Personnel 12, 13, 14

Johanna, an HR manager, has been assigned the task of giving out incentives to small groups of employees in appreciation for accomplishing specific goals in reducing energy consumption. Johanna should give out the incentives in the form of

13.07 !!!!!

The Fair Labor Standards Act permits a lower "training wage," which employers may pay to workers under the age of __________ for a period of up to 90 days.

20

The overtime rate applies to the hours worked beyond __________ in one week.

40

Garrison Inc. has a workforce between the ages of 40 and 55. Most of the employees' children are teenagers who are about to enter college or already are in college. Which family-friendly benefit will be the most beneficial to the employees?

529 savings plans

__________ is a gainsharing program in which employees receive a bonus if the ratio of labor costs to the sales value of production is below a set standard.

A Scanlon plan

Which statement expresses a reason why companies are moving away from offering defined-benefit plans and toward defined-contribution plans?

Defined-contribution plans shift investment risk from employers to employees.

What is legally required of employee benefits policies?

Disabled employees must have equal health insurance coverage as other employees.

In most organizations, only a small fraction of the employees are executives, yet employees and others often consider executive pay when evaluating the equity of a company's pay structure. Which statement is a reason why executive pay draws this attention?

Employees at all levels are affected by executives' actions.

What is true of the benefits that are provided to employees?

Employees can understand the value of benefits through various media.

What is an advantage of having employees participate in decisions about incentive pay plans?

Employees know what kinds of behavior can help the organization perform well.

What is a disadvantage of an organization with a high-paying incentive scheme?

Employees may focus on only the performance measures that are rewarded.

What is a disadvantage of cafeteria-style plans?

Employees selecting benefits leads to increasing costs.

According to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, what is true of healthcare benefits?

Employers must choose between paying a penalty or offering insurance meeting certain standards.

Which statement is true about a standard hour plan of incentive pay?

If a mechanic completes work in less than the standard time, he receives payment for the full standard time.

John, the CEO of an advertising firm, is very concerned about the performance of his company. He has noticed that productivity is decreasing every day as his company continues to grow. To counter this, John has decided to implement an incentive scheme to motivate his employees to work toward building a better-performing company. Which statement weakens his decision?

In addition to incentives, employees also want interesting work, flexibility, and a sense of belonging to the work group.

What is true of retirement plans?

In cash balance plans, all contributions are made by employers.

What is a disadvantage of using an output-based, production-oriented incentive scheme?

It does not encourage employees to learn new skills or cooperate with others.

Which statement is true about the concept of profit sharing?

It is incentive pay in which payments are a percentage of the organization's profits and do not become part of the employees' base salary.

__________ establishes relative pay among different functions and different levels of responsibility.

Job structure

Jose is the CEO of a software firm. He is of the opinion that it is fair to pay above the market rate if doing so can help his firm attract and retain top talent. He knows that these employees will make the company more innovative and that they will also contribute significantly to the product quality and productivity. Which statement best supports his view?

Jose considers his employees as resources, and therefore, considers the higher pay an investment in superior human resources.

Both Ken and his cousin, Cole work for two different branches of the same organization. Both have the same level of experience in management. However, Ken earns more than Cole. Which explanation would legally justify the organization's decision to pay Ken more than Cole?

Ken works night shifts, unlike Cole.

The financial statements of Raff Inc. include income statements that detail its earnings and expenses. Accounting requirements include setting aside funds that will be needed to pay for retirement benefits. How does that requirement affect the numbers on the Raff Inc. income statement?

Meeting the requirement lowers the company's reported income.

__________ is a time off where the employer pools personal days, sick days, and vacation days for employees to use as the need or desire arises.

Paid time off

Brent is a human resource manager at a company reviewing its incentive pay plan. He stresses to his staff that they must continually communicate with employees about the purpose and impact of the review and any changes to the pay plan. Why is communication so important in this situation?

Pay is very important to employees and therefore a subject of rumors.

Sophie is about to take a 10-week vacation, and she states her reason for the long leave to her manager. According to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which reason will justify the organization's decision to grant unpaid family leave to Sophie?

Sophie has to look after her child who is seriously ill.

Polly is a financial assistant and reports to Stew, the head of the finance department. Stew works longer hours than Polly. However, Polly is paid one and a half times her regular pay for working more than 40 hours per week. Under the FLSA, what justifies the organization's decision to pay Polly overtime pay?

Stew is considered an exempt employee.

What is a characteristic of employee benefits?

The benefits offered change over a period of time.

Caf Consultants, a management consulting firm, analyzes its own pay structure and finds that the average pay for junior associates is $60,000. The pay range that the firm set for this position is $50,000 to $72,000. Which statement is true about the compa-ratio for this position?

The compa-ratio is $60,000/$61,000, or slightly less than 1.

The balanced scorecard for the Gina, the production manager at uPhone, includes goals for on-time shipments, product quality, cost savings, and energy efficiency. The product quality goals are weighted to determine 50 percent of Gina's incentive pay. What information does this scorecard reveal about the company's objectives?

The company has several production objectives, but it especially cares about quality.

Brandon is an office manager with a college degree, five years of experience, and a track record of being rated excellent at his work. He supervises seven staff members, and his employer, PRF Inc., pays him $40,000 a year. Which comparison would most likely lead Brandon to conclude that his rate of pay is unfair?

The office manager in another department supervises four employees and earns $45,000.

Which statement is true about the differential piece rate system?

There is a direct link between how much work employees do and the amount they earn.

What is a similarity between group bonuses and team awards?

They both encourage members to cooperate so that they can achieve their goals.

Heather is the human resource manager at Auto Specialists. The company's executives want to give employees an ownership stake in the company, so employees will think more like owners, focusing on how they contribute to the organization's success. Which pay system could Heather suggest that would most likely lead to the desired attitude at all levels of the organization?

an employee stock ownership plan

A business employs many young workers who like to use their time off to travel to visit family or go on adventures. The human resource manager observes that when holidays do not fall on a Friday or Monday, workers are disappointed that having just one day off prevents them from traveling. Which would be the most effective way for the company to add to the value of the holiday schedule?

by using floating holidays to create long weekends of time off

Which type of plan is intended to provide health coverage in a way that gets employees involved as consumers making decisions to lower costs?

consumer-driven health plan (CDHP)

Bob, the owner of a fast expanding start-up, wants to match performance criteria to the ways the managers contribute to goal achievement. He decides to do this by awarding his managers incentive pay based on a set of performance measures associated with his company's long-term and short-term goals. In order to do this, Bob should

create a balanced scorecard.

Frack Corp. is a construction firm based in Delaware. It sets pay rates for women slightly below those for men, to account for the greater likelihood that its female employees will need more time off to care for family members. In this scenario, which law is the company likely to be violating?

laws governing equal employment opportunity

The ways employees respond to their impressions about equity can have a great impact on the

organization

Pedal People, a chain of car dealerships in the North, is using benchmarking to analyze the labor market to see if it needs to adjust pay levels for its sales force. Which category of workers would be the best choice to include in its analysis?

salespeople at other car dealerships

Pedal People, a chain of car dealerships in the North, has a service center at each location, each managed by an experienced mechanic. For technicians, it hires high school graduates and trains them to repair cars and deliver great customer service. The more kinds of repairs a technician can perform, the more valuable that employee becomes to the company. Which pay structure would best motivate technicians to become more valuable contributors to Pedal People?

skill-based pay structure

Patterson Productions, a manufacturing company, requires employees to continually widen and deepen their knowledge. It has a pay structure that sets pay according to the employees' abilities or knowledge and what they are capable of doing. Which pay structure is being exemplified in this scenario?

skill-based pay system

Which act allows employees claiming discrimination to treat each receipt of a paycheck as an instance of discrimination for purposes of determining their eligibility to file a complaint?

the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009

Which force has increased the pressure on companies to link executives' pay to their performance?

the Securities and Exchange Commission's reporting requirements

Decisions about which benefits an organization will include should take into account

the expectations of the organization's current employees.

Puffer Consultants, a business consulting firm, wants to attract and keep highly ambitious employees who work hard and want to advance in their careers. Which benefit would especially appeal to this type of employee?

tuition reimbursement