Human Resource Management Fundamentals, Exams of Laboratory Practices and Management

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IPMA Modules 1-8 Practice Exam Questions and

Answers.

Human Resource Management is - Correct Answer Designing of organizational systems to ensure that human talent is used effectively to accomplish organizational goals A line manager believes that the HR staff is intruding into his territory and that HR initiatives result in unnecessary trouble and complications. Which of the following statements is true?

• Correct Answer Every manager within the organization is an HR manager To become a strategic HR professional requires: - Correct Answer Focusing on how HR can assist the organization achieve its goals and objectives Which of the four 'tides of reform' identified by Paul Light can be characterized as putting a premium on performance by letting managers manage? - Correct Answer Liberation management An organization has been experiencing a high level of internal movement of employees. Individuals will be hired in entry level jobs, but within six months, most will have transferred or have been promoted to other positions. This job-changing activity is also high in the middle ranges of the organization. Consequently, there is quite a bit of disruption and down-time as job changers learn their new duties. In order to retain the benefits of internal selection, but reduce the turmoil, the HR director has proposed: - Correct Answer Requiring that individuals stay in the same job for a minimum period of time before applying for a new internal job Creative and unusual methods of recruiting are most appropriate: - Correct Answer When labor markets are tight If an organization is in need of highly-qualified employees, it will be most able to find these employees when: - Correct Answer There is a high level of unemployment If an organization is recruiting for a job that pays just above minimum wage, which labor market is the most logical one to use? - Correct Answer Local In order to become an employer of choice for prospective employees, an organization needs to establish a reputation as: - Correct Answer Having a positive brand image

The __________ pool consists of all persons who are actually evaluated for selection. - Correct Answer Applicant What is the responsibility of managers in the recruiting process? - Correct Answer Determining the knowledge, skills and abilities needed from applicants Your organization has a vacancy for a senior executive and the top priority of management is to fill the vacancy as soon as possible in the most cost-effective way. What would you recommend as your recruitment strategy? - Correct Answer Limit the recruitment to internal candidates An organization plans to fill a number of openings for entry-level professionals. They are utilizing an extensive process that includes several levels of individual interviews, team interviews, psychological and general ability tests. Much of the interview time is spent on the applicant's philosophy of life and work. This organization can be said to be highly concerned with: - Correct Answer Person-organization fit. An organization that was hiring a large number of employees decided to select applicants for formal interviews after the applicants completed an online questionnaire. This is an example of a/an ______________. - Correct Answer Pre-screening process In the typical division of HR responsibilities for selection, the HR department will: - Correct Answer Obtain background and reference information. A recruiter interviewing for customer service telephone representatives tells the applicants that many of the callers are upset and angry, and that some will even use offensive language when speaking to the representatives. The recruiter also informs the applicants that they will be required to be polite, helpful and professional in dealing with all callers, and that their calls will be monitored by their supervisor. They will also work in a windowless cubicle in rooms holding 100 other customer service representatives. The applicants are allowed to listen to a selection of pre-recorded calls and shown the room in which they will work. This is an example of: - Correct Answer A realistic job preview A/an __________ is a selection and development device composed of a series of evaluative exercises and tests in which candidates are evaluated by a panel of trained raters. - Correct Answer Assessment center

The selection process for hiring the assistant to the mayor of a city includes giving the finalists three hypothetical crisis scenarios. One deals with a terrorist threat at a sporting event, another with a plane crash at the airport, and the third with a major earthquake. The candidates must describe their approach to the crisis, which will be recorded and evaluated by a panel. This is an example of a: - Correct Answer Situational judgment test A school district hired a school bus driver without doing a multi-state criminal background check. It checked only in the state in which the school is located. Subsequently, the school bus driver was convicted of kidnapping one of the children who rode his bus. The prosecution in the case revealed that the driver had been convicted ten years earlier of possession of child pornography in another state. The school district is guilty of: - Correct Answer Negligent hiring. What can employers do in order to comply with the EEOC requirements of reporting the race and sex of applicants? - Correct Answer Ask the applicant to provide EEOC reporting data on a form separate from the application blank. When setting the pass point for a selection process, the extent to which scores deviate from the central tendency would be the: - Correct Answer Skewness Odd and unusual aspects of jobs that are unique to the employing organization: - Correct Answer Are important job requirements and should be included in the job description. In designing a job classification system, the evaluation method that relies upon the development of criteria, which are weighted to place the emphasis on the overall importance of the specific criteria to organizational success is known as: - Correct Answer Job component analysis. Job analysis is a systematic way to: - Correct Answer Gather and analyze information about the content, context, and human requirements of jobs. Job analysis has numerous functions in the organization, but its primary purpose is to clearly understand what is done on a job and __________. - Correct Answer What capabilities are needed to do it. The main considerations in determining whether a task is an essential function or a marginal function of the job include all of the following EXCEPT: - Correct Answer The number of employees performing the task.

All of the following are compensation objectives of the organization EXCEPT: - Correct Answer The lowest total cost of compensation in the industry. The total rewards compensation approach has three main components. Which of the following is NOT one of these components? - Correct Answer Individual, team and organizational-level incentives. The two basic compensation philosophies, which should be seen as opposite ends of a continuum, are the __________ and the __________ orientation. - Correct Answer Entitlement, performance In an organization with a performance-oriented philosophy, _________. - Correct Answer Seniority plays little role in whether an employee receives a raise. Jack and Jerry are twins. Both started working at competing firms in the same industry. Jack and Jerry were given exactly the same starting salary. They have been with their companies for ten years and both have identical positions and identical performance ratings. Both Jack and Jerry are consistently average performers. Jack works at a company with an entitlement compensation philosophy while Jerry works at a company with a pay-for-performance compensation philosophy. The two companies are identical in revenue and profitability. They allocate the same budget amount for employee raises each year. All other factors remaining equal, which of the following statements is most likely to be true? - Correct Answer Jack will have a higher salary than Jerry. Operating managers typically: - Correct Answer Evaluate employee performance for compensation purposes. As HR director for a local government, you are discussing the implementation of a competency-based compensation system with the city manager. You point out that in order for the competency system to be effective: - Correct Answer The company must invest heavily in employee training programs. An organization has decided to have absolute internal equity in its pay structure. To that end, every job in the organization has been rigorously evaluated and assigned points according to the worth of the job to the organization. The result is that many traditionally female-dominated jobs are paid more than what they are typically paid, and some traditionally male-dominated jobs are paid less than what they are typically paid. Which of the following statements is most likely to be true? - Correct Answer The organization's compensation for traditional male jobs will not be externally competitive.

For an employer, the primary advantage of classifying a worker as an independent contractor is that: - Correct Answer The employer does not have to pay Social Security, workers' compensation, or unemployment costs. Organizations use pay grades to: - Correct Answer Group individual jobs having approximately the same job worth. What are variable pay plans? - Correct Answer Additional tangible rewards given to employees for performance beyond normal expectations An individual incentive system will be counterproductive when: - Correct Answer The organization emphasizes teamwork and cooperation. The downside of bonuses is that: - Correct Answer Bonuses are too trivial in amount to actually motivate exceptional behavior. Distributing team incentives equitably means that: - Correct Answer Team members are paid incentives that vary according to individual performance. An organization that wants to be more flexible, encourage competency development, and emphasize career development might want to use which of the following? - Correct Answer Broadbanding As director of HR, you are discussing cost pressures on your organization with the senior leadership. Two possible options are suggested: reducing the amount of next year's base pay raises for employees or reducing the health benefits program for employees. You are asked which reduction would cause the most dissatisfaction among employees: You say that research has implied that: - Correct Answer Employees will be more upset with reduced health benefits than by lower pay raises. For employers, all the following are advantages to consumer-driven health plans EXCEPT: - Correct Answer Employees are well prepared to make decisions about how to spend their health care dollar. In a continutory pension plan, the money for pension benefits is paid by the: - Correct Answer Both the employees and employers.

In the U.S., Japan, Germany, France and other countries, ___________ is/are placing significant financial pressures on government-provided retirement security plans. - Correct Answer An aging population The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) provides that: - Correct Answer Health benefits must be continued during the leave at the same level and conditions. The purpose of a flexible benefits plan is to: - Correct Answer Allow employees to select the benefits they prefer from groups of benefits established by the employer. The two major groups of workers who have contributed the most to the high cost of health benefits are uninsured workers and: - Correct Answer Retirees. You are asked to advise your organization on how to use HR technology to make benefits administration less expensive. The present HR system is entirely paper based. Your research shows that the greatest use of technology by other companies is in: - Correct Answer Web-based benefits enrollment. A union shop requires: - Correct Answer That an employee joins the union, usually 30 to 60 days after being hired. All of the following are reasons for the decline in union membership in the U.S. EXCEPT: - Correct Answer Unions lack of success in passing worker-friendly legislation. An employee of a unionized organization who is elected to serve as the first-line representative of unionized workers is a: - Correct Answer Union steward. As a result of the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978: - Correct Answer The Federal Labor Relations Authority administers union/management relations in the federal government. If as a result of a union organization campaign, an election is held in which 300 of the 400 employees vote. For the union to win, how many votes does it need to have. - Correct Answer 151 Passed in 1932, the __________ granted workers some rights to organize and limited court injunctions in labor disputes. - Correct Answer Norris-LaGuardia Act The most highly unionized part of the U.S. workforce is the: - Correct Answer Public sector.

The purpose of right-to-work laws is to: - Correct Answer Make it illegal to force people to join a union to get or keep a job. The teachers' union in a school district has not reached a collective bargaining agreement with the school board. A neutral third party has been brought in to make decisions on the topics that have kept the two parties from agreeing on a contract. This process is: - Correct Answer Arbitration.

10. What is the reason why many police and firefighters' unions cannot legally strike? - Correct Answer Strikes by these unions endanger the public's health and safety. In order to minimize backlash in diversity efforts, the key is for trainers and managers: - Correct Answer To stress that employees behaving with respect toward others is the desired outcome of diversity training. Which of the following is NOT a component of diversity management programs? - Correct Answer Affirmative action An admissions clerk in a hospital has recently converted to a religion that requires its members to abstain from work from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. Consequently, he says he can no longer take the regular rotation for weekend duties. He is not qualified for any other positions in the hospital that do not require a weekend rotation. Which of the following actions would be the best immediate response for the HR director to take? - Correct Answer The HR director should inquire whether any of the other hospital admissions clerks would be willing to swap schedules and work the weekend rotation. After John had taken early retirement at age 59, his old private sector company wants to re- hire him as a consultant. Which of the following statements is true? - Correct Answer This is a common practice by organizations to preserve access to the talents of their experienced former employees. Which of the following statements is true? - Correct Answer Employers can require employees to use English when communicating about potentially hazardous conditions at work. Medical information on employees: - Correct Answer Must be maintained in files separate from general personnel files.

According to the concept of __________, the pay for jobs requiring comparable levels of knowledge, skill, and ability should be similar even if actual duties differ significantly. - Correct Answer Pay equity The CEO of an organization has deliberately kept the number of full- and part-time employees to twelve. This means the organization does not have to comply with: - Correct Answer The ADEA, the ADA, Title VII, or the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. A pregnant Muslim woman with controlled mild diabetes wears a garment covering her from head to feet in conformance to her religion. She has a valid visa allowing her to work in the United States. She has applied to an airline's flight attendant training program and was rejected. On which factor would it be legal to reject her from the training program? - Correct Answer Her clothing. The landmark case that established the importance of disparate impact as a legal foundation of EEO law is: - Correct Answer Griggs v. Duke Power A problem with the pre/post measure of evaluating training is: - Correct Answer Knowing if the training was responsible for any changes in performance. The most difficult level of training evaluation, but the one that has the most value to the organization is the __________ level. - Correct Answer Results Which of the following statements about transfer of training is true? - Correct Answer Training may have an initial impact on employee behavior, but its impact erodes dramatically over a year's time. The director of training wants to increase employee support for new training programs. The best way to build this support is to: - Correct Answer Design an internet survey of employees asking them to describe their training needs. An intern in the HR department for a chain of grocery stores has been assigned to observe the activities that bakery managers perform during the day. The intern is performing a/an _________ analysis. - Correct Answer Job/task All of the following are questions that should be answered before training begins EXCEPT:

• Correct Answer Will the training require the employees to be paid more?

The best example of "real time" learning would be: - Correct Answer Allowing trainee firefighters to put out a small building fire in the presence of trainers. In order to remain competitive, organizations must continually train current employees because of: - Correct Answer Rapid technological innovation. Bob has been hired as the first director of training at an organization. He has been spending his first few weeks meeting with operating managers and learning the business. He has told the managers that he wants to partner with them to solve their problems. Bob: - Correct Answer Is displaying a strategic training mindset.