HR - Chapter 11

An employee who earns a base rate of $10 an hour and receives a weekly attendance award of $20 works 50 hours this week (Overtime pay is required, whether or not the employer specifically asked or expected the employee to work more than 40 hours). His/her total compensation for the week will be:

$577.50.

Assuming that the pay structure is well planned to support the organization's goals, the compa-ratios should be close to:

1.

Under the Davis-Bacon Act of 1931 and the Walsh-Healy Public Contracts Act of 1936, federal contractors must pay their employees at rates at least equal to the prevailing wages in the area. The calculation of prevailing rates must be based on _____ percent of the local labor force.

30

Which of the following is true of key jobs?

A job with a higher evaluation score than a particular key job would receive higher pay than that key job.

The National Compensation Survey is an ongoing activity of the:

Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Which of the following is true of labor markets?

Competition for labor establishes the minimum an organization must pay to hire an employee for a particular job.

Following and studying changes in the _____ can help employers prepare for changes in the demands of the labor market.

Consumer Price Index

The federal government tracks trends in the nation's cost of living with a measure known as the:

Consumer Price Index.

Which of the following permits a lower training wage, which employers may pay to workers under the age of 20 for a period of up to 90 days?

FLSA

Which of the following is true according to the Walsh-Healy Public Contracts Act of 1936?

Federal contractors must pay their employees at rates at least equal to the prevailing wages in the area.

Which of the following is true about the Consumer Price Index (CPI)?

Following and studying changes in the CPI helps employers prepare for changes in the demands of the labor market.

According to the FLSA, which of the following is most likely a nonexempt employee?

Hourly-paid employee

Which of the following is a disadvantage of a pay structure that rewards employees for winning promotions?

It discourages employees from gaining valuable experience through lateral career moves.

Which of the following is a characteristic of delayering?

It increases an organizations' flexibility.

Which of the following is a drawback of a minimum wage in terms of social policy?

It tends to be lower than the earnings required for a full time worker to rise above the poverty level.

_____ is an administrative procedure for measuring the relative worth of an organization's jobs.

Job evaluation

_____ provide the basis for decisions about relative internal worth.

Job evaluations

_____ play the most significant role in communication because they interact with their employees each day.

Managers

Which of the following is a disadvantage of skill-based pay systems?

No guarantee that employees can use their new skills

Which of the following is true of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)?

Nonexempt employees are covered by FLSA and include most hourly workers.

Which of the following would act as a market force during the development of a pay structure?

Obtaining human resources in labor markets

Which of the following is true of competition in product-markets?

Organizations in a product market are competing to serve the same customers.

Which of the following is true about job-based pay structures?

Organizations may avoid change because it requires repeating the time-consuming process of creating job descriptions and related paperwork.

Which of the following statements is true of the FLSA requirements for overtime pay?

Overtime must be paid whether or not the employer specifically asked or expected the employee to work the extra hours.

Identify the legal requirement(s) for developing a pay structure.

Overtime pay

_____ are sets of jobs having similar worth or content, grouped together to establish rates of pay.

Pay grades

_____ is a set of possible pay rates defined by a minimum, maximum, and midpoint of pay for employees holding a particular job.

Pay range

From an economic standpoint, identify the drawback of a comparable-worth policy.

Raising pay for some jobs places the employer at a disadvantage relative to employers that pay the market rate.

_____ means that the employee is paid a given amount regardless of the number of hours worked or quality of the work.

Salary basis

Which of the following is true about skill-based pay?

Skill-based pay does not necessarily provide an alternative to the bureaucracy and paperwork of traditional pay structures.

Under the FLSA, which of the following statements is true of child labor?

The FLSA's restrictions on the use of child labor apply to children younger than 18.

Which of the following statements is true of Equal Employment Opportunity laws?

The goal of these laws is for employers to provide equal pay for equal work.

Which of the following is true of pay ranges?

The market rate or the pay policy line generally serves as the midpoint of a range for the job.

Which of the following is true of compensable factors?

They are the characteristics of jobs that a firm values and chooses to pay for.

What is the advantage of two-tier wage systems?

They cut labor costs without cutting employees' existing salaries.

Which of the following is a disadvantage of broad bands?

They reduce the opportunities for promoting employees.

The _____ requires employers to make jobs available to their workers when they return after fulfilling military duties for up to five years.

USERRA

A company that views employees as resources is most likely to pay the employees _____.

above the market rates

The size of the range of pay levels based on labor and product markets depends on:

an organization's competitive environment.

An organization's job structure and pay levels:

are policies of the organization.

Economic theory holds that the most profitable pay level, all things being equal, would be:

at the market rate.

The procedure in which an organization compares its own practices against those of successful competitors is known as:

benchmarking.

By combining more assignments into a single layer, organizations give managers more flexibility in making assignments and awarding pay increases which results in:

broad bands.

A pay policy line:

can be generated using a statistical procedure called regression analysis.

The Walsh-Healy Public Contracts Act of 1936:

covers all government contractors receiving $10,000 or more in federal funds.

The Davis-Bacon Act of 1931:

covers construction contractors that receive more than $2,000 in federal money.

Reducing the number of levels in an organization's job structure is known as:

delayering.

An example of a typical compensable factor is:

education

Pay policies are one of the most important human resource tools for:

encouraging desired employee behaviors.

According to _____, people measure outcomes such as pay in terms of their inputs.

equity theory

Under the FLSA, exempt status of an employee depends on his/her:

job responsibilities and salary.

Assuming an organization wants to motivate employees through promotions, and assuming enough opportunities for promotions are available, the organization would want to:

limit the overlap from one pay range to the next.

Research on the effects of two-tier wage plans found that:

lower-paid employees were more satisfied on average than higher-paid employees since they made comparisons with lower-paying alternatives for themselves.

The compa-ratio:

measures the degree to which actual pay is consistent with the pay policy.

The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) includes provisions for:

minimum wage.

A _____ is an adjustment to a pay rate to reflect differences in working conditions or labor markets.

pay differential

A graphed line showing the mathematical relationship between job evaluation points and pay rate is termed as a(n):

pay policy line.

Overlapping _____ give the organization more flexibility in transferring employees among jobs, because transfers need not always involve a change in pay.

pay ranges

Decisions about how to respond to the economic forces of product markets and labor markets limit an organization's choices about:

pay structure.

A rate of pay for each unit produced is known as:

piecework rate.

Organizations under pressure to cut labor costs may respond by:

postponing hiring decisions.

A drawback of pay rates is that they:

result in some jobs being underpaid and others being overpaid.

An organization's job structure consists of:

the relative pay for different jobs within the organization.

The comparable-worth policy:

uses job evaluation of an organization's jobs in terms of such criteria as their difficulty.

Pay ranges are most common for _____.

white-collar jobs