Leah de Souza-Thomas

We help professional services companies reduce avoidable absence and presenteeism, protect billable hours and improve energy and focus so that boards see steadier client delivery and clearer performance gains.

About

We help professional services companies reduce avoidable absence and presenteeism, protect billable hours and improve energy and focus so that boards see steadier client delivery and clearer performance gains. We support HR and People leaders to turn wellbeing into measurable performance through a prevention-first, data-led approach, designed for time-poor, high-pressure teams.

Across many organisations, the pattern is familiar: most days start well, then the 3pm cliff hits. People are online but under-performing: on meeting-heavy days, output slows, small errors creep in, and rework stretches into the evening. Under the surface are poor sleep, MSK niggles, low energy and unresolved health concerns. Benefits exist, but the time from signpost to first appointment is too long, so issues linger. Layer on cost-of-living pressures, client volatility, caring duties and NHS waits, and the fallout is clear: avoidable absence, presenteeism, slipping utilisation and benefits reached too late to help.

People leaders need fewer avoidable absences and less presenteeism, with utilisation protected. Existing benefits must earn their keep, uptake up, time-to-care down. Line managers need clear guardrails and quick scripts to help without crossing medical lines. Senior executives want board-ready metrics that demonstrate movement on absence, utilisation and quality, benefits usage.

Our answer is prevention-first and data-led. We use targeted insight to focus effort where it moves the needle, not add noise to calendars. That means short diagnostics to uncover the real drivers of under-performance, tight prioritisation, and interventions that are lean, at-desk and respectful of billable time. Managers receive simple conversation guides and signposting flows so they can support health confidently without stepping into clinical territory. HR gets clean reporting that leadership understands, linking actions to outcomes you already track. We tailor our approach for each organisation and for UK realities (hybrid/remote set-ups, cost-of-living strain, NHS waits, caring duties) so changes stick.

We agree on a small set of outcome measures up front. Expect early movement within 90 days: benefits utilisation up, time-to-care down, and late-day output proxies improving. Presenteeism proxies dip on weekly pulses, and short-term absence stabilises or falls. Manager confidence rises with simple scripts. We package results in a board-ready summary tied to absence, utilisation/quality and benefits usage.

Why partner with us? Our Director, Leah, spent 22 years in public health and epidemiology; The Thrive Practice applies that rigour to your workforce. In practice, that means clean baselines, cohort pilots, and at-desk changes people use the same day, plus smart signposting so staff reach the right door, first time. You see benefits up, time-to-care down, and less late-day rework, with a one-page report the board can read in minutes.

“This wasn’t another tick-box wellbeing week. It made a lasting impact.” — Head of People, British Online Mattress Manufacturer

Credibility in brief: UKPHR-registered Public Health Practitioner (PR0191); BSc (Hons), MSc (Modern Epidemiology), MPH, Graduate Diploma in Integrative Functional Nutrition, plus advanced training across gastrointestinal, hormone, immune, heart-health and bioenergetics (how the body produces and uses energy). Featured in Women’s Health Magazine (https://www.womenshealthmag.com/uk/food/healthy-eating/a65776577/not-eating-enough-symptoms/), Authority Magazine (https://medium.com/authority-magazine/nourishing-knowledge-leah-de-souza-thomas-the-thrive-practice-on-the-power-of-food-as-medicine-1f2fda67d485), and the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/cn05576yl8jo).

If you’re an HR Director, Head of Wellbeing/Benefits, Chief People Officer, DEI Lead or Practice/Operations Lead seeing rising stress-related absence, late-day dips or under-used benefits, use the contact form below. We’ll set up a short introductory call and identify the fastest way to protect what matters most.