Mock 3

Question 1

Which situation violates the Employee Retirement Income Security Act standards for pension funds?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. An employer’s plan excludes employees under age 21, regardless of how long they have worked for the organization.
B. Employees are allowed to transfer their accrued pension funds to another employer’s plan.
C. Employees become fully vested after five years of service.
D. Employees are required to have a minimum of 15 months of service before they can participate in their employer’s defined benefit plan.

Answer 1

D

Question 2

What type of learning activities would appeal most to an auditory learner?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Lecture and review tapes
B. Group activities and model building
C. Diagrams and illustrated handouts
D. Video demonstrations and field trips

Answer 2

A

Question 3

In which form of budgeting is the prior year’s budget the basis for the next budget?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Formula budgeting
B. Zero-based budgeting
C. Incremental budgeting
D. Activity-based budgeting

Answer 3

C

Question 4

The process where training or educational activities occur at multiple levels in an organization is called organizational
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Design.
B. Culture.
C. Climate.
D. Learning

Answer 4

D

Question 5

What is the purpose of a works council?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. It holds elections for union representation of workers
B. It promotes communication between management and employees on issues that affect workers’ interests.
C. It ensures that workers are aware of promotional opportunities within the company for which they work.

Answer 5

B

Question 6

How should the HR leader approach analyzing internal equity among the employee population, within each job title, as part of the wage structure project?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. The HR leader should discuss internal equity issues with the division president and general managers.
B. The HR leader should review employees’ rates of pay to determine if they are appropriately positioned within the range.
C. The HR leader should recommend that newly hired employees be paid a minimum rate of pay when joining the organization.
D. The HR leader should focus only on nonmonetary items to address internal equity

Answer 6

B

Question 7

What is the most important reason to complete a risk assessment?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. To create transparency through ownership of the risk management strategy.
B. To develop management tactics for strategic and operational risks.
C. To lower financial risks due to workers’ compensation claims.

Answer 7

B

Question 8

What type of engagement is evident in the effort an employee puts into his or her job?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Transactional engagement
B. Behavioral engagement
C. Trait engagement

Answer 8

B

Question 9

Why should the division president be concerned about having a competitive and equitable compensation structure?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. The president is trying to create a business partnering approach with HR and the chief financial officer.
B. The president can ensure that the organizational strategy is not impacted by not having an appropriate reward system for the employees.

Answer 9

B

Question 10

How should the HR leader maximize benchmark source data to establish new pay ranges?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. The HR leader should use multiple different data sources to compare, contrast, and analyze different resources to design a new wage structure that is best for the division.
B. The HR leader should apply cost-of-living adjustments to one data source, favoring that source over any others

Answer 10

A

Question 11

How should the HR leader address the information uncovered in relation to promotional pay practices?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. The HR leader should implement a wage structure program.
B. The HR leader should review the information with the divisional president.
C. The HR leader should not worry about the practice as it has worked for the organization for years.
D. The HR leader should benchmark multiple data sources and recommend a comprehensive structure for all positions

Answer 11

D

Question 12

How should the HR leader address the information uncovered in relation to promotional pay practices?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. The HR leader should implement a wage structure program.
B. The HR leader should review the information with the divisional president.
C. The HR leader should not worry about the practice as it has worked for the organization for years.
D. The HR leader should benchmark multiple data sources and recommend a comprehensive structure for all positions

Answer 12

D

Question 13

How should the HR leader approach analyzing internal equity among the employee population, within each job title, as part of the wage structure project?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. The HR leader should discuss internal equity issues with the division president and general managers.
B. The HR leader should review employees’ rates of pay to determine if they are appropriately positioned within the range.
C. The HR leader should recommend that newly hired employees be paid a minimum rate of pay when joining the organization.
D. The HR leader should focus only on nonmonetary items to address internal equity

Answer 13

B

Question 14

What is the primary advantage of
developing a career management program?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. It limits the number of training programs an organization needs to develop
B. It ensures that the company will have the skilled employees it needs in the future.
C. It is not tied to the succession planning or performance appraisal program

Answer 14

B

Question 15

An HR manager is asked by the Vice President of HR to define and implement a simulation-based assessment center that uses specially trained observers to rate each candidate’s performance. The need is to assess which employees have potential for promotion into management. The VP of HR is familiar with this practice, having used the technique in a prior company, and she sees the assessment center as a best practice innovation.
The VP of HR is new and comes from a large but entirely domestic organization with an aging workforce. Her new company is a global organization with eight operations located around the world. It is highly diverse in terms of ethnicity, and the average worker is probably 15 to 20 years younger than the VP of HR is used to. In researching methodologies, the HR manager stumbles onto an online assessment system that requires no trainers and raters, takes 75% less time to complete than the assessment center process, and has higher validity and reliability as an assessment technique.

The VP of HR has already indicated a preference for the assessment center approach, what would be the most effective way to reopen the options for this project?

Answer 15

The HR manager should emphasize business needs met by the online assessment option that are not provided by the traditional method.

Question 16

What would be the best criteria to use in deciding whether to implement either or both assessment alternatives?

A. Validity in predicting success and accessibility to all qualified employees
B. Cost-effectiveness and reputation of technique in HR community
C. Cost-effectiveness and number of employees who can be assessed in each period.
D. Acceptance by users and time required for assessment.

Answer 16

A. Validity in predicting success and accessibility to all qualified employees.

Question 17

In researching methodologies, the HR manager stumbles onto an online assessment system that requires no trainers and raters, takes 25% of the time to complete that the assessment center process takes, and has higher validity and reliability as an assessment technique.
What should the HR manager do with the information he has uncovered?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Create a business case including cost-benefit analyses of both options.
B. Forward materials about the online option to the VP HR, and let her make her own decision.
C. Put it aside as an option that is not viable now but should be researched further and possibly tested
D. Ask for time to discuss the option recently discovered and get general reactions from the VP HR.

Answer 17

A

Question 18

A company announces that it intends to capture another 20% of market share by opening ten more stores within three years in key locations. What type of strategic communication is this?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Organizational vision
B. External opportunity
C. Long-term objective

Answer 18

C

Question 19

Which function has the most responsibility for future revenue?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Marketing and sales
B. Research and development
C. Operations
D. Information technology

Answer 19

B

Question 20

What converts HR metrics into decision-support tools by providing additional context?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. HR analytics
B. HR measures
C. HR strategy

Answer 20

A

Question 21

What is the best basis for developing an organizational effectiveness and development (OED) program?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Results of a needs assessment
B. Employee career plans
C. Request of supervisors

Answer 21

A.

Question 22

How has talent acquisition been affected by social media?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. It is harder to find passive candidates.
B. It is easier to find passive candidates.
C. It increases competition for passive candidates

Answer 22

B

Question 23

In this situation, what ethical considerations should be uppermost in crafting a talent assessment tool?

A. Attention to workforce diversity and fair access
B. Promoting opportunities for minority groups
C. Alignment with the talent development strategy
D. Defining criteria for success in management positions

Answer 23

D.

Question 24

What quality of mind suggests that an employee has a global mindset?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Comfort with change and ambiguity
B. Valuing independence rather than interdependence.
C. Expecting conflicts to be resolved

Answer 24

A

Question 25

Which of the following is a primary advantage of the balanced scorecard?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. It focuses on financial measurements and hard data results
B. It tracks progress against goals without raising accountability issues
C. It separates business strategy from day-to-day activities.
D. It relates the performance of business functions to the organization’s mission

Answer 25

D

Question 26

What organization is most likely to fail in its strategic planning and management?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. The strategic planning team invites input from all divisions and from managers and employees alike.
B. To preserve competitiveness, strategic plans are shared among top management only.
C. An organization invests considerable time in researching internal and external factors before setting strategy.
D. Business unit and functional strategies are developed after the organization strategy is defined

Question 27

What is a characteristic of alternative dispute resolution (ADR)?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Using ADR requires an external third party.
B. Use of ADR is exclusive to union environments
C. ADR does not preclude litigation.
D. ADR processes result in disciplinary action

Question 28

What do judgmental forecasting, trend and ratio analysis projections, and turnover analysis help predict?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. HR program costs
B. Future staffing needs
C. Cost-benefit analyses

Answer 28

B

Question 29

What type of policy clarifies performance expectations and demonstrates organizational support of performance improvement?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Workplace retaliation
B. Complaint policies
C. Conflict resolution
D. Progressive discipline

Answer 29

D

Question 30

What theme is common to many current definitions of globalization?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. Developed economies play an increasingly dominant role in globalization
B. Global interconnections reached a peak in the 1980s and 1990s and have since decreased.
C. Global markets and economies are increasingly interconnected.
D.

Answer 30

C

Question 31

Times of growth and prosperity benefit organizational bottom lines and encourage and promote hiring. However, they may also accentuate the need for employee retention as more employees will probably be in the job market. This is an example of which PEST factor that may influence an organization’s analysis of their total rewards?
A. Political
B. Technological
C. Social
D. Economic

Answer 31

Economic growth or recession will have an effect on an organization’s total rewards package. In addition, political, social, and technological factors need to be considered when evaluating total rewards. Using PEST analysis data generally helps an organization to better understand its business environment (e.g., the current situation as well as the potential effects of future business threats)

Question 32

the merger of two business entities, the new vice president (VP) of HR holds a staff meeting and tells the group that the organization now has six active vacation policies. This was identified during due diligence, but the leaders determined that it did not affect the ultimate decision to merge and that the matter should be addressed post-merger. That time has come, and the VP of HR would like the benefits managers to develop a plan with recommendations.
Each policy has slightly different criteria and provisions. As a result of post-merger restructuring, it is possible for all six policies to be in effect in a single department or location. Harmonizing the policies will invariably benefit some employees and hurt others. The benefits managers need to decide if the organization should try to harmonize the policies from the merged entities or let them continue to coexist.
The VP of HR adds another complication. The leadership of the two entities has been merged “on paper,” but there is still a lot of struggling behind the scenes to establish or increase power and influence. The VP of HR would like it if the team could avoid making this issue an opportunity for a proxy power struggle.

What critical first step should the benefits managers take to begin the harmonization process?
​
A. Send an e-mail to leadership advising them of the situation.
B. Independently implement a policy that seems the most reasonable.
C. Perform a risk assessment of the two options: harmonize or coexist.
D. Determine if the differences generate employee relations issues.

Answer 32

C

Question 33

An organization received 150 applicants from an advertisement, 50 of whom were minority applicants. It interviewed 36 qualified applicants, 12 of whom were minority applicants. What is the yield ratio of qualified applicants to total applicants?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A. 0.08
B. 0.24
C. 0.32

Answer 33

B

Question 34

What is the best definition of moral hazard?
Choose only ONE best answer.
A person engages in risky behavior knowing that someone else will absorb any losses.
B. A leader demonstrates poor ethical behavior, leading to poor choices by employees.
C. Intending to behave ethically, an organization violates employment laws or regulations.
D. An organization decides to behave ethically, even though this means a financial loss

Answer 34

A