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Speech Pathologists (SPs) are under increasing workforce pressures as a result of an ageing population and greater prevalence of chronic conditions. Considering this increasing workforce demand, within the context of limited health resources, workforce flexibility such as the consideration of task delegation is increasingly being encouraged within the literature and government policy. Though the use of delegation models within speech pathology has received some attention, particularly in the management of paediatric speech and language disorders, there is a paucity of evidence to support the use of delegation models in dysphagia management. This presents a significant gap, as dysphagia management is an integral part of the SP’s role in the inpatient hospital setting and accounts for a significant proportion of workload demand in that context.Delegation of dysphagia related tasks to a trained Allied Health Assistant (AHA) offers a means to address increased workforce demand, while potentially improving workforce efficiency. Appropriate delegation of ‘low value’ tasks to another professional group may support the SP; to dedicate more time to high risk caseloads; increasing intensity of intervention; and contributing to quality and innovation initiatives. Hence the overall objective of this thesis was to generate new knowledge regarding the design, clinical implementation and evaluation of AHA delegation models in the clinical area of dysphagia management. Two specific aims were identified to achieve this. The first was to design, develop, implement and evaluate AHA delegation models for two key dysphagia related tasks, (mealtime observations and dysphagia screening), to establish accuracy and feasibility of task completion. The second aim was to evaluate stakeholder perceptions regarding implementation of AHA delegation models in the clinical area of dysphagia. Three studies resulting in four manuscripts were conducted to achieve these aims.Study 1 (Chapter 2) involved a mixed method design including a document review of 13 policy documents on AHA delegation and a survey of 44 speech pathology managers regarding current delegation models. Despite policy support for AHA delegation, and 77% of managers reporting that they used delegation models, only 26% of managers reported using delegation fairly often/very often in dysphagia management. To facilitate greater delegation, both document analysis and survey findings supported the importance of AHA training, however, the nature of training remained unclear. Chapter 2 therefore provides context for delegation in the clinical area of dysphagia by demonstrating both policy and stakeholder support.While Chapter 2 demonstrated that emerging support exists for the delegation of dysphagia related tasks to trained AHAs, an evaluation of accuracy and validity of task completion in these models of care has not been undertaken. To address this evidence gap, two separate studies were conducted resulting in Chapters 3, 4 and 5. Chapter 3 involved a mixed method design to explore validity of AHA completed mealtime observations of 50 adult inpatients using a structured observation form. The results of this study identified that exact agreement between AHAs and SPs on the overall pass/fail criteria was high (94%). Where exact agreement was not achieved, the AHA had made a more conservative decision, thus still ensuring patient safety. Qualitative interviews conducted as part of the mealtime observation study (Chapter 3) identified that both SPs and AHAs perceived multiple positive personal and service benefits of delegated mealtime observations. High levels of agreement between the SP and the AHA were also identified in Chapter 4 which utilised a prospective cohort study to examine feasibility and validity of AHA delegation in dysphagia screening. Validity testing in this study confirmed exact agreement between AHAs and SPs on overall pass/fail screening criteria for the first 51 patients to be 100%. Furthermore, the delegation of ‘low risk’ dysphagia screening to a trained AHA was identified to remove approximately 40% of these referrals from the SP’s caseload. Thus, providing evidence to support improved efficiency in workforce management when introducing AHA delegation.In Chapter 5 the perceptions of stakeholders regarding the implementation of delegated dysphagia screening was conducted. The service implementation experience was examined using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research (CFIR) analysis framework. Results of this study provided an overview of barriers and facilitators to implementation, which provide vital direction to future services wishing to introduce innovative models, such as AHA delegation in dysphagia management. Chapter 5 also highlighted variation between direct patient delegation and blanket delegation, which was explored in more detail in Chapter 6.The final chapter of this thesis (Chapter 6) provided a summary of the thesis findings, limitations and areas for future research. In conclusion, delegation of dysphagia related tasks to trained AHAs is safe and effective and may provide opportunity for efficiency increases, cost reduction and workforce flexibility in the area of dysphagia management. While training provided for the tasks included in this thesis appeared adequate given the high agreement and accuracy of task completion, variation in context and delegation practices highlight areas of future research.

Este artículo aborda los renovados problemas de salud laboral que surgen como consecuencia de las reestructuraciones productivas, de las nuevas formas de gestión de la fuerza de trabajo y de la transición hacia una economía de servicios. De esta forma, en el escenario actual, además de los riesgos tradicionales (físicos, químicos, biológicos, tecnológicos), comienzan a emerger otros riesgos menos conocidos que afectan la salud psicosocial de los/as trabajadores/as con igual contundencia. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar los Riesgos Psicosociales en el Trabajo (RPST) a los que están expuestos los trabajadores de una Clínica de Medicina Privada, centrándonos específicamente en dos ejes que mostraron ser centrales durante la investigación: las exigencias emocionales y las relaciones sociales en el trabajo. Los datos fueron recolectados a través de una encuesta realizada a una muestra de trabajadores de la Clínica y con entrevistas a distintos informantes clave del ámbito bajo estudio (autoridades gremiales, delegados, jefa de recursos humanos). Los resultados muestran que los/as trabajadores/as de la Clínica efectivamente enfrentan altas exigencias emocionales, en dos planos principales: por un lado, por la permanente tarea de contener a pacientes y familiares en situación de angustia; por otro, por la necesidad de contener las reacciones negativas del público (enojo, agresión). Respecto de las relaciones sociales en el trabajo, se encontró que se configuran relaciones de trabajo exigentes y eventualmente conflictivas entre trabajadores/as y superiores, derivado de las exigencias que implica el trabajo en la Clínica y también por las históricas asimetrías entre categorías profesionales., This article addresses the renewed occupational health problems that arise as a result of productive restructuring, the new forms of workforce management applied and the transition to a service economy. Thus, in the current scenario, in addition to the traditional occupational risks (physical, chemical, biological, technological), other less known risks emerge and affect the psychosocial health of workers with equal forcefulness. The objective of this article is to analyse the Psychosocial Risks at Work to which the workers of a Private Medicine Clinic are exposed, focusing specifically on two of them that proved to be central during the investigation: emotional demands and the social relationships at work. The data was collected through a survey applied to a sample of workers and through interviews held with different key informants of the institution under study (union authorities, delegates, head of human resources). The results show that the workers of the Clinic effectively face high emotional demands, on two main aspects: on the one hand, due to the permanent task of containing patients and relatives in distress and pain, and on the other hand, due to the necessity of containing the negative reactions of the public (anger, aggression). Regarding the social relations at work, it was found at the Clinic the existence of demanding and possibly conflicting work relationships between workers and superiors, derived from the high work demands and also by the historical asymmetries between the professional categories., Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias de la Educación

In the last years, software engineering researchers have defined sustainability as a quality requirement of software, but not enough effort has been devoted to develop new methods/techniques to support the analysis and assessment of software sustainability. In this study, we present the Sustainability Assessment Framework (SAF) that consists of two instruments: the software sustainability&ndash, quality model, and the architectural decision map. Then, we use participatory and technical action research in close collaboration with the software industry to validate the SAF regarding its applicability in specific cases. The unit of analysis of our study is a family of software products (Geographic Information System- and Mobile-based Workforce Management Systems) that aim to address sustainability goals (e.g., efficient collection of dead animals to mitigate social and environmental sustainability risks). The results show that the sustainability&ndash, quality model integrated with the architectural decision maps can be used to identify sustainability&ndash, quality requirements as design concerns because most of its quality attributes (QAs) have been either addressed in the software project or acknowledged as relevant (i.e., creating awareness on the relevance of the multidimensional sustainability nature of certain QAs). Moreover, the action&ndash, research method has been helpful to enrich the sustainability&ndash, quality model, by identifying missing QAs (e.g., regulation compliance, data privacy). Finally, the architectural decision maps have been found as useful to guide software architects/designers in their decision-making process.

Biometrics is the emerging technology in the era of internet and mobile communication. The IoT revolution has enabled the things around us to communicate as it emerges as a smart system, hence security should be considered as primary issue as everything around us is going to be connected. Biometric Technology is considered to be the future of all electronic security which provides authentication and security management. This paper provides a detailed survey on existing biometric technology, different types of biometric traits, techniques adopted for feature extraction of various biometric traits and application areas of different biometric traits. The importance of biometric technology related to the various fields of security is also discussed through this paper. The biometric technology connected with smart systems helps in monitoring the human activities all over the world, thus providing a good security level. Biometrics acts as a major support to various fields of automobile security, Internet of Things (IOT) Security, health care security, workforce management of organization, government security, banking, and retail industry.

Researchers created a software tool to help determine staffing needs in the U.S. Secret Service's highest-priority administrative, professional, and technical functions. This user guide describes the tool, which consists of Visio process mapping and Excel spreadsheet calculations; documents its features; and provides detailed instructions for completing procedures using the tool.

Ця стаття узагальнює аргументи та контраргументи в межах наукової дискусії з питання особливостей інноваційного процесу та нововведень управління персоналом, проблем розробки та впровадження інноваційних технологій в управління персоналом. Систематизація літературних джерел та підходів до вирішення проблеми управління персоналом засвідчила, що трудова діяльність сучасного працівника внаслідок дії четвертої промислової революції набуває все більш ярко вираженої специфіки, яку необхідно враховувати при впровадженні в практику кадрових інновацій у відповідності з поточними і стратегічними цілями підприємств. Актуальність вирішення даної наукової проблеми продиктовано необхідністю вдосконалення стратегії, принципів та практики управління персоналом в умовах четвертої промислової революції. Основною метою проведеного дослідження є встановлення специфіки трудової діяльності чеських працівників, їх вимоги та очікування спричинених четвертою промисловою революцією. У статті представлено результати емпіричного аналізу опитування 168 респондентів, чоловіки та жінки різних вікових та професійних груп, з вересня по грудень 2019 року. Методичним інструментарієм проведеного дослідження стали методи відносних частот та оцінки залежності відповідей респондентів на основі факторних таблиць та критерію незалежності хі-квадрат. Отримані результати дослідження свідчать, що процеси діджиталізації, автоматизації та роботизації не мають статистично значимого впливу на переживання працівників з приводу можливого ризику втрати робочого місця. Однак, переважна більшість респондентів усвідомлюють, що четверта промислова революція висуває нові вимоги до рівня знань, вмінь та навичок, необхідних для працевлаштування. Дослідження емпірично підтверджує та теоретично доводить, що розуміння працівників майбутніх викликів пов’язаних з впливом четвертої промислової революції дозволяють впроваджувати на підприємствах сучасні стратегій управління персоналом. Результати проведеного дослідження можуть бути корисними для підприємств при впровадженні інноваційних підходів щодо управління персоналом, зокрема: пошуку та найму працівників, розвитку їх кар'єри, створення корпоративної культури тощо. The radical technological changes in business models associated with the fourth industrial revolution (4IR) naturally change workforce requirements and approach to workforce management. To deal with the workforce management challenges of the 4IR, employers should know requirements and expectations of the potential workforce to be able to apply effective and efficient strategies, policies, and practices on workforce management to ensure the organization has quality employees it needs. The article aims to present the main findings of the authors' questionnaire survey on requirements and expectations of Czech employees associated with the fourth industrial revolution and discuss the current workforce management challenges in developing attractive career opportunities. The authors' questionnaire survey was carried out from September to December 2019. The respondents included Czech male and female employees of different professions and different generations. The answers were obtained from 168 respondents. The data analysis methods included the calculation of relative frequencies and the evaluation of the dependence of responses on gender and generation of respondents using contingency tables and chi-square tests of independence. The findings show that respondents are familiar with the 4IR, and they are not concerned about losing their jobs due to the development of digitization, automation, or robotization; however, they are aware of the fact that their knowledge, skills, and abilities determine their employability in the 4IR. On the other hand, they have relatively high job expectations, which could reduce their employability. Therefore, employers should learn how to know the requirements and expectations of the potential workforce to be able to develop attractive career opportunities.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) seeks to advance the ability of its software acquisition workforce to rapidly and reliably deliver complex software-dependent capabilities through an enhanced understanding of technical competencies, improvements to education and training, and guidance for workforce management and assessment. Focusing on three primary acquisition career fields - information technology, engineering, and program management - the authors review existing competency models used by DoD and commercial industry, along with industry trends and modern software practices, and gather feedback from stakeholders and subject-matter experts to develop a model consisting of 48 competencies organized by topic: problem identification, solution identification, development planning, transition and sustainment planning, system architecture design, software construction management, software program management, mission assurance, and professional competencies. They also review existing courses offered by the Defense Acquisition University, other DoD institutions, and private and public universities to determine whether and to what extent the courses offer software training and education that corresponds with these competencies, and to identify ways to address potential gaps. Although there is no currently accepted government job title or occupational series for software professionals, and although the competency model thus affords limited utility for assessing current workforce capability, the authors present options for tracking and managing the software acquisition workforce, as well as further steps toward validating the competency model.

There have been concerns around low productivity, poor health and wellbeing and staff engagement for well over a decade in the English National Health Service (NHS). Our analysis of survey data in 28 healthcare organisations builds an understanding of what drives employee engagement and how it impacts organisations. Our findings are that: better staff engagement in a healthcare organisation is associated with better financial and care outcomes; some professional groups in healthcare organisations (e.g. healthcare assistants) have substantially worse employee engagement than others; and employee participation in wellbeing programmes, effective leadership and line manager training are associated with better staff engagement. The key message for those involved in healthcare delivery is that there is a strong business case for improving employee engagement as it likely improves a range of organisational outcomes. The analysis also points to some specific initiatives that organisations focused on improving employee engagement may wish to consider.

We conduct a study of hiring bias on a simulation platform where we ask Amazon MTurk participants to make hiring decisions for a mathematically intensive task. Our findings suggest hiring biases against Black workers and less attractive workers and preferences towards Asian workers female workers and more attractive workers. We also show that certain UI designs including provision of candidates information at the individual level and reducing the number of choices can significantly reduce discrimination. However provision of candidates information at the subgroup level can increase discrimination. The results have practical implications for designing better online freelance marketplaces., 11 page, 2 figures, 38rd ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI 2020

The workforce management plays a significant role in the ever changing era. In the liberalized environment managing, developing and retaining employees in any organization is a taunting task. The role of HR manager is always difficult for coping with the employee expectations. It is also critical to face different attitudes, approaches of employee’s generation gaps. Employee’s behavior has been changing from individual to group activities. Any conflicts among the employees and the relationship between the employer and employees have taken time consuming process in order to make amicable solution. On the other hand, the corporate attitudes focus only on profitability, productivity and overall efficiency. They are taking more sophisticated tools to acquire global talent and matching the skill gaps. To meet out the contradiction between the employer and employees more sensitive, personalized and cannot be managed with any pre-specific strategies. This paper has been focusing on the real changes and challenges of workforce management in the new era.

Over the past four decades the service sector shaped advanced forms of interaction between human and technology actors with a wide range of actor combinations like human-to-human, human-to-technology, or technology-to-technology. The understanding of workforce, on the other hand, has remained largely unchanged in recent decades. Workforce, workforce planning, workforce management, workforce diversity and so on, focus almost exclusively on the human actor. Therefore, the authors see the need for a new understanding of workforce and for the explanation of the mechanisms and interdependencies of workforce management. Based on the theoretical concepts of Service Science and S-D Logic as well as the approaches of meso- and micro-foundation the context of workforce and workforce management is studied and a conceptual framework for workforce management and a new definition of workforce is derived.

Today, the world is going through an unprecedented wave of urbanization, an evolution that tends to focus on both the biggest social problems and the biggest opportunities in the area of big cities. Once the concept of "smart city" appeared brought its new challenges for our society. In addition to the many benefits, such as increased quality of life, a smart city is challenging the current government. The security of the citizens in the smart cities is gaining new perspective, but also brings a number of threats, mostly considering the strategies regarding counter-terrorism. The human component, specifically the workforce adapted to the smart city, faces new challenges: the emergence of artificial intelligence, increased demand for digital skills, a must have also in labour market, together with the technologization of all areas of activity, which produces changes in all aspects of daily life. Under these conditions, the human factor is affected by all these changes. One side of the story regards the training and, also, the education of individuals, which must increase digitalisation skills; the other side involves the government who must adapt its strategies and policies to enable these changes in a safe manner for citizens and public workers, who perpetuate these changes through local administrations. Therefore, human resources are an important component in the project that aims developing smart cities that includes also developing adapted protection for citizens, specific to these cities. The use of artificial intelligence in smart cities seems to be the solution to the problems raised by smart cities in relation to the human factor and its vulnerability. But at what cost?

Matching supply and demand in nursing home practice is not straightforward, as it always takes place within a ‘client—care worker—organizational’ triangle. This chapter illustrates how data-driven capacity planning can support nursing homes in their search for ways to further increase their efficiency while maintaining an appropriate quality level of care. This is done using a framework based on a four-step approach adopted from workforce management in call centres. In addition, it is also shown that data-driven capacity planning allows for a more evenly spread workload for the care workers.

The process of manually constructing monthly working schedules for physicians in medium-sized and large departments at hospitals is a very time-consuming and error-prone task. The scheduler, typically a senior physician, is an expensive resource and oftentimes almost irreplaceable because of his acquired expertise in the scheduling process. We develop a mathematical model that formalizes every rule and regulation necessary to generate lawful schedules in the anesthesiology department of a 626-bed hospital in Berlin, Germany. We embed our detailed and complex mixed-integer programming formulation, which generates schedules superior to the ones currently in use, in an Excel environment to ensure ease of use, maximum flexibility with respect to changing all relevant inputs, and a visual output representation for practitioners. The presented approach reduces the workload for the scheduler dramatically, thereby increasing his availability for medical services. Our generated schedules outperform manually created schedules by significantly reducing the number of rule and regulation violations, while also improving key performance measures such as assigned overtime, granted employee-preferred shifts, and fairness considerations. Our approach also highlights important aspects in modeling the physician scheduling problem for practical implementation that have been widely ignored in the existing literature.

La literatura especializada en empresas multinacionales sostiene que el país de origen, el sector de actividad, el momento de instalación, el tamaño de la empresa en el país de instalación, el nivel de autonomía con respecto a la casa matriz y la presencia sindical pueden ser factores explicativos de los rasgos que asumen las formas de gestión de la fuerza de trabajo en las filiales locales. En este marco el presente artículo tiene dos objetivos. El primero, establecer los diferentes modelos de gestión en las filiales argentinas de este tipo de empresas y, el segundo, estudiar su vinculación con los factores que han sido señalados por la literatura especializada. Para ello se analiza información proveniente de una encuesta a 83 filiales de empresas multinacionales instaladas en Argentina, a través de la aplicación de las técnicas de análisis factorial de correspondencias múltiples y de cluster, lo cual permite constituir grupos relativamente homogéneos según la forma de gestión de la fuerza laboral para luego considerar la existencia de relaciones estadísticamente significativas entre las modalidades de las variables que caracterizan a las formas de gestión y los factores mencionados arriba. El análisis destaca como fenómeno relevante la existencia de un número significativo de empresas con formas de gestión tradicional, con escasa participación sindical, en un contexto de elevada sindicalización, y bajo grado de autonomía respecto de las casas matrices, predominantemente de gran tamaño, pero asociadas a un menor tamaño de las subsidiarias locales; a la producción en comercio y servicios y a países de origen como Estados Unidos, Francia, Alemania e Italia., The specialized literature in multinational companies maintains that the country of origin, the business sector, the settlement date, the company size in the country where it has settled, the branch level of autonomy with respect to the headquarter, and the union presence can be explanatory factors of the features assumed when managing the workforce in the local branches. In this context, the paper has two main objectives: firstly, to establish the different workforce management models in Argentina and, secondly, to analyze its connection with the different factors indicated by the specialized literature. By applying a Factorial and Cluster Analysis to an 83-firm dataset of multinational company branches settled in Argentina, we create homogeneous groups of firms in terms of their workforce management traits and relate these traits with the factors mentioned above. The analysis highlights as a relevant phenomenon the existence of a significant number of companies with traditional ways of management and low union participation, in a context of high unionization and a low degree of autonomy with respect to the headquarters; predominantly large, but associated to a smaller size of local subsidiaries, to production in commerce and services and to countries of origin such as the United States, France, Germany, and Italy., Facultad de Ciencias Económicas

Capacity and workforce management in a distribution center can have significant impacts on the overall supply chain. This paper examines the effects of workforce staffing strategies employed in the warehouse operations of a beverage distribution center located in the Bio-Bio Region, Chile. The workforce is responsible for unloading and storing inbound product shipments from distant production plants, as well as retrieving and preparing outbound product shipments for local delivery. A simulation model was used to guide how to improve warehouse operations as measured by load preparation time, workforce staffing costs, and maximum storage capacity utilization. The results recommend increasing warehouse pallet storage capacity to improve efficiency. Additionally, scenarios were evaluated concerning the firm’s willingness-to-pay for improvements related to workforce staffing and training. The results indicate that investing in the workforce will reduce the firm’s load preparation time by as much as 15%.

A literature review on the issues of management and development of human resources for health care that are currently occurring with managers of medical organizations in different countries. The review includes materials available in Scopus, Web of Science, WHO (IRIS) and OECD (iLibrary) databases through 2010-2017. Influence of economic crisis is discussed in terms of state health care policy and solutions on workforce optimization. Strategies to solve problems related to workforce security, personnel management and patient satisfaction have been analyzed, implemented both by health care workers and managers and by the international community. The strengthening of human resources in different countries is carried out through various methods, the main task of which is to correlate the supply of workforce with the needs of the population through competent planning at all stages of the life cycle of human resources, increasing productivity, developing leadership and stimulating workers. Authors' model of balanced development of human resources for health to improve health care efficiency takes into account interests, motivation and needs of health care system and medical professionals. While keeping the balance of these stakeholders interests, opportunities open up to increase the availability of medical services with a reasonable balance of financing and labor costs.

Workforce management has long been an integral part of operational efforts aimed at maximizing revenues. The recent literature in this area has recognized the positive impact of social ties on workforce productivity, motivating new re-formulations of conventional operations research problems to more explicitly consider team building. This paper inspects a different – negative – aspect of social tie formation. Indeed, such ties may enable the spread of negligent or corrupt behavior, presenting a hindrance to the productivity of larger businesses with limited capacity for workforce monitoring. Through model-based analyses, this paper quantitatively establishes the benefits of workforce rotation as a means to curb corruption, and presents rigorous investigations into rotation policy-making. To this end, the Link Based Corruption (LBC) model is introduced. The modeled agents are assumed to be embedded into a directed peer-to-peer monitoring network; e.g., employees working on the same task or in the same room can be viewed as being supervisors of each other. Corruption is taken to be a threat whenever an agent and their supervisor(s) are all corruption-prone (ready to go corrupt); once they identify each other as such, which takes time, a productivity loss takes place. Under the LBC model, this paper addresses the policy-maker’s problem of fixing the agent monitoring structure and timing the workforce rotation so as to minimize the expected long-time loss. The impact of the LBC model parameters – the fraction of corruption-prone agents in the workforce, productivity rate, costs, rate of corrupt link formation, etc. – on the choice of an optimal policy is quantitatively assessed. It is also shown that the problem of inferring the LBC model parameters in real-world settings can be addressed by “feeling the system”, i.e., observing what financial outputs a given business generates when operating under different policy settings.

Background Access to an Emergency Medical Communication Centre is essential for the population in emergency situations. Handling inbound calls without delay requires managing activity, process and outcome measures of the Emergency Medical Communication Centre to improve the workforce management and the level of service. France is facing political decisions on the evolution of the organisation of Emergency Medical Communication Centres to improve accessibility for the population. First, we aim to describe the variation in activity between Emergency Medical Communication Centres, and second, to explore the correlation between process measures and outcome measures. Methods Using telephone activity data extraction, we conducted an observational multicentre study of six French Emergency Medical Communication Centres from 1 July 2016 to 30 June 2017. We described the activity (number of incoming calls, call rate per 1000 inhabitants), process measure (agent occupation rate), and outcome measure (number of calls answered within 20 s) by hourly range and estimated the correlation between them according to the structural equation methods. Results A total of 52,542 h of activity were analysed, during which 2,544,254 calls were received. The annual Emergency Medical Communication Centre call rate was 285.5 [95% CI: 285.2–285.8] per 1000 inhabitants. The average hourly number of calls ranged from 29 to 61 and the call-handled rate from 75 to 98%. There are variations in activity between Emergency Medical Communication Centres. The mean agent occupation rate was correlated with the quality of service at 20 s (coefficient at − 0.54). The number of incoming calls per agent was correlated with the mean occupation rate (coefficient at 0.67). Correlation coefficients varied according to the centres and existed between different process measures. Conclusions The activity dynamics of the six Emergency Medical Communication Centres are not identical. This variability, illustrating the particularity of each centre, must be accurately assessed and should be taken into account in managerial considerations. The call taker occupation rate is the leverage in the workforce management to improve the population accessibility.

We consider call centers that have multiple (potentially inter‐dependent) demand arrival streams. Workforce management of such labor intensive service systems starts with forecasting future arrival demand. We investigate the question of whether and when to jointly forecast future arrivals of the multiple streams. We first develop a general statistical model to simultaneously forecast multi‐stream arrival rates. The model takes into account three types of inter‐stream dependence. We then show with analytical and simulation studies how the forecasting benefits of the multi‐stream forecasting model vary by the type, direction, and strength of inter‐stream dependence. In particular, we find that it is beneficial to simultaneously forecast multi‐stream arrivals (instead of separately forecasting each stream), when there exists inter‐stream lag dependence among daily arrival rates. Empirical studies, using two real call center datasets further demonstrate our findings, and provide operational insights into how one chooses forecasting models for multi‐stream arrivals.

The Institute of Medicine (IOM) Future of Nursing report1 calls on nurses to take a greater role in America's increasingly complex health care system. The number of registered nurses (RNs) needed to care for an aging and medically diverse population is challenging existing care delivery models and resources. Nationally, health care organizations desire to employ a workforce capable of meeting current and future demands while reducing costs and increasing value of services. One way to architect innovative workforce management is to implement a formal career development framework that meets both current and future career needs for nurses. Career management programs are associated with cost savings related to recruitment and retention through affiliated increased professional satisfaction.2 Higher employee engagement leads to higher organizational performance, which is critical for business success and sustainability.3 Nurses connect with their organization in a variety of ways: socially with one another, intellectually through job challenges, and culturally through the mission and values of the institution.4 Affective and cognitive connection drives job embeddedness, which subsequently supports job satisfaction and reduced turnover.5–7 Professionals have a natural desire to learn, which provides a key leverage point for organizational success.3

This article shows how input heterogeneity triggers productivity spillovers at the workplace. In an egg production plant in rural Peru, workers produce output combining effort with inputs of heterogeneous quality. Exploiting variation in the productivity of inputs assigned to workers, we find evidence of a negative causal effect of an increase in coworkers’ daily output on own output and its quality. We show theoretically and suggest empirically that the effect captures free riding among workers, which originates from the way the management informs its dismissal decisions. Our study and results show that input heterogeneity and information on input quality contribute to determine the shape of incentives and have implications for human resource management, production management, and the interaction between the two. Counterfactual analyses show that processing information on inputs or changing their allocation among workers can generate significant productivity gains

Construction projects, as a labor-intensive industry, are directly involved with workforce management. Hence, the labor productivity issue is of remarkable interest in both the construction industry and academia because of its impact on time, cost, and quality of project. Due to the importance of labor productivity, an intensive literature review has been done to identify critical factors. However, a lack of previous studies on the causal relationships between labor productivity factors in the Iranian construction industry was discovered through the literature review. Hence, the study objective is to prioritize and highlight the factors most affecting construction labor productivity in Iran. The potential factors were identified and a questionnaire was prepared, including 33 factors, and it was then distributed among construction project managers who have more than 5 years of experience in the Iranian construction industry. Out of 200 questionnaires, 157 questionnaires were returned by participants. Of these, 152 valid collected data sets were analyzed through the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) as a decision-making tool and the Structural Equation Model (SEM) as a multivariate analysis technique, in parallel for accuracy and reliability of findings. Findings from both tools, AHP and SEM, were compared. Eventually, “Labor Characteristics,” by 0.384 priority weights, was selected as the most prioritized criteria; “Tools and Equipment” was selected among six factors as the most common significant factor between both AHP and SEM, ranked by 0.191 priority weights in AHP and a 0.82 factor loading in SEM. Furthermore, “Lack of required tools and/or equipment” has been ranked as the most significant sub-criteria with 0.444 weights; “Delay” has been chosen as the most significant latent variable in SEM with a 0.83 factor lading. The results of the study would be valuable for any participants in the construction industry and academia, particularly civil engineers who are involved in Iranian or Middle Eastern construction projects.

Lean is a powerful management system aimed at improving efficiency and operational effectiveness. Since its emergence in the automotive industry, lean has been adapted for use in almost all manufac...

Universities face problems that are complex and dynamic, which makes strategic planning particularly difficult. Traditional planning approaches in universities could be improved using systems approaches. In this paper, we present systems maps and insights from a series of participatory systems mapping sessions in a higher education institution. More specifically, we discuss key issues of faculty performance and morale. We look at how innovation attempts for improving quality and efficiency of education affect faculty morale. Then we explain unintended consequences of faculty hiring decisions. Finally, we discuss the issue of faculty salary inequity and how it may lead to performance and financial problems. We believe these maps will be of value to higher education administrators seeking to support faculty success and looking for ways to enhance their strategic planning process. Our study encourages a wider application of systems approaches as planning tools for higher education. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Libraries play a critical role in enhancing the learning landscape of the schools they support. In order for any library to become a powerhouse and a community meeting place, all library team membe...

Workforce staffing and assignment decisions are of critical importance for meeting the challenge of minimizing operational costs while providing satisfactory customer service. These decisions are particularly challenging for omnichannel service centers, where customers can request services via different communication channels (e.g., phone, e-mail, live-chat, social media) that have different service quality and response requirements. We present a formulation of the omnichannel workforce management problem that accounts for variations in response urgencies of different channels as well as diminishing agent performances due to channel switching. We develop an algorithm that efficiently provides solutions for this problem and determines the number and channel allocation of service agents within the service center. Through numerical experiments, we study the performance of the algorithm among various service center configurations with equal cost characteristics. The results indicate that the proposed algorithm can identify service center structures that outperform many alternative structures, including those commonly-adopted in the real-world.

Simultaneously with social, economic transformation, management of the human factor in the world of labour has become increasingly important. People as resources are essential for the effective management of every company; the changing environment requires rational management of resources. The impact of changes within the labour market observed in our time is the strongest on the field of human resource management. The importance of effective workforce management has increased considerably, which raised the significance of human resource professionals and their activities and demanded a certain change in attitude. The impact of globalisation and the lack of workforce and talent also affected the development of HR functions. Besides so-called conventional functions appearing in every organisation irrespective of its organisational size and activity, new areas of activity have been constantly emerging over the past decades, responding to changes in macro-and micro-environment. In our present study, we highlight the characteristics and significance of HR branding, retention, knowledge, competence, talent and flow management from amongst the new trends.

The present study aims to understand the health and safety scenario for reconstruction workers and to differentiate between post disaster reconstruction (PDR) operations and conventional construction operations as it relates to the workers’ health and safety. The context of the study is Bhaktapur, Nepal, which was impacted by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake. The study is based on in-depth interviews with stakeholders (n = 38) and triangulated with a review of secondary sources, including laws and regulations and newspapers. The findings suggest that the health and safety scenario of PDR operations differ from conventional construction operations in five broad ways: (1) debris management, (2) workforce management, (3) work environment, (4) perceived urgency to complete reconstruction, and (5) safety risk perception. The findings of this study show how construction workers in PDR operations face unique challenges and higher exposure to construction hazards at work compared to conventional construction. The study presents practical recommendations for governments in the Global South related to debris removal, training for construction stakeholders, technical assistance, enforcement of labor laws, and awareness campaigns for affected populations.

Objectives Staffing is the single biggest cost component in the critical care budgets. Due to the fluctuation in both bed occupancy and the level of care needs, nursing staff requirement can vary considerably from day to day. This makes the traditional ‘fixed roster’ staffing system inefficient, costly and potentially unsafe. In this study, we used the existing bed occupancy data to test the viability two ‘dynamic’ workforce management models. Research methodology Nursing requirement data were prospectively collected over one year at a thirty-two-bed critical care unit. Using mathematical models, we then tested the concept of two alternative workforce management models and compared the level of staffing, as well as the estimated cost per year. The first was an ‘on-call’ model, which was a two-tier roster with a standard staffing level and an additional on-call component; the second was a ‘predictive’ model, which estimated the staffing requirement based on the bed occupancy a few days prior. Setting Single centre study in a busy district general hospital with a 32-bed critical care unit. Main outcome measures The number of days with safe staffing levels and the cost of the alternative workforce management models. Results Data were collected over 331 days. The on-call model was estimated to cost 16% less per year (£431,320, or 2,630 nurse-shift equivalent) compared to the fixed roster, while fulfilling the adequate staffing standards in 97% of the days. While the predictive model could also be used to improve the workforce efficiency, this was overall less efficient than the on-call model. Conclusion The modelled data suggests that the implementation of an ‘on-call’ model in critical care nursing rostering could potentially improve coverage and appear to be cost effective.

Background The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel provides for guidance in health workforce management and cooperation in the international context. This article aims to examine whether the principles of the voluntary WHO Global Code of Practice can be applied to trigger health policy decisions within the EU zone of free movement of persons. Methods In the framework of the Joint Action on European Health Workforce Planning and Forecasting project (Grant Agreement: JA EUHWF 20122201 (see healthworkforce.eu)), focus group discussions were organised with over 30 experts representing ministries, universities and professional and international organisations. Ideas were collected about the applicability of the principles and with the aim to find EU law compatible, relevant solutions using a qualitative approach based on a standardised, semi-structured interview guide and pre-defined statements. Results Based on implementation practices summarised, focus group experts concluded that positive effects of adhering to the Code can be identified and useful ideas—compatible with EU law—exist to manage intra-EU mobility. The most relevant areas for intervention include bilateral cooperations, better use of EU financial resources, improved retention and integration policies and better data flow and monitoring. Improving retention is of key importance; however, ethical considerations should also apply within the EU. Compensation of source countries can be a solution to further elaborate on when developing EU financial mechanisms. Intra-EU circular mobility might be feasible and made more transparent if directed by tailor-made, institutional-level bilateral cooperations adjusted to different groups and profiles of health professionals. Integration policies should be improved as discrimination still exists when offering jobs despite the legal environment facilitating the recognition of professional qualifications. A system of feedback on registration/licencing data should be promoted providing for more evidence on intra-EU mobility and support its management. Conclusions Workforce planning in EU Member States can be supported, and more equitable distribution of the workforce can be provided by building policy decisions on the principles of the WHO Code. Political commitment has to be strengthened in EU countries to adopt implementation solutions for intra-EU problems. Long-term benefits of respecting global principles of the Code should be better demonstrated in order to incentivise all parties to follow such long-term objectives.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has flagged health workforce management and compensation as issues requiring attention, including the problem of ghost workers (individuals on payroll who do not exist and/or show up at work). Recognising the need for reliable health workforce information, the government has worked to implement iHRIS, an open source human resources information system that facilitates health workforce management. In Kasaï Central and Kasaï Provinces, health workers brought relevant documentation to data collection points, where trained teams interviewed them and entered contact information, identification, photo, current job, and employment and education history into iHRIS on laptops. After uploading the data, the Ministry of Public Health used the database of over 11 500 verified health worker records to analyse health worker characteristics, density, compensation, and payroll. Both provinces had less than one physician per 10 000 population and a higher urban versus rural health worker density. Most iHRIS-registered health workers (57% in Kasaï Central and 73% in Kasaï) reported receiving no regular government pay of any kind (salaries or risk allowances). Payroll analysis showed that 27% of the health workers listed as salary recipients in the electronic payroll system were ghost workers, as were 42% of risk allowance recipients. As a result, the Ministries of Public Health, Public Service, and Finance reallocated funds away from ghost workers to cover salaries (n = 781) and risk allowances (n = 2613) for thousands of health workers who were previously under- or uncompensated due to lack of funds. The reallocation prioritised previously under- or uncompensated mid-level health workers, with 49% of those receiving salaries and 68% of those receiving risk allowances representing cadres such as nurses, laboratory technicians, and midwifery cadres. Assembling accurate health worker records can help governments understand health workforce characteristics and use data to direct scarce domestic resources to where they are most needed.

This study introduces an integrated grid management system using a SCADA-approach including the high-, medium- and low-voltage level to further optimise the workflow for distribution grid operation. It deals with the new challenges and possibilities of a fully centralised grid operation system using digital data from various sources such as SAP, workforce management, geographical information systems, meter data management and customer applications. Already installed and in the future planned applications as well as the interfaces between these platforms will be presented and described.

Reducing the recovery time for workers who are injured or disabled by a workplace accident is a key policy goal. This has motivated the promotion of employer-based return to work programs, despite a lack of systematic evidence on the effectiveness of such programs. We combine data on duration of time out of work for workers’ compensation claimants with information on employer return to work programs to estimate the impact of the programs on time out of work. Discrete-time hazard estimates suggest that the workers in a program return approximately 1.4 times sooner compared to workers injured at a firm without a program. The biggest reductions in work-injury absence are experienced by men, likely due to occupational differences, and by workers with a permanent disability. Modifying work equipment is associated with the greatest reductions in injury durations relative to other program components. Back-of-the-envelope calculations indicate that these programs are cost-effective for large, self-insured employers. More work is needed to determine whether these programs could be adopted successfully by smaller firms.