis helps in trying to find solutions and information by going deep inside the topic under study (Ormston et al., 2014). The methods can be semi-structured or unstructured and include focus groups (group discussions, individual interviews and observation of participants. The size of sample taken is generally small and respondents are selected to fulfil a given requirement.

A qualitative method of research was conducted by interviewing the employees of Thrive Consultancy. The interviews were conducted in a semi-structural style with an interview protocol. The interview was conducted on-site in a quiet meeting room. So that new data could be discovered. The validity and reliability of research was considered.  The whole research process and data was properly recorded and reported to maintain consistency and transparency. The confidentiality and anonymity was maintained to generate truthfulness in data. Detailed information was already shared with the participants, simpler questions to build rapport with the participants have already been asked; this was assumed for the sake of this assignment. For validity, a semi-structured interview was devised. The questions were carefully devised to arrive and measure what was intended to be found out. The participants had already been explained and their participation confirmed. The employees belonged to the three departments of the organisation. The question was intended to arrive at descriptive understanding of the topic which in this case is the work flexibility and incentives in the organisation and the impact thereof.

Literature Review

This section presents the findings of the research. The flexible work times and incentives are perceived to boost morale and motivation. The interviewees seem to be satisfactorily pleased about their current work environment on the surface. On further prodding and deeper discussions, there seemed to be some issues regarding feedback, training, changes about work timings and facilities. The results showed that flexibility although beneficial for work life but were risky as well because the employees may not be able to prioritise and strategise their time well. Flexibility and incentives were found to have a positive influence on the work environment and hence, employee productivity and efficiency. Flexibility and incentives are commonly used in organisations to motivate them to work and increase productivity and the well-being of the employee is the premium concern. It is imperative that the employers should know how people feel in their organisation as employees. The findings can be used to find out solutions and give recommendations to solve business problems.

The data is collected by the qualitative research methods. The qualitative research methods helps to get the more accurate and exploratory data. The data was collected by interviewing the each participant. The company database also helped to find the reason behind the high rate f absenteeism in the organization.

Themes	Sub-themes	Examples
Job Demands	Work load Working longer hours	“I would really like some help now and then” “Or noise cancelling head phones or a big sign that says ‘keep quiet’ or something.”
Work –Home Conflicts	Flexibility of time Flexibility of location	“I am finding it really hard to come to work” “I feel frustrated right now and like they just don’t care about me and other parents”
Job Satisfaction		“It’s just hard here when you don’t feel appreciated here.” “Like do they even care about us?” “I am so happy working here.”
Autonomy		“ I am never really in the office and get to do what I please when it comes to hours”
Incentives	Facilities	“ I get my own office which is great” “I also have a car park” “They took away the coffee machine.”

More than 40 % of the participants were happy and satisfied about their jobs. But on further in depth understanding, it was felt that deep down those who had office job were resenting the policy changes while the 20% who had jobs  which required them to stay out of office had no issues with incentives and facilities. Working women forming nearly 30% of the group under study had difficulties due to the rigid office timings because of the dual responsibility of work and family. Autonomy and friendly environment apart, nearly, 45% of the respondents felt that there should be some feedback and prompt addressing of issues.

Are the participants happy with the job?

Participants	Responses	Details
Participant 1	Satisfied	The participant is happy but sometimes the participant feels that he needs some guidance to help him understand what he should be doing. The participants think that the supervisor is good but she is busy sometimes to reply to his emails.
Participant 2	Fully satisfied	This participant loves his job and thinks that the people are very friendly and collaborative.
Participant 3	Disappointed	The participant thinks that it is a great workplace but he has some issue with the HR department and thinks that the supervisor is not ready to understand his concerns.
Participant 4	Moderately happy	The participant is confused whether he is happy or not. He thinks that the workplace sometimes gets loud due to the phone call which affects him to keep focus.
Participant 5	Satisfied	This participant think that the job is perfect for him and he has no complaint against his co-workers as he is likes to work alone.

How changes in the workplace have affected the affected the participants and the office workplace?

Participants	Response	Details
Participant 1	Not happy	The participant thinks that the organization lacks the flexibility.
Participant 2	Disappointed	The participant is angry and frustrated as the organization has taken the coffee machine.
Participant 3	Not happy	The participant is incurring a huge expense as he has to keep his children in the child health care, which is very expensive.
Participant 4	No response	The taking away of the coffee machine have not affected the participant as he thinks that the services is not so good.
Participant 5	Annoyed but not affected by the change	He is not affected by the policy change and thinks that he will achieve the target by working extra hours in the office.

Participants	Responses
Participant 1	This participant thinks that he needs some training for the job so that he can know what he needs to do.
Participant 2	He has no recommendation he is happy with the presence workplace.
Participant 3	This participant thinks that they do not have any importance in the organization and the organization has taken some horrible decision like taking away the coffee machines. The participant and some of their friends have taken leaves as they don’t feel that are well appreciated in the organization.
Participant 4	This participant thinks that there should be partitions or walls so that they don’t get affected by the sounds.
Participant 5	This participant thinks that the HR department needs to be more aware and must answer the emails faster.

Recommendations are made based on evidence collected from research, interviews and previous existing literature.

Communication should be clear both ways and expectations should be clearly set and managed. When introducing changes in policy, work environment, office settings, there is need to communicate clearly the reason behind updating the policy and the expectations should be set out from both the employers and employee. Communication is important for establishing how colleagues will work with each other and with the seniors, gathering information, and following norms. It is crucial so that work can blend together and results of high productivity can be achieved.

Job Demands-Resources Theory

Flexible work arrangements and incentives should be clearly articulated to gain maximum benefits for the organisation. They should also create a feeling in the employees that they are wanted. Managers can limit the amount of flexibility and incentives allowed and expect formal arrangements with some informal arrangements clearly specified as to how much and when.

Managers should be open to the idea of flexible work environment, and consider each request on individual basis. This will reduce the perception of employees about injustice and lack of concern on the part of employers. Managers should be able to create a mutual environment of trust and facilitate result oriented work environment rather than rigid procedures. Productivity should be measured on results rather than practise.

References:

Albrecht, S.L. et al., 2015. Employee engagement, human resource management practices and competitive advantage: An integrated approach.. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 2(1), pp.7-35.

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Anitha, J., 2014. Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International journal of productivity and performance management, 63(3), p.308.

Bakker, A.B. & Demerouti, E.., 2017. Job demands–resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward.. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, , 22(3), p.273.

Bakker, A.B., Demerouti, E. & Sanz-Vergel, A.I., 2014. Burnout and work engagement: The JD–R approach. Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav., 1(1), pp.389-411.

Chen, E.T., 2017. The Internet of Things: Opportunities, Issues, and Challenges. The Internet of Things in the Modern Business Environment , pp.167-87.

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Kossek, E.E., Hammer, L.B., Kelly, E.L. & Moen, P., 2014. Designing work, family & health organizational change initiatives. Organizational dynamics, 43(1), p.53.

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Swensen, S.J. & Shanafelt, T., 2017. An organizational framework to reduce professional burnout and bring back joy in practice. Joint Commission journal on quality and patient safety, 43(6), pp.308-13.

Zheng, C. et al., 2016. Impact of individual coping strategies and organisational work–life balance programmes on Australian employee well-being. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 27(5), pp.501-26.