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SHRM Learning System Practice Exam with Certified Solutions As part of the strategic planning process, a manufacturing organization outlines plans to expand its product line over a five-year period ... . To support the organization's strategic planning process, what type of plan should the training department use to present product knowledge training to customer service agents? Answers Strategic Internal Tactical Actionable ✔✔test Which of the following is the primary goal of HR analytics in organizations? Answers Track HR policies and procedures. Measure the impact of HR on organizational outcomes. Identify under performing functions. Improve human capital decisions. ✔✔test Which is a measure of internal processes in the balanced scorecard framework? Answers Utilization of capital Operational effectiveness Profit and loss Employee capabilities ✔✔test What is most useful for attracting high-fit managerial or executive candidates when using erecruiting? AnswersA simple, universal interface that allows the candidate to see all listings at once without filters Information about the company culture, including a realistic job preview The top salary and benefits package for each position Statistical information about the proportion of candidates who are successful on the job ✔✔test Which is an effective method for preventing salary compression? Answers Limit salary increases for employees at the top of salary ranges. Develop annual budgets and policies that limit annual salary increases. Develop large recruiting pools. Encourage promotions from within the company. ✔✔test Companies that assign managers to foreign locations from headquarters follow what kind of international staffing policy? Answers Polycentric Ethnocentric Geocentric Regiocentric ✔✔ To avoid potential retaliation claims, which documents should be kept in a confidential file rather than in an employee's personnel file? Answers Disciplinary reports Employee grievances Compensation history Employment contract ✔✔ An international company that grows and harvests tea from locations throughout Asia is reviewing its corporate strategy. As part of the strategy, the company provides incentives to farmers toencourage responsible harvesting of tea leaves, minimizing the impact of the harvest on local villages. These incentives are embedded in what area of the corporate strategy? Answers Profitability Sustainability Productivity Usability ✔✔ When might a company prefer to use alternative dispute resolution as a means to address employee relations issues? Answers When the company has not established a budget line item for attorney fees When there is no union contract with a mutually agreed upon grievance procedure When the company wishes to resolve issues in a less contentious way than is typical of addressing complaints through the legal system When the company has too few employees to be covered by employment discrimination laws ✔✔ The HR director notices a trend of companies partnering with a not-for-profit organization. Which type of risk could the company avoid by aligning with the charity? Answers Legal Financial Operational Strategic ✔✔ How might differing viewpoints, resulting from workplace diversity, impact group and organizational decision making? Answers By leading to faster decisions By increasing conflict, but leading to higher quality decisions By decreasing the likelihood of participants accepting the group's decisionBy leading to participants being dissatisfied with the decision-making process ✔✔ What is a characteristic of a low-context culture? Answers Words are few and there are long pauses. Time is flexible. Others are blamed for failure. The end product is the most important. ✔✔ Which metric would be most useful for measuring the success of a change management program for an HR management system implementation? Answers Training completion Engagement score Business adoption Budget achievement ✔✔ What is the first step in the workforce planning process? Answers Analyze the available labor supply. Identify the strategic staffing goals. Forecast the organization's demand for labor. Identify the business strategy. ✔✔ Which search strategy is an HR manager most likely to request from a professional recruitment firm contracted to source a candidate for a mid-level managerial position? Answers Retained Delimited ContingentEngaged ✔✔ Which characteristic of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 should an HR manager focus on if given a limited amount of time to discuss how it impacts employees? Answers Requires certificates of creditable coverage upon request at a cost of $10 or less. Preserves states' rights to regulate health insurance and set state-specific protections. Prevents indexed premiums based on health-status related factors. Limits exclusions for pre-existing medical conditions in health insurance coverage. ✔✔ What conflict management technique is the most appropriate when maintaining a good long-term relationship is very important? Answers Compromising Avoiding Accommodating Collaborating ✔✔ Which is a common unintended consequence of implementing an employee self-service portal? Answers Increased HR operational costs Decreased employee satisfaction Decreased time spent on strategic issues Increased complexity of IT systems ✔✔ What factor would be considered an HR organizational strength in a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats analysis? Answers Market position Global expansion Intellectual capitalTechnological advances ✔✔ Which represents areas of focus in a bureaucratic organizational culture? Answers Internal focus and support of a methodical approach to doing business by reinforcing the values of tradition Involvement and participation by the organization's members on rapidly changing external factors Sales growth and market share with a clear vision of the organization's purpose and goals External environment through flexibility and change to meet customer needs ✔✔ Organizations are most likely to utilize external vendors and consultants for which activity? Answers Establishing a learning management system Conducting an organizational needs assessment Designing a management development program Establishing an on-the-job training program ✔✔ Which employee recognition practice best fulfills an employee's need for self-actualization under Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Answers Job-specific training Peer-to-peer recognition programs Compensation and benefits Career development opportunities ✔✔ Which HR structural model should be developed to enable a global company's HR business partners to provide specialized HR expertise? Answers Develop HR service teams that can provide seamless support and deliver integrated services to various business functions.Outsource most of the HR activities to a specialized vendor or develop an in-house shared services team to provide support. Establish a corporate HR strategy team that guides the HR Business Partners on which aspect of HR needs to be done at the business function level. Use corporate centers of excellence to complement the use of decentralized generalists by giving them a source of expert help. ✔✔ Which principle of international labor is a global organization following by eliminating child labor in its worldwide factories? Answers Core labor standards International framework agreement Decent work agenda Forced labor convention ✔✔ An organization with a horizontal integration growth strategy is pursuing global acquisitions. For which training topic should HR develop programs to support this effort? Answers Communication skills Creativity and innovation Shared culture Management development ✔✔ At which step in the development of an organization's corporate social responsibility (CSR) program is HR representation most critical? Answers Establishing the mission, vision, and values Developing the CSR strategy Responding to reports of violations of corporate standards of conduct Conducting orientation and training ✔✔Which is the best example of noise during the communication process? Answers Attempting to understand the technical jargon contained in a colleague's memo Failing to carefully read an important message due to a high volume of emails Communicating gaps in benefits knowledge to an associate Using video conferencing instead of a conference call when meeting with a client ✔✔ Which is a key benefit of effective knowledge retention and management strategies? Answers Improved person-job fit Lower training costs Reduced attrition rates Increased employee engagement ✔✔ Which environmental factor is the most consistent throughout a global organization? Answers Technological Political Social Economical ✔✔ Which is an example of an intangible reward provided as part of a total rewards compensation philosophy? Answers Paid time off Workplace autonomy Employee training Equity award ✔✔ According to the balanced scorecard approach, which key performance indicator falls under the internal business processes area?Answers Mystery shopper score of 80% for the branch ISO 9001 certification by year-end Appropriate certification of all the staff in wealth management by midyear Increase in profit of 10% by year-end ✔✔ Which HR action most positively impacts a company's reputation on the Internet? Answers Training employees on social media use so they do not harm the company Setting guidelines for employees' use of social media Updating top management about legal decisions regarding employee use of social media sites Establishing a company social media presence with online networking services and training employees to increase brand presence ✔✔ An HR manager finalizes a report for an employee opinion survey for a midsize manufacturing company and presents the findings to the leadership of the organization. The company is in the growth phase of the organizational life cycle and is eager to hear from its employees. There were many valuable insights from the data, and the leadership team is very interested in understanding the results. In particular, the leaders want to understand the various levels of employee engagement across their organization. As part of the presentation, the HR manager shares a few example comments from one of the open-ended questions, which asked about employees' perceptions of a recent merger that occurred in the company. The items shared by the HR manager include both positive and negative comments about the merger. One of the members of the leadership team asks if the HR manager could identify the department that provided one of the critical comments. The HR manager questions the intent in knowing this information and receives an adequate response: leadership wants to devote additional resources to alleviate the situation within that department. The HR manager is capable of identifying which department the comment came from but has never been asked for this type of information in the past. Further, the confidentiality statement issued to the employees is vague and only states that individual responses would not be shared. Upon reviewing the data, the HR manager notices that the department from which the comment originated only consists of four employees.While presenting the results of the open-ended comments, one of the members of the leadership team asks for historical trend data on an area that the HR manager knows has been steadily declining despite the company's best efforts. What would be the HR manager's best response? Answers Tell the leaders the HR team will look into the question and get back to them after the session. Tell the leaders it is an area for improvement and that different methods continue to be attempted to turn around the situation, and then quickly move to the next question. Tell the leaders it is a challenging area for the company, then ask them to provide some insight and suggestions as to why. Provide trend data-national, industry, and local-for that area and compare the company's performance to the trends so the company can be put in the best possible light. ✔✔ An HR manager finalizes a report for an employee opinion survey for a midsize manufacturing company and presents the findings to the leadership of the organization. The company is in the growth phase of the organizational life cycle and is eager to hear from its employees. There were many valuable insights from the data, and the leadership team is very interested in understanding the results. In particular, the leaders want to understand the various levels of employee engagement across their organization. As part of the presentation, the HR manager shares a few example comments from one of the open-ended questions, which asked about employees' perceptions of a recent merger that occurred in the company. The items shared by the HR manager include both positive and negative comments about the merger. One of the members of the leadership team asks if the HR manager could identify the department that provided one of the critical comments. The HR manager questions the intent in knowing this information and receives an adequate response: leadership wants to devote additional resources to alleviate the situation within that department. The HR manager is capable of identifying which department the comment came from but has never been asked for this type of information in the past. Further, the confidentiality statement issued to the employees is vague and only states that individual responses would not be shared. Upon reviewing the data, the HR manager notices that the department from which the comment originated only consists of four employees. One of the leaders questions the purpose of administering an employee opinion survey. What response should the HR manager provide?Answers Research has shown that providing employees the opportunity to share their opinions can increase organizational performance. The survey may also help identify areas for improvement and give the HR team data to guide decisions. Research has indicated a direct link between employee attitudes and their performance on the job, their likelihood to turnover, and even customer satisfaction. Therefore, gaining insight on employees' opinions can improve processes to increase organizational performance. Employee opinion surveys are a great way to identify certain areas of the company that are underperforming and develop strategies to implement an effective reduction in the workforce. The results from the survey can identify areas where the company is doing well to continue to focus on the positive aspects brought to light by the employees. ✔✔ An HR manager finalizes a report for an employee opinion survey for a midsize manufacturing company and presents the findings to the leadership of the organization. The company is in the growth phase of the organizational life cycle and is eager to hear from its employees. There were many valuable insights from the data, and the leadership team is very interested in understanding the results. In particular, the leaders want to understand the various levels of employee engagement across their organization. As part of the presentation, the HR manager shares a few example comments from one of the open-ended questions, which asked about employees' perceptions of a recent merger that occurred in the company. The items shared by the HR manager include both positive and negative comments about the merger. One of the members of the leadership team asks if the HR manager could identify the department that provided one of the critical comments. The HR manager questions the intent in knowing this information and receives an adequate response: leadership wants to devote additional resources to alleviate the situation within that department. The HR manager is capable of identifying which department the comment came from but has never been asked for this type of information in the past. Further, the confidentiality statement issued to the employees is vague and only states that individual responses would not be shared. Upon reviewing the data, the HR manager notices that the department from which the comment originated only consists of four employees. How should the HR manager respond to the leader's request to identify the department from which the comment came?Answers Tell the leader that, to protect the anonymity of respondents in small departments, their answers are grouped together with other small teams. Consult with the CEO to explain that, although the HR team wants to provide information so positive changes can be made, it also must maintain the confidentiality of the survey respondents, and then ask for guidance on how to proceed. Decline to provide the information and explain that identifying the department may impact the anonymity of the respondent, which could adversely impact employee morale as well as the participation rate and value of future surveys. Inform the leader that it is not possible and remove any comments from employees in departments with five or fewer employees. ✔✔ An insurance company determines that it will have to undergo a reduction in force, eliminating the jobs of 10 employees (5% of its small workforce). The HR director leads all of the preparation, including a business case, an impact analysis, paperwork, and arrangements with the IT department. It is determined that the day the affected employees are notified will be their final day of work. The HR director will accompany all managers when they deliver the news to their affected employees. The HR director works with the managers to prepare them and to develop their message. The company has experienced similar job eliminations in the past. However, in this case, two of the managers have had a hard time accepting the business need for the downsizing. Although they helped gather the data to determine which jobs could be eliminated, they feel they are being required to comply with a mandate they do not agree with because it was upper management who originally identified the need to downsize. The two managers have strong emotional connections to their employees. In terms of communicating with the employees who will retain their jobs, what should the HR director plan to do after the downsizing has been implemented? Answers Ask all managers to meet with their departments to give a brief explanation, prepared by the HR department, of what happened and reassure their department staff about the company's future. Create a schedule for the HR department to meet one-on-one with the coworkers closest to the employees who were discharged to address their concerns.Encourage all managers to move forward as though nothing has happened, except in the areas where some work needs to be reallocated, and refer any questions to the HR department. Prepare a brief message for the company's CEO to deliver to all staff and have the CEO encourage managers to communicate with their departments afterwards. ✔✔ An insurance company determines that it will have to undergo a reduction in force, eliminating the jobs of 10 employees (5% of its small workforce). The HR director leads all of the preparation, including a business case, an impact analysis, paperwork, and arrangements with the IT department. It is determined that the day the affected employees are notified will be their final day of work. The HR director will accompany all managers when they deliver the news to their affected employees. The HR director works with the managers to prepare them and to develop their message. The company has experienced similar job eliminations in the past. However, in this case, two of the managers have had a hard time accepting the business need for the downsizing. Although they helped gather the data to determine which jobs could be eliminated, they feel they are being required to comply with a mandate they do not agree with because it was upper management who originally identified the need to downsize. The two managers have strong emotional connections to their employees. A manager bursts into tears after beginning to give the bad news to an employee who is being let go. What is the best course of action for the HR director? Answers Wait as long as it takes for the manager to gain composure in order to continue. Ask the employee to step out of the room while the HR director calms down the manager. Give the manager a moment to gain composure, but if this fails to happen, allow the manager to step out until ready, and then pick up where the conversation left off. Urge the manager to attempt composure and communicate the necessity of continuing. ✔✔ The VP of a small HR consulting firm, interested in expanding internationally, appoints a senior HR consultant to write a proposal for a performance management system. The system is to be implemented at a large municipal agency in another country where the consulting firm has no previous experience. When discussing the municipal project with the senior HR consultant, the VP informs the consultant that the client's first priority is a proposal that enhances its currentperformance management system through incremental performance increases that ultimately add to the agency's effectiveness. Upon reviewing the proposal, the VP becomes concerned that the proposal contains several unsubstantiated claims, the most glaring of which is an assertion that the performance management system improved performance by over 80% in other agencies. The proposal does not cite any studies and does not provide any context or additional information to support the claim. What main concern should the VP raise to the consultant regarding including statements in the proposal that are not substantiated with supporting documents and data? Answers If the client cannot verify the claims, then it will undermine the firm's credibility. If the client asks for supporting evidence the firm cannot produce, then the proposal will be rejected. If the client does not achieve an 80% improvement in performance, then the firm could be sued. If the client sets high expectations, then the firm must manage those expectations in geographic areas where the firm has little expertise. ✔✔ The VP of a small HR consulting firm, interested in expanding internationally, appoints a senior HR consultant to write a proposal for a performance management system. The system is to be implemented at a large municipal agency in another country where the consulting firm has no previous experience. When discussing the municipal project with the senior HR consultant, the VP informs the consultant that the client's first priority is a proposal that enhances its current performance management system through incremental performance increases that ultimately add to the agency's effectiveness. Upon reviewing the proposal, the VP becomes concerned that the proposal contains several unsubstantiated claims, the most glaring of which is an assertion that the performance management system improved performance by over 80% in other agencies. The proposal does not cite any studies and does not provide any context or additional information to support the claim. Which is the VP's best response to the consultant's assertion that the exaggerated claims are expected and not taken literally given the local culture of this client? Answers Explain to the consultant the inappropriateness of the proposal language based upon stereotypes.Agree that based on that information, future proposals within this cultural context could include more aggressive claims. Wait until the proposal has been evaluated and, if it is unsuccessful, request feedback on the proper tone of the claims from the prospective client. Explain the risk of making such claims based on cultural assumptions and agree to investigate how to balance the firm's business ethics with the expectations for business proposals within this culture. ✔✔ A manufacturer of roller bearings has been experiencing a decline in sales over the past few years. Historically, the company's product was viewed as highly engineered. However, due to changes in production technology, roller bearings have now become a commodity product. Low cost producers from overseas have been making inroads into the company's market. The company's share price has declined over the past few years. Rumors have been circulating that another manufacturer of roller bearings is contemplating a takeover of the company, which would result in a significant reduction in the number of employees. Consequently, employees' morale is low. The most valued employees are being targeted by headhunters, and many are leaving. Customers are concerned about the survival of the company and are starting to take their business elsewhere. The CEO has informed senior management of the intent to fight the takeover. The stated strategy is to sell all but the most essential assets and to drastically reduce the workforce in order to support the share price and to possibly prevent a takeover. When implementing the reduction in workforce strategy, which should be the primary factor for HR to consider when making decisions concerning employee termination, assuming compliance with applicable labor laws? Answers Seniority of the employee Education and experience Job performance Impact on customer relationships ✔✔ A manufacturer of roller bearings has been experiencing a decline in sales over the past few years. Historically, the company's product was viewed as highly engineered. However, due to changes inproduction technology, roller bearings have now become a commodity product. Low cost producers from overseas have been making inroads into the company's market. The company's share price has declined over the past few years. Rumors have been circulating that another manufacturer of roller bearings is contemplating a takeover of the company, which would result in a significant reduction in the number of employees. Consequently, employees' morale is low. The most valued employees are being targeted by headhunters, and many are leaving. Customers are concerned about the survival of the company and are starting to take their business elsewhere. The CEO has informed senior management of the intent to fight the takeover. The stated strategy is to sell all but the most essential assets and to drastically reduce the workforce in order to support the share price and to possibly prevent a takeover. What could HR have done better to avoid this situation? Answers Ensured that employee compensation levels are competitive with overseas competitors. Invested more resources in strategic planning and organizational development training. Ensured plans for dealing with potential takeovers were ready. Invested more resources in researching product differentiation. ✔✔ A manufacturer of roller bearings has been experiencing a decline in sales over the past few years. Historically, the company's product was viewed as highly engineered. However, due to changes in production technology, roller bearings have now become a commodity product. Low cost producers from overseas have been making inroads into the company's market. The company's share price has declined over the past few years. Rumors have been circulating that another manufacturer of roller bearings is contemplating a takeover of the company, which would result in a significant reduction in the number of employees. Consequently, employees' morale is low. The most valued employees are being targeted by headhunters, and many are leaving. Customers are concerned about the survival of the company and are starting to take their business elsewhere. The CEO has informed senior management of the intent to fight the takeover. The stated strategy is to sell all but the most essential assets and to drastically reduce the workforce in order to support the share price and to possibly prevent a takeover. What approach should HR follow to retain the most valued employees? AnswersIncrease salaries across the board to become more competitive. Offer stock option plans to the most valued employees. Provide retention bonuses to the most valued employees. Offer flexible working packages. ✔✔ A growing retailer with several operations across the region plans to open five new stores within the next 18 months. As a condition of receiving funding for expansion, financial investors require several changes including the hiring of an HR director with retail industry experience. Because the company has not hired an HR director before, the president hires the HR director based on guidance from an executive recruiter. During an initial meeting with the new HR director, the president explains that store managers are most effective at HR ma [Show More]

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