Internal Clients Research Articles

Process Management Framework for Health and Safety at Work (SST) Companies

Objective: This study aims to develop and implement a process management framework for Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) companies, seeking to optimize the organization and execution of services, identifying improvement opportunities throughout the customer journey, from contract closure to renewal. The proposal is to offer an adaptable model that meets industry demands and enhances the operational efficiency of companies. Theoretical Framework: The theoretical framework addresses the evolution of Regulatory Standards (NRs) since the 1970s and the importance of complying with labor laws for the safety and health of workers in Brazil. The role of eSocial, created in 2014 to unify and ensure the collection of employer information, is highlighted, as well as its function in alerting them to legal risks. Method: The methodology used was action research, as defined by Oquist (1978). The research involved mapping the operational processes of OSH companies to identify areas for improvement. The first version of the framework was developed, tested, and based on the results, improved into a second version. The improvements were based on tests and validations conducted throughout the process. Results and Discussion: The first version of the framework showed positive results but also highlighted the need for improvements, which were incorporated into the second version. Changes included the restructuring of steps and the addition of a new phase focused on the commercial process. Satisfaction surveys with internal and external clients, as well as accounting firms, indicated positive acceptance but also a lack of systemic vision among professionals, affecting the quality of the work. Research Implications: The research implications are significant for the OSH sector. The developed framework improves the organization and efficiency of service-providing companies. The study also highlights the importance of performance indicators to monitor performance and mitigate risks, such as customer loss. It is recommended that future research explore the adaptation of the framework to new technologies and automation. Originality/Value: The originality of this study lies in the creation of a process management framework specifically for OSH companies, where organization and efficiency are essential for complying with labor regulations and ensuring worker safety. The value of the work resides in its practical contribution to the sector, offering an adaptable model that can be improved based on feedback and technological advancements.

ЗМІНА МОДЕЛІ РОБОТИ ЧАТ-БОТІВ У СФЕРІ ОБСЛУГОВУВАННЯ КЛІЄНТІВ

In modern business, customer support stands as a pivotal element for successful client servicing. The operation of customer support involves providing assistance and resolving client issues regarding company products or services. In the current simplified model, the efficacy of technical support agent searches generally surpasses that of chatbots or human assistance. Filtering internal staff-only articles from those intended for clients poses a challenge, necessitating complex implementations that not all companies may afford. Previous-generation chatbots have shown limited effectiveness in replacing humans due to varying client articulations, necessitating human intervention. Conventional chatbots offer limited options: information retrieval based on client queries, problem narrowing through additional inquiries, and sending tailored instructions. However, maintaining and updating knowledge for both internal staff and clients poses resource-intensive challenges for large companies. An alternative emerges with LLM-based chatbots, automating communication with users via chat interfaces. LLM chatbots enhance speed and efficiency, reduce personnel costs, and ensure 24/7 client service. Yet, they require con- stant knowledge updating and careful handling to address a spectrum of issues effectively. Notably, LLM chatbots can handle complex articles, gathering step-by-step instructions from various sources. Still, undocumented issues or incorrect solutions may necessitate human assistance. The primary functional difference between LLM chatbots and conventional ones lies in their contextual and linguistic processing capabilities, making communication with LLM chatbots akin to human interaction. Despite advancements, the nuances of context and language remain pivotal for effective client servicing, particularly in technical support scenarios. Future exploration in this direction should focus on optimizing knowledge management and enhancing LLM chatbot capabilities for improved client satisfac- tion and operational efficiency."

STRATEGI KOMUNIKASI, HALANGAN KOMUNIKASI, KOMITMEN ORGANISASI DAN KEPUASAN PELANGGAN DALAM KALANGAN PELANGGAN DALAMAN

This paper analyzes the effect between communication strategy, communication barriers, organizational commitment, and customer satisfaction in service provision. Data collection was conducted to 308 internal clients at a local University. The data of this study was analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, and regression analysis through the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. The results of the analysis show that communication strategies and organizational commitment have a significant effect on the level of customer satisfaction, while communication barriers do not contribute to customer satisfaction. In conclusion, the organization needs to improve its strategy and organizational commitment that is more focused in increasing customer satisfaction.

Challenges in the Receiving and Inspection of Supplies & Equipment in an International Organization in West Africa

The warehouse operation has enabled physical inspection activities, including receiving and inspection of materials and equipment. It has been found that there are certain challenges faced by inspectors during the receiving and inspection of materials. The warehouse custodian has performed the physical inspection, but not all cross-checking activities are accurate. Therefore, receiving and inspection are crucial to the delivery process, and distinct approaches must be implemented to deal with internal and external clients, including international and local suppliers. To effectively deal with these challenges, a process for entry document processing must be established. This process should include harmonizing the purchase order's terms and supporting it with the delivery note, packing list, invoice, bill of lading, and airway/waybill provided by the supplier. This will ensure that the material's quantity, quality, and specifications are accurately documented. A total of 14 responses were collected among managers and supervisors of receiving and inspection unit through interviews and survey questionnaires in the seven geographical locations of Mali, West Africa. The independent variables, namely (PI) physical inspection, (HOV) handover, and (DOC) documentation, significantly impact the dependent variable.

Multi-player evolutionary game of federated learning incentive mechanism based on system dynamics

Federated learning has emerged as a new way of data sharing. The participants in the federation tend to choose different strategies based on their benefits, which is formalized into an evolutionary game model. Existing techniques can limit the malicious behavior of participants by detecting betrayers or weakening their influence. The problem that whether there is an incentive mechanism which makes participants spontaneously choose to cooperate honestly and maintains the stability of the federated learning system is urgent. In this paper, we develop a multi-player evolutionary game model in federated learning. We model the federated learning process by evaluating the payoffs of the central server, internal clients, and external clients. The stability of the federated learning system in the long-term dynamics process is assessed by seeking the evolutionarily stable equilibrium solutions. In this paper, mathematical reasoning and computer simulation are combined to analyze the impact of reward and punishment strategies in incentive mechanisms on the game process and game equilibrium. An incentive mechanism is designed to achieve evolutionarily stable equilibrium while make most clients join the federation spontaneously and cooperate honestly. Finally, the effectiveness, stability, and generalizability of this incentive mechanism are verified by sensitivity analysis and Lyapunov stability theory.

Генезис маркетинга в контексте усиления его роли в управлении сотрудниками организаций

The article presents an understanding of the essence of marketing, taking into account its increased role in the management of employees. The subject of the article is the concept of personnel management and the connection between personnel marketing, human resource marketing, and human capital marketing. The purpose of the article is to analyze the genesis of employees marketing and develop a definition of the human capital marketing concept. Methods of analysis of theoretical sources, systematization and generalization of previously published results are used. The article systemizes the employee marketing elements depending on the concept of personnel management. The author’s vision of the essence of human capital marketing is given. The perception of the organization’s management of people in the organization through the prism of human capital marketing builds an attitude towards employees as internal clients, sources of the company’s assets; candidates for vacant positions are viewered as potential consumers. The article is part of the research conducted by the authors over the past years.

Technology management has a significant impact on digital transformation in the banking sector

Technology management and a good relationship among employees are vital keys to assure any digital transformation process. We may therefore rightly ask “What are the main drivers influencing IT and non-IT employee relationships that may have an impact on digital transformation in the banking sector?“. Aiming to identify those drivers, we developed a questionnaire for an exploratory study into employees' perceptions of the IT or non-IT measures undertaken to improve any digital transformation project. We had a sample of 604 bank employees working in software development. Leximancer was used as a qualitative technique tool for content textual analyses. The findings highlighted seven key factors that have an impact on digital transformation, namely: department, lack of cooperation, communication, requests, experience, relationship, and business. Internal clients tend to have a negative perception of IT developers mainly due to a lack of understanding of business requests. This study contributes to scholarship with a conceptual model to explain the main concepts that may affect the relationship between IT and non-IT employees’ and departments teamwork in the digital transformation process, in the banking sector specifically. We also contribute by identifying the most important elements to achieve organizational success.

Perceived quality of care for severe acute malnutrition management among caregivers of under-five children with severe acute malnutrition in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2022: a mixed-method study.

All the factors at the institutional, provider, and client levels have an impact on the quality of care. In low- and middle-income countries, poor quality of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) management at health institutions is a major contributor to child morbidity and mortality. This study aimed to determine the perceived quality of care for SAM management among caregivers of under-five children. This study was conducted in public health facilities that provide inpatient SAM management in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. An institution-based convergent mixed-method study design was implemented. Quantitative data were analyzed by using a logistic regression model, while thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. A total of 181 caregivers and 15 healthcare providers were recruited. The overall perceived quality of care for SAM management was 55.80% (CI: 48.5-63.10). Urban residence (AOR = 0.32, 95% CI: 0.16-0.66), college and above level education (AOR = 4.42, 95% CI: 1.41-13.86), working as a government employee (AOR = 2.72, 95% CI: 1.05-7.05), readmitted to the hospital (AOR = 0.47, 95% CI: 0.23-0.94), and length of hospital stays >7 days (AOR = 2.1, 95% CI: 1.01-4.27) were found to be significantly associated factors with perceived low-quality care for SAM management. Additionally, lack of support and attention from higher levels of management, and lack of supplements, separate units, and laboratory facilities were among the factors that impede the provision of quality care. Perceived quality of SAM management services was low against the national goal of quality improvement to meet the expectations of both internal and external clients. Rural residents, those with more educational qualifications, government employees, newly admitted patients, and patients who stayed longer in hospitals were the most unsatisfied groups. Improving support and logistic supply to health facilities, providing client-centered care, and responding to caregivers' demands may help to improve quality and satisfaction.

Ease of Doing Business in the City Human Resource Management Office of Butuan City

This study aimed to determine the level of compliance of Ease of Doing Business and efficient government service delivery in the City Human Resource Management Office of the City Government of Butuan. Specifically, this study determined the level of implementation of CHRMO Frontline Services as assessed by the participants in terms of: (1) Citizen’s Charter Provisions; (2) Access to Government Services through Frontline Services (3) Report Card Survey. Descriptive research design was used in conduct of the study. Participants were the internal and external clients of the office. Using the Cochran’s Formula for sample size determination, the researcher selected 200 participants with Systematic Random Sampling as a sampling technique. Overall, the assessment of the level of implementation of the CHRMO in terms of the Citizen’s Charter, access to government service through frontline services and in terms of Report Card survey are extremely high. On the other hand, there was a significant difference between the participants’ assessment of the Citizen’s Charter and their age. However, there were significant differences between the participants’ assessment on the access of government service in terms of Report Card Survey and the participants’ age, gender and type of employment. Further, the level of satisfaction of the participants for all the services rendered by the CHRMO is high. The participants’ assessment of the three components are extremely high, while their level of satisfaction is high. Although the level of satisfaction of the participants were high, still the CHRMO needs to enhance further its delivery of public service

A efficient and robust privacy-preserving framework for cross-device federated learning

To ensure no private information is leaked in the aggregation phase in federated learning (FL), many frameworks use homomorphic encryption (HE) to mask local model updates. However, the heavy overheads of these frameworks make them unsuitable for cross-device FL, where the clients are a huge number of mobile and edge devices with limited computing resources. Even worse, some of them also fail to manage the dynamic changes of clients. To overcome these shortcomings, we propose a threshold multi-key HE scheme tMK-CKKS and design an efficient and robust privacy-preserving FL framework. Robustness means that our framework allows clients to join in or drop out during the training process. Besides, because our tMK-CKKS scheme can pack multiple messages in a single ciphertext, our framework significantly reduces the computation and communication overhead. Moreover, the threshold mechanism in tMK-CKKS ensures that our framework can resist collusion attacks between the server and no more than t (threshold value) curious internal clients. Finally, we implement our framework in FedML and conduct extensive experiments to evaluate our framework. Utility evaluations on 6 benchmark datasets show that our framework can protect privacy without sacrificing the model accuracy. Efficiency evaluations on 4 typical deep learning models demonstrate that: our framework can speed up the computation by at least 1.21times over xMK-CKKS-based framework, 15.84times over Batchcrypt-based framework, and 20.30times over CRT-Paillier-based framework. Our framework can reduce the communication burden by at least 8.61 MB over Batchcrypt-based framework, 35.36 MB over xMK-CKKS-based framework and 42.58 MB over CRT-Paillier-based framework. The advantages in both computation and communication expand with the size of deep learning models.

A Homomorphic Signcryption-Based Privacy Preserving Federated Learning Framework for IoTs

Federated learning (FL) enables clients to train a machine learning model collaboratively by just aggregating their model parameters, which makes it very useful in empowering the IoTs with intelligence. To prevent privacy information leakage from parameters during aggregation, many FL frameworks use homomorphic encryption to protect client’s parameters. However, a secure federated learning framework should not only protect privacy of the parameters but also guarantee integrity of the aggregated results. In this paper, we propose an efficient homomorphic signcryption framework that can encrypt and sign the parameters in one go. According to the additive homomorphic property of our framework, it allows aggregating the signcryptions of parameters securely. Thus, our framework can both verify the integrity of the aggregated results and protect the privacy of the parameters. Moreover, we employ the blinding technique to resist collusion attacks between internal curious clients and the server and leverage the Chinese Remainder Theorem to improve efficiency. Finally, we simulate our framework in FedML. Extensive experimental results on four benchmark datasets demonstrate that our framework can protect privacy without compromising model performance, and our framework is more efficient than similar frameworks.

VCFL: A verifiable and collusion attack resistant privacy preserving framework for cross-silo federated learning

To prevent privacy information leakage through model parameters in federated learning, many works use homomorphic encryption to protect clients’ updates. However, most of them result in significant computation and communication overhead. Even worse, few of them have considered the correctness of the aggregated results and collusion attack between internal curious clients and the server. In this paper, we propose VCFL, an efficient verifiable and collusion attack resistant privacy preserving framework for cross-silo federated learning. Firstly, we design a homomorphic signcryption mechanism to sign and encrypt model parameters in one go. Secondly, we employ the blinding technique to resist collusion attack between clients and the server. Moreover, we leverage the batching approach to further reduce its computation and communication overhead. Finally, we simulate VCFL in FedML on real world datasets and models. Extensive experimental results show that VCFL can guarantee model performance while protecting privacy, and it is more efficient in both computation and communication than similar frameworks.

Evaluating the Organizational Cultural Competence of a Clinical Psychology Training Clinic: Findings and Implications for Training Sites

Canadians from diverse ethnocultural backgrounds have specific mental health needs. Cultural competence in mental health care enhances client satisfaction and improves outcomes for individuals from minority groups. Few studies examine cultural competence at the organizational level. This program evaluation examined organizational cultural competence of a university-based psychology clinic. Surveys were completed by internal stakeholders and clients. Results suggest a high level of commitment to cultural competence among internal stakeholders. Clients reportedly felt welcomed and that their cultural needs were met. Challenges related to cultural competency training, educational opportunities, policies, and procedures will be discussed. Recommendations have implications for psychology clinics.

Exploring influence between employee motivation and service quality in the South African Police Service

The South African Police Service (SAPS) Training College, Paarl is facing challenges to reward, motivate and ensure service delivery at the Academy. In any organisation, employees are working to provide service to both internal and external clients for this it is important to take care of employees because they are interacting with these clients. Thus, a cardinal question is how can organisations retain and motivate employees in order to offer a quality service to their clients? The aim of this study was to determine the influence between rewards, motivation and service quality at the SAPS Training College, Paarl. Semi-structured interviews with 10 managers and supervisors utilizing purposive sampling were conducted. The findings revealed that participants at the Training College, Paarl are motivated by only intrinsic as the morale is slow due to a lack of extrinsic factors with particular emphasis on pay or remuneration. Lack of recognition or perceived favouritism with the SAPS where rewards are not linked to performance was identified to be the best de-motivating factor for employees at the SAPS Training College, Paarl. The quality of academic services has a significant effect on the consumer behavior of customers, the students.

Effects of Human Resource on Quality Service Delivery of Mission Hospitals in Mery County, Kenya

Prudent human resource management is at the core of every successful entity whether private, for profit, public, faith based and not-for-profit organizations. The human resource is the driver of other resources towards organizational development and harmonization of service delivery. This study endeavoured to explore the role of human resource in facilitating quality delivery of services in mission hospitals in Meru County of Kenya. The population were stakeholders of the mission hospitals, both internal and external clients including the chief executive officers (CEOs), Finance and Human Resource officers, public relations officers and other staff internally and, patients, suppliers and neighbours as external stakeholders. There were eight mission hospitals in the County and all of them were included in the survey. The design was a descriptive study with both purposive judgmental sampling at selection of top-level respondents and simple random sampling among the respondents at other levels. Piloting of the study instruments was carried out at Wamba hospital in the neighbouring Isiolo county which is also a mission hospital to test and improve them. Data collection was through structured questionnaires which were administered through drop and pick method or by research assistants on behalf of those who could not directly react to them like patients and some neighbours. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 23 and descriptive statistics used to interpret and describe the findings. Correlation analysis was done to establish the relationship between the dependent and the independent variables and significance established at 95 percent. The findings revealed that there was positive correlation between human resource and quality of service delivery in mission hospitals in Meru County (R=0.71, F=21.397, P=0.00). Human resource was critical to organizational success in determining customer royalty and repeat visits through the quality of services offered by competent, committed and skilled staff that lead to positive word of mouth marketing of hospitals. The study recommended greater emphasis on customer care, improved human resource management for quality service to enable the hospitals retain and attract more clients. Studies on the same in private and public hospitals were advocated. Keywords: Human Resource, Quality Service Delivery, Mission hospitals, DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/14-6-05 Publication date: March 31 st 2022

Al-Asror Prayer Water Therapy Method in an Effort to Treat Diseases

Alternative treatment is not intended to replace conventional treatment, but it is as a companion because each treatment has advantages so that it will produce a powerful treatment. This study aims to determine how the impact of Al-Asror prayer water therapy treatment on internal medicine clients. The method that will be used in this research is qualitative is a descriptive approach with the type of case study. Invocation water therapy is a treatment method that used water which has been given an invocation as a treatment medium. There are various kinds of diseases which have given a positive response while given invocation water therapy treatment; it is including internal diseases such as Immunology, Gastroenterohepatology, Geriatrics, Renal Hypertension, Hematology, Medical Oncology, Cardiology, Endocrine Metabolism, Psychosomatics, Pulmonology, Rheumatology, Tropical Infections. After conducting interviews with therapists and 5 clients who underwent the treatment at Al-Asror’s invocation water therapy, the researchers has concluded that Al-Asror’s invocation water therapy has an effect in helping to treat internal diseases.

GENDER MAINSTREAMING PLAN FOR GENDER-RESPONSIVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

This study sought to develop a gender mainstreaming plan for gender-responsive public schools. Specifically, the extent of gender mainstreaming practices among public schools and their hindering factors were assessed in this research. A descriptive method of research was employed to investigate the posed objectives in this study. Purposive and random sampling techniques were utilized in the selection of the respondents. Guided by the said sampling procedures, 282 school heads participated in the study. Data were collected through survey-questionnaire and computed using the weighted arithmetic mean (WAM). Results indicated that gender perspectives are relatively mainstreamed in the organizational processes of public schools. Specifically, gender perspectives are less mainstreamed into the policies and PPAs but relatively integrated into their support mechanisms and highly evident among people. However, lack of gender analysis and gender mainstreaming plan, as well as insufficient knowledge and training of internal and external clients are highly hindering factors among public schools to implement gender mainstreaming. Based on the results of this study, a gender mainstreaming plan was developed to serve as a framework among public schools in mainstreaming gender perspectives on their policies, PPAs, and enabling mechanisms.

Gerenciamento de reclamações: O impacto da satisfação pós-reclamação no comportamento organizacional

Abstract Purpose: The objective of this research was to investigate satisfaction with the management of complaints through perceptions of organizational justice and its subsequent impact on organizational commitment, involvement, and engagement at work of internal customers in the shared services centers (SSC). Originality/value: We used the model developed and tested by Tax et al. (1998), which in this study was adapted to the organizational context of the SSC. This approach is unprecedented and aims to reduce the defragmentation of academic literature in SSC (Richter & Brül, 2017), which is at an early stage of development (Knol et al., 2014). Design/methodology/approach: This is a quantitative-descriptive cross-sectional study, whose data were collected from internal clients of SSC (employees of the branches) through a survey, resulting in 172 valid answers that were analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM). Findings: The results obtained indicate that perceptions of distributive and procedural justice affect the satisfaction of internal clients with the management of complaints. Organizational commitment, involvement and engagement are directly influenced by satisfaction with the management of complaints.

El sistema de comunicación integrado a los sistemas de gestión en el contexto organizacional

Organizational communication contributes to the fulfillment of the functions, tasks and /or activities of the job position individually and in general, to the coordination of the set of activities that are developed in the entities to achieve the expected results. Work objective is to propose a procedure for a diagnosis and design of the communication system, integrated into the direction and management system with a strategic approach. The methodology was applied and validated in two Santiago de Cuba's organizations with satisfactory results. Different research techniques and tools are used, combining the quantitative with the qualitative approach, among which are: bibliographic analysis, documentary review and analysis, differents interviews types, questionnaire in survey form and checklists. Is possible developing as a result procedure for a diagnosis and design of organizational communication that overlaps the theoretical, methodological, structural and practical elements with an integrated approach to all management systems, providing the improvement of business processes. Its design based on current technical and legal regulations facilitates its generalization and adaptability to all types of organizations depending on its characteristics. Communication is a process that occurs in any type of organization, permanently involving internal and external clients, such as workers, managers, clients, suppliers and society.

ОБЗОР ИНСТРУМЕНТАРИЯ ОПТИМИЗАЦИОННЫХ РЕШЕНИЙ В СОВРЕМЕННОЙ ПРАКТИКЕ УПРАВЛЕНИЯ ПЕРСОНАЛОМ

In the modern world, the situation in the business environment is changing so quickly and unpredictably that the only option for an organization to maintain the competitive advantage over the other companies on the market is to constantly monitor the emerging tools for the optimization of internal processes of the enterprise. One of the most important elements of any organization is its HR division, which plays an important role in establishing and maintaining trustful and partner relations with both internal and external clients of the company. Thus, it is important to analyze the market of HR processes optimization tools in order to remain a stable position as a reliable employer. This article describes the most common and contemporary instruments for optimizing internal HRM processes at the same evaluating their effectiveness levels in order to build a concrete picture on the current situation on the market of such tools.