HR MGNT Final

Which of the following are not programs that companies use to control prescription costs?

"Purple-pill"

Employee benefits typically cost employers ______________ of an employee's base salary.

26%

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has brought many changes to healthcare in the United States. When the law states (at least right now) that healthcare must be "affordable" it refers to what percentage of an employee's income?

9.5%

Which of the following statements is true about compensating employees?

Companies looking to enhance the adaptability of their workforce may use a skills or knowledge based pay system.

From a legal perspective, which of the following is not accurate?

Companies must provide training to all employees in a group

Piecework plans reward efficiency, commission plans reward sales, and gain sharing plans encourage teamwork and efficiency. What do profit sharing plans reward?

Company-wide profitability

Diversity training is a type of ______________which helps reduce discrimination and makes employees aware of the biases they may have.

Compliance training

John is an independent contractor and does work for many organizations. When your organization brings him in to do work, what kind of HR system should you use?

Compliance-based

A ________ HR system is used when managing ________ workers because it focuses on meeting preset rules, regulations or procedures due to the limited uniqueness of these employees contributions.

Compliance-based; contract

A supplement to a high-deductible health plan, which only covers after employees pay a large deductible, is a ______.

Health Saving Account

Wellness programs are good for the employees and the employers. Which of the following is a reason why employers choose to implement health programs?

Healthcare costs are lowered

The results-based approach is not conducive to all jobs. Which of the following is an example of a job that is not conducive to the results-based approach to performance evaluation?

How well a programmer's code worked

The HR scorecard is used to assess the degree to which the HR systems and employee contributions are achieving competitive advantage. Which of the following is not part of the three steps to creating an HR scorecard?

Identify your organization's key employees and contributions

This type of plan is a group-based incentive plan that rewards based on the number of hours a firm expects a job to take.

Improsharers

______________are statements that describe the purpose of training and are the primary driver of the training program.

Instructional objectives

All of these are indicators that might suggest an employee has a substance abuse problem, except _____.

Is unable to get to work on their own

When a worker leaves a company for a qualifying reason, they can continue their health benefits for up to 18 months due to this piece of legislation.

Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act

Which of the following plans gives employees choice to decide which type of plan they want? This plan puts them in the forefront of their health care decisions thus, making them pay more attention to their health and wellness?

Consumer-driven health plan

The Consumer Price Index determines the cost of goods and services used by households. This is helps determine which type of pay increase?

Cost of living adjustment

Which of the following absolute approaches focuses on identifying examples of exceptionally good and exceptionally bad performance and evaluating employees against those examples?

Critical incident approach

Which of the following is not a typical way that culture influences compensation decisions?

Culture signals the internal value of jobs

Which source of performance data is expensive and difficult to attain yet valuable to the company?

Customer

In order to effectively manage employees, organizations should always keep the following sayings or proverbs in mind, except _________.

Employees are primarily concerned about being evaluated fairly.

Which of the following is true about benefits administration?

Employees often do not know how much an employer spends on benefits

Which of the following is true about Health Reimbursement Accounts (HRAs)?

Employers can deduct the cost of HRAs from their taxes

The strategic performance driver of improving customer service would be most related to which of the following HR deliverable?

Employment stability

Which of the following are not important for an effective incentive plan?

Encompassing the core job characteristics

Lindsey feels that she is working much harder than her counterparts who earn a similar salary. She feels that she should not work hard on Friday to make up for the hard work she does all week compared to her co-workers. She is using what to rationalize her decision?

Equity theory

The National Labor Relations Act passed for three main reasons. Which of the following is not one of those reasons ?

Facilitated employee engagement in union-organizing activities

What agency has oversight for labor-management issues at the federal level ?

Federal Labor Relations Authority

Which of the following performance management systems might lead to bias and even discrimination lawsuits by forcing managers to arbitrarily come up with reasons to allocate employees into different ratings categories to meet the requirements of the performance management system?

Forced distribution

Plans that are designed to help increase efficiency by increasing the productivity of the company's employees and/or lowering the firm's labor costs is known as _____.

Gainsharing plans

There are many different incentive plans that companies may use. _______ plans are often used to encourage collaboration among workers while __________ plans are more often used to reward individual effort

Gainsharing, merit

In aligning HR activities with HR challenges, external alignment relates how companies react to the influences outside of the organization. Which of the following is not part of external alignment?

Geographic location

Deana recognizes her employees who are doing well and sets up meetings to discuss their objectives for the year. She is using which theory to motivate her employees

Goal-setting theory

_______________ requires that employers and unions meet at a reasonable time and come to the bargaining table ready to reach a collective bargaining agreement.

Good faith bargaining

Which type of vesting gradually gives employees ownership of their retirement benefits?

Graded vesting

Which of the following statements is false about compensating employees?

Green circled jobs are above the pay grade and should have their wage frozen or the job reevaluated to be in a higher pay grade.

When evaluating the strategic performance drivers, the ______________ is what is needed from an organization's HR activities to succeed.

HR deliverables

Which of the following is not accurate regarding worker's compensation?

It is funded by the federal government

______________ is when job descriptions are reviewed and jobs are listed in order from lowest to highest in the company.

Job ranking

Which of the following pair of employee type and HR system is most accurate?

Job-based and productivity-based system

Which of the following acts prohibits union members from abuse by their union?

Landrum-Griffin Act

Which performance evaluation approach focuses on collaborating with employees to identify goals that employees will work toward that become the focus of the evaluation meeting at a later point in time?

Management by objectives

When administering a pay system, _____.

Managers should attend training to administer the system

If an organization is looking to reward employees for excellent customer service, which plan would be most motivating?

Merit based pay

Companies pursuing a low cost strategy are most likely to _____.

Minimize the amount of funds they spend on non-direct compensation

In ethical theory, ______________ justice is usually a better predictor than ___________ justice when it comes to employee satisfaction with benefits.

Procedural, distributive

The deepest level of evaluation for determining training effectiveness is _____.

ROI

Which theory suggests that when people experience positive consequences after they do something they are likely to repeat those actions?

Reinforcement theory

If April loves her company and praises it to all of her friends because the company values and develops her, she likely has a _________ relationship with the organization.

Relational

The Fair Labor Standards Act regulates all of the following except _______.

Retirement protections

A ______________ encourages employees to make suggestions on how to improve productivity and rewards employees if their suggestions work

Scanlon plan

As part of the grievance process, an employee has the right to __________.

choose the union employee that will represent them during the investigation

Beth is not performing well in her job, even though she graduated from an excellent college that prepared her well with a high GPA. She is very intelligent and motivated. She may need ______________ in order to get better at her job.

clarification so she knows what to do in her job

A ______________ is outlawed by the Taft-Hartley Act. It is considered the most extreme form of union membership

closed shop

The HR system that focuses on investing extensively in the most important employees competencies and empowering them is called _______.

commitment-based

When pursuing a cost leadership strategy _____.

companies train employees to be efficient in their jobs

In the point method of internal alignment, ______________ are used to determine the traits and responsibilities of a job that are most important for a company to succeed.

compensable factors

A written communication about what is valued in the organization that helps to standardize pay is called a(n) ______.

compensation philosophy

The term ______________ has been replaced by ______________ as a way to better reflect what employees receive from their organization.

compensation, total rewards

Deadly combinations arise when HR systems are not ______.

consistent

The corporate headquarters of a large marketing firm uses Greenthumb Landscapers to mow their property, weed the landscaping, plant and water the flowers, etc. The employees at Greenthumb that provide the services at the corporate headquarters building would be most likely considered a/an _______.

contract workers

A type of error when employees are compared to one another which results in making their rating higher or lower than their true performance warrants is called a ______.

contrast effect

Self-funded plans offer employers ______.

cost savings on premiums and taxes on the premiums

The first step in designing an HR scorecard is ______

customizing the scorecard to strategic performance drivers

Performance management can be used for both administrative and developmental purposes. The administrative purposes focus on issues such as _____.

determining who will be getting raises

Timothy is having a tough time at work and his performance is slipping. Not only is his family having issues taking care of his father, but he has started to notice that alcohol is becoming a crutch. What type of program might he benefit from?

employee assistance

Training programs that all employees are required to participate in that must have an ethics component are _____.

ensuring employees know how to do their jobs

Every performance management approach has trade-offs. For a small company, what is one of the main reasons they would not use the behaviorally anchored rating scales system?

financial cost of the evaluation approach

Considering the multiple generations in the workforce, which of the following rewards would be particularly valuable for both generation X and Y?

flexible scheduling

Assume you are taking a class and the professor tells that class that 10% of the class will receive an "A", 20% will receive a "B", 40% will receive a "C", 20% will receive a "D" and 10% will receive a "F". What type of evaluation approach is this?

forced distribution

The ______________ approach to performance evaluation is used to minimize bias in performance evaluation by giving the rater minimal choice on each item of evaluation

forced-choice

The National Labor Relations Act granted employees' rights to _________.

form, or attempt to form, a union

To get rid of ______________, companies may reward individuals and teams.

free riders

The process in which employees can take action when an employer violates the union contract is the __________.

grievance process

All of the following are mandatory benefits required by law except ______.

health insurance

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) protects the employee's privacy and _____.

helps the employee get new health insurance from an employer

Employees that move quickly through the training process might have ______________ but learn little from the process.

high self efficacy

Employers and union representatives have reached a(n) ______________ when they have presented their final offers and cannot agree .

impasse

When using ______________, companies collects data from the external competitors first. It is important to evaluate the accuracy of data collected and measurement errors are minimized.

market pricing

When a third party facilitator gets between the two parties and works with each side to reach an agreement, they are using ______________ to reach an agreement .

mediation

If an organization is looking for a long-term relationship between members meant to instruct and help the younger employee in their career, they should be using _____.

mentoring

To reward individual employees for good performance without permanently increasing labor costs, a company can give a ______________ to employees.

merit bonus

A type of incentive plan that rewards top performers but can quickly increase labor costs is called _____.

merit pay increase

When employees decide that they want to be represented by a union, they contact the NLRB. In order for the union to represent them, the employees of the workplace __________.

must participate in a secret-ballot election and have a majority vote in favor

When assigning pay grades and pay ranges, the range at the bottom of the organization tends to be ______________ and the top of the organization tends to be ___________.

narrower; wider

In order to get the most out of a performance review, some companies _______.

offer developmental meetings separate from administrative meetings

The process of bringing new employees in and getting them used to the culture and goals of the company is called ______.

onboarding

The standard hour plan can be described as _____.

paying employees based on how many hours a task is expected to take

A strategic performance driver for a company pursuing a low-cost leadership strategy would not be ______.

percentage of sales from new products

Perhaps the most important part of training is the needs assessment. Within the needs assessment, _____________ involves analyzing and choosing those who participate in training programs.

person analysis

Getting employee input on setting performance goals and clarifying the specific tasks they are to perform to improve their performance may help with their perception of ______________ justice.

procedural

While progressive discipline is seen as ______________, positive discipline is seen as _____________.

punitive, developmental

If a manager is rash in firing an employee and does not use progressive discipline for an under-performing employee, he/she may be falling victim to the ______.

recency error

International unions __________.

represent unions across countries

If Timothy is having performance issues and he has multiple bosses, he may be suffering from ______________ which is beyond his control.

role conflict

Salary compression happens when _______

salaries on the market rise faster than those currently employed

Although difficult and expensive to implement, __________ proven effective for the UPS corporation, in terms of reducing injuries and preparing new hires using on-the-job training.

simulation

A high impact learning organization will most likely use this method to pay their employees: __________.

skills based pay

A major drawback of profit sharing plans is ______.

some employees, despite working hard, may not be rewarded

When considering an employee who is rated as "excellent in customer service", they are likely suffering from a lack of ______________ performance measures.

specific

If an employee is suffering from role conflict, the organizational managers can help the employee prioritize different tasks by increasing the _____________ of the HR system objectives.

specificity

A type of bonus that does not have a performance evaluation over time is a _____.

spot award

Lincoln Electric believes in a highly motivated and highly skilled workforce. They choose to pay their employees based on productivity so that those who produce more earn more. They use a ______________ as an incentive to their employees

straight piecework plan

Employee development is closely associated with ______________ when considering the long term future of employees and the organization

succession planning

The degree to which the HR activities are aligned determines whether organizations realize _____.

synergies

If employees are not performing well, yet a new technology was introduced, the ___________ part of the needs assessment is critical to designing a training program.

task analysis

Looking across different jobs within an organization, incentive plans organization need to be _____.

varied for the type of work being done by an employee

In order to map its employment portfolio an organizational manager must _______.

weigh the strategic value and uniqueness that each job brings to the organization to determine what type of employment relationship will be created

A large organization with many departments _____.

will all work toward the competitive advantage in their own way

Which of the following is not a method of on-the-job training?

Simulations

_________ refers to the extent to which contributions of employees help their organization achieve a competitive advantage.

Strategic Value

______________ are the activities that enable a company to achieve the potential source of competitive advantage.

Strategic performance drivers

_________ refers to a performance management error that occurs when a rater consistently rates employees on the low end of an evaluation scale while a(n) __________ occurs when a rater is unwilling to rate employees as very high or very low on an evaluation scale.

Strictness error, Error of central tendency

When considering the Enron disaster and the adage that "what gets rewarded gets repeated," it is important to realize that when designing a compensation system _______.

Strong incentives can sometimes lead to undesirable behaviors

In the early days of labor unions, which of the following was not a reason for unions gaining popularity?

Stronger government controls

Which of the following sources of performance data might lead to retaliatory consequences against employees if not managed properly?

Subordinates

Which act was passed to protect employers and employees because it was widely believe that the National Labor Relations Board had too much power?

Taft-Hartley Act

An accountant is an important job in all types of firms. However, some accountants are going to be paid higher than others depending on the company. These differences between companies reflect _______.

The internal value of jobs

If the contributions an employee makes to an organization are said to be unique which of the following will most likely occur?

The organization will be inclined to invest in their long term growth

A production worker who works at meat packaging plant and receives an hourly rate for the work he does, which is not highly specialized, most likely has which type of relationship with his employer?

Transactional

The Social Security Act provides benefits for all of the following except ______.

Unemployment benefits

_______ is a union member that serves as a liaison between the rest of the employees and the leadership of the union

Union steward

If a company has paternalistic values, employees are most likely to not accept _______.

a pure commission salary

UPS changed their culture to value and reward workplace safety. They also saw a 35% drop in injuries. An added benefit of valuing and rewarding workplace safety is _____.

a reduction of turnover among employees

When organizations want to become a high impact learning organization, they need to ensure that _____.

all of these should be ensured

Michael has unique skills in the labor market and works for himself. His contributions to your company are not very strategic, but his uniqueness secures him a spot to work with your organization. He would be considered a _____.

alliance partner

Employees that are low in strategic value and high in uniqueness are likely to be _____.

alliance partners

When thinking about job pricing, the method relies heavily on benchmark jobs which _____.

are clearly and concisely described

Your manager does not understand what an HR scorecard is used for. You tell him that an HR scorecard is to ______.

assess the alignment of internal HR activities

Neil is a consistent employee and does his job at an acceptable level of performance. Relative to others in his pay grade, he would likely be __________.

at the average

When a manager is not trained to provide performance feedback, _______.

all of these may occur

Nathan is a manager at a company and is using performance management to discipline his employees and to figure out where they need to be trained. With this emphasis, he is it not focusing on which of the following performance management goals?

Administrative

The _____ theory suggests managers are more likely to have motivated employees if managers select employees whose values and goals more closely align with the organization's values and goals.

Agency

Employee ownership programs relate to which theory of motivation that discusses alignment of goals?

Agency theory

Which of the following is not part of the right-to-work laws ?

All of these

Development is a long-term process to make employees better. Which of the following is not a developmental activity?

All of these are development activities.

Keith and the union representatives cannot reach an agreement. They bring in a third party to facilitate the negotiation. Which of the following occurs when the third party makes the decision and the decision is binding?

Arbitration

While the BARS approach takes the critical incidents approach and improves it to be anchored to specific behaviors, ______.

BARS has to be developed for each specific job

Nordstrom's is famous for having a customer oriented focus for their employees. Given this focus, which of the following would be an appropriate method for evaluating their employees

Behavioral

Many companies invest heavily in leadership development training programs. These types of programs that focus on the 'how' of getting a job done are known as _____.

Behavioral training

When reviewing standards of performance with employees, a good performance evaluation method is _______.

Behaviorally anchored rating scales

This law states that employers with contracts over $2000 with the federal government must pay their employees at least the prevailing wage.

Davis-Bacon

The process of terminating the union representation such that the union is no longer representing the employees or engaging in collective bargaining on their behalf is known as ____________.

Decertification

GE is highly competitive and ranks how people perform against each other in their performance management system. Using the 4 Es, it is likely that they will tell the low performers to look for a new job. 3M on the other hand is all about innovation and taking risks. Differences in how these two companies approach their performance management approach are shaped by ________.

Different cultures

The piece of legislation that protects retirement benefits for retirees in the private sector is ______.

ERISA

When administering benefits, which of the following is an application that employees can access and manage their benefits?

Employee Self Service (ESS)

Richard's company is pursuing a low cost strategy. He is using technology to make his employees more efficient which leads to which HR deliverable?

Employee productivity

Which of the following plans are not defined contribution pension plans?

Employee self service

In order to give employees the freedom to celebrate their own holidays and take sick or vacation days, some companies use which program to give them flexibility?

Paid time off

Maria is rated against each of coworkers on certain performance dimensions. Her company uses which evaluation method to rate her?

Paired comparisons

William and Patrick are in the same position but located in different offices across the country. They are both the top performers, yet Patrick can't work with as many customers on a daily basis. It is likely that _______.

Patrick has environmental constraints that he cannot control which limit his productivity

When recruiting for a sales manager ABC Corporation used an extensive interview process and reinforced to the final candidate, Glenn, who was chosen, that sales volumes would be closely monitored and meeting specific targets would result in bonuses. Once hired, Glenn's orientation did not discuss the sales territory or the preferred selling methods. In addition, Glenn's compensation was set up to be straight salary only, which did not support what he was told during the interview process. Which of the following best describes this scenario?

Poor internal alignment

____________ is a type of managed care program in which the employer negotiates with health care providers, usually in a network, for discounts and services for healthcare coverage for employees.

Preferred Provider Organization (PPO)

The instrumentality of incentive plans is linked to which type of justice?

Procedural

Employees who have specific skills that are not commonly found in the labor market are ______.

Unique

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has identified a number of risk factors for violence in the workplace. Which of these is not on the list:

Working for non-profit organization

While much of the training employers provided is optional, some training is not optional. Reasons that trainings would not be optional are due to_____.

all of these are reasons

In order to evaluate employee performance for a relatively simple job with very few tasks, it would be acceptable to use______.

a "global" performance measure

In order to increase an organization's efficiency by increasing productivity and/or lowering the firm's labor costs, an organization is likely to use _____.

a gain-sharing plan

An example of "concerted activity" would be ________.

a group of non-union employees airing grievances

Which of the following likely reflects ethical concerns when designing a performance management system?

all of these are concerns.

According to equity theory, when employee equity is negative they may _____.

all of these are options

Financial planning services are good for a company to have because ______.

all of these have benefit

If a training program results in transfer of training, it has performed well on the ________________ level of training evaluation.

behavioral

Research shows that when orienting new employees, the orientation should focus on ______.

bringing their personal identities into focus and provide opportunities for growth

Pension plans that give employees an annuity for retirement based on a formula that the company determines is called a ___________.

defined benefit

To have internal alignment, _____.

each HR activity needs to be in sync with the other HR activities.

Comparable worth states _______.

individuals in jobs requiring similar levels of education should be paid a similar rate

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has the right to _____.

inspect businesses and write citations

Although many parts of a training seem obvious, it is still important that managers and trainers have a(n) ____________ to ensure employees know all of what they need to know about the topic.

instructional objective

According to expectancy theory, _______________ is the degree to which employees believe that achieving a performance objective will be rewarded.

instrumentality

When the two sides of a negotiation work to reach a compromise by finding common goals, they have engaged in __________ .

interest-based bargaining

Managers in an organization must think about ______________ and rank jobs to establish how much each person gets paid.

internal alignment

A performance dimensions approach to performance management is useful because it ______.

is thorough

The reason the factor comparison model is not typically used in organizations is _____.

it is difficult to explain to employees

The reason a reaction level of training evaluation is marginally useful is because ______.

it only tells you if they liked the training

The foundation to establishing a compensation system is a job analysis. From the job analysis the organization can conduct a ______________ to establish the relative worth of jobs within a company.

job evaluation

An example of a deadly combination would be if employees _____.

know what to do, but lack the resources to do them

Google receives thousands of applications for every job. This is not surprising since they ______________ the market with their pay policy.

lead

According to your text authors, the process of acquiring tacit and explicit knowledge is called ______.

learning

_________ is used to reduce rater bias.

leniency bias training

From an ethics standpoint, many companies want to pay their employees a fair wage around the world. However it is also important to keep in mind _______.

local cost of living

An oversight in training planning that can distract employees from learning objectives with work-related issues is _____.

location

Once the HR scorecard is implemented, _____.

the new system must have metrics in place to see its consequences

The size of a company may impact all of the following except _______.

the willingness to offer stock to employees

Workers can typically expect to collect unemployment insurance for 26 weeks under the condition that ______.

they are actively seeking work

Starting in 1973, Health Maintenance Organizations began to allow _____.

third-party payers

Employees who are low in uniqueness and high in strategic value are likely to have a ______________ relationship with the organization.

transactional

Cultures that are high in ______________has been shown to be related to managerial decisions to offer welfare plans such as cafeteria plans, temporary disability plans, and supplemental employment plans.

uncertainty avoidance

A deficient performance measure has ______.

unmeasured aspects of an individual's performance are not measured

Brandi attended a training program in which she gained valuable information and genuinely enjoyed learning, but was not able to apply it to her current job. The training was ______.

unsuccessful since she did not apply the skills to her job

Ashley is a college professor who has recently graduated with her PhD and has no children. At her first job, the University offers her the benefit of waiving tuition for her children to go to school there. Their incentive lacks ______________ for Ashley.

valance

When it comes to telecommuting _____.

workers compensation laws do not distinguish between home offices and other workplaces