An Analytical Model of Response Interval Between Employees on Business Chat Systems Based on Latent Class Model

Nowadays, many companies use business chat systems for communication among employees. With simple communication or information sharing, these online communication systems play an important role in improving work efficiency. Additionally, analyzing accumulated communication data on systems can be effective for human resource management to create further business value. In particular, the response interval between two employees reflects their relationship and work efficiency. Therefore, designing a model for analyzing the response interval between two employees as a minimum communication unit on a chat system can be effective. Our study proposes a new latent class model that quantitatively expresses the relationship between two users based on response interval. We also analyze the communication characteristics from a response interval perspective. By assuming that a combination of two users and their response intervals arise probabilistically from latent classes, we can express the difference in users’ behaviors that are affected by who are the chat partners and other conditions. Finally, we apply the actual data from a Japanese company to our model for a response interval analysis. Through actual data analysis, we revealed the communication characteristics of companies and the relationship between each employee pair and the company.