Compensation Test 1
Among employers that provide health insurance, the cost to provide family coverage per year per employee is approximately _____.
$16,000
_____ has produced more comparable-worth pay increases than any other approach.
Collective bargaining
_____ refers to comparisons among jobs or skills inside a single organization.
Internal alignment
___ is defined by the Department of Labor as the experience, training, education, and ability as measured by the performance requirements of a particular job.
Skill
Which of the following regarding child labor is NOT true?
The ILO finds that child labor is increasing on a global basis.
The alignment test
helps ensure passing the differentiation test.
The second step of developing a total compensation strategy is to:
map the strategy
According to the Hudson survey, _____ is the single thing that would make 41 percent of the U.S. workers happier.
more money
Recent surveys show that, on average, an outstanding performer receives a _____ merit increase, an average performer a _____ merit increase, and a poor performer a 0.4% merit increase.
4.4%; 2.8%
Which of the following tests of competitive advantage is probably the easiest test to pass?
Alignment test
Which of the following statements regarding allowing employees a choice in their pay mix is NOT true?
Allowing employees their choice is easy for competitor companies to imitate
Which of the following is the correct order of the steps in formulating a total compensation strategy?
Assess the strategy, map the strategy, implement the strategy, and reassess the strategy.
Which of the following is NOT one of the steps in establishing a comparable-worth pay plan?
Base the wage-to-job evaluation point ratio on the wages paid for female-dominated jobs.
Which of the following is a policy, and NOT an objective, in the pay model?
Competitiveness
Which of the following is NOT a test of whether a pay strategy is a source of competitive advantage?
Cost-effectiveness test
In which of the following types of cases is the focus on the discriminatory consequences rather than the intent to discriminate?
Disparate impact
Which of the following policy decisions directly affects employees' attitudes and work behaviors?
Employee contributions
Which of the following is an example of a relational return?
Employment security
_____ prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
Executive Order 11246
According to the text, which of the following decisions should be made jointly?
External competitiveness and employee contribution decisions
Which of the following is a fundamental objective, and NOT a policy, in the pay model?
Fairness
Which of the following statements regarding wage differences in industries and firms is NOT true?
Female employment is more heavily concentrated in large firms.
Which of the following statements is NOT true?
Focusing only on one dimension of the pay strategy is a best practice.
Hourly compensation costs for production workers in manufacturing are higher in _____ than in the United States.
Germany
Which of the following is NOT included in a strategy map?
HR alignment
Which form of pay does not permanently increase labor costs?
Incentives
Whole Foods' shared-fate philosophy of limiting executive salaries to no more than 19 times the average pay of full-time employees is an example of which strategic pay decision?
Internal alignment
Which of the following is NOT a provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938?
It requires that employers provide 15 weeks of medical leave to employees.
Who among the following has violated the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938?
Jeremy, who employs his 16-year-old cousin in his meat-packing plant
Under the _____, employers can be liable for current pay differences that are a result of discrimination that occurred many years earlier.
Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act
Which of the following companies is taking efforts to improve the work/life balance of its employees?
MH Corp. increases the number of paid holidays given to its senior employees.
Meltrop Corp. employs two store clerks, Sam and Stella. Stella sues Meltrop claiming unequal pay as she earns $500 a week less than Sam does despite doing the same work as Sam. Which of the following is most likely to be the result of the litigation?
Meltrop will lose the litigation as it has committed valuation discrimination.
Which of the following is given as an increment to the base pay in recognition of past work behavior?
Merit pay
The agency that conducts reviews and seeks remedies where insufficient compliance to Executive Order 11246 is found is the _____.
OFCCP
The _____ specifies the number of breaks that must be provided in an eight-hour workday.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration legislation
In the context of pay relationships, which of the following is illegal in the United States?
Paying on the basis of one's age
_____ is the measure of how important total compensation is in the overall HR strategy.
Prominence
Under the _____ Act, executives cannot retain bonuses or profits from selling company stock if they mislead the public regarding their company's financial condition.
Sarbanes-Oxley
Which of the following is often the largest component in an executive pay package?
Stock options
Which of the following includes a provision that requires public companies to set policies to allow executive compensation to be taken back if it was based on inaccurate financial statements that did not comply with accounting standards?
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
Susan works in a sterile laboratory that requires her to scrub and put on protective clothing. Which of the following acts determines whether she should be paid for this time?
The Portal-to-Portal Act
Which of the following is a test that must be met to qualify for the administrative employee exemption?
The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis at a rate not less than $455 per week
GreenRain Corp. faces an increase in employee turnover rate. The CEO calls for a board meeting with the senior executives to discuss the issue. Who among the following suggests increasing the relational returns that employees receive to reduce the turnover rate at GreenRain?
Tom suggests increasing the decision-making authorities given to the employees to make work more challenging.
_____ refers to openness and communication about pay.
Transparency
Which of the following programs introduced by Congress includes restrictions on executive pay that are designed to discourage executives from taking "unnecessary and excessive risks"?
Troubled Asset Relief Program
The _____ Act extends the prevailing-wage concept to manufacturers or suppliers of goods for government contracts.
Walsh-Healey Public Contracts
Which of the following is NOT a question to ask for determining if research has value?
Was the research conducted by PhD researchers?
An early study of the effects of the living wage law in Los Angeles found all of the following EXCEPT that _____.
a higher proportion of new hires were female
Based on the opinions of 10,000 U.S. workers, Hudson found that when given their choice of unconventional benefits, most employees would select _____.
a more flexible work schedule
Denial of jobs, promotions, or training opportunities to qualified women or minorities are examples of _____.
access discrimination
Union preferences are a major factor in _____ a total compensation strategy.
assessing
The best way to establish _____ is to account for competing explanations, either statistically or through control groups.
causation
A measure of how changes in one variable are related to changes in another variable is the:
correlation coefficient
A compensation system focusing on system control and work specifications is most closely associated with a(n) _____ strategy.
cost-cutter
A compensation system that focuses on competitor's labor costs is most closely associated with a(n) _____ strategy.
cost-cutter
Regarding pay differences for different jobs, _____.
courts continue to uphold the use of market data to justify differences
All of the following EXCEPT _____ are compensation systems associated with a cost-cutter strategy.
customer satisfaction incentives
Mich Inc., a hardware store, has a rating system in place that rates employees on their friendliness, usefulness, and product knowledge. Based on the ratings an employee receives, he or she gets an incentive. The compensation strategy followed by Mich is most closely described as a:
customer-focused strategy
A difference between incentives and merit increases is that incentives:
do not increase the base wage, whereas merit increases the base wage.
The decisions to implement pay for performance, flat rate pay, and profit sharing are examples of _____ policy decisions.
employee contributions
The executive branch of the federal government _____.
enforces laws through agencies and its other bodies
Compensation policy choices that affect the pay level relative to other companies are most closely associated with the _____ aspect of the pay model.
external competitiveness
Comparisons on the forms of compensation used by other companies are part of _____.
external competiveness
Research investigating high-performance workplaces found that performance-based pay _____ when combined with other high-performance practices.
improve attitudes and behaviors
The degree to which pay influences individual and aggregate motivation among employees at any point in time is referred to as a(n):
incentive effect
Variable pay may also be called _____.
incentives
Robert, the CEO of GameTrack Corp., wants to restructure the pay plan without increasing the labor costs in the long run. He is most likely to achieve this, while retaining his top employees, by:
increasing incentive pay and decreasing base pay.
A compensation system using market-based pay is most likely to be part of a(n) _____ strategy.
innovator
Flexible-generic job descriptions would most likely be used with a(n) _____ strategy.
innovator
Career growth, hierarchy, and flexible design are most closely associated with the _____ aspect of mapping a total compensation strategy.
internal alignment
Research shows that _____ will effectively shift an organization in a downward performance spiral to an upward one.
it is unclear what compensation practices
The determination of pay discrimination on jobs of dissimilar content requires a standard that allows jobs of dissimilar content to be declared comparable and that allows pay differences for jobs that are not comparable. This standard is _____.
job evaluation
Issues of transparency, technology, and choice are most closely associated with the _____ aspect of mapping a total compensation strategy.
management
One of the reasons why 8 in 10 of the uninsured in the United States are from working families is that _____.
many small employers are much less likely than larger employers to offer health insurance to their employees
You are an HR manager, and your boss has told you to find the best way to raise job performance. After some research, you find that _____ have the greatest instrumental value.
monetary incentives
In mapping a total compensation strategy, the question of how important compensation is in the overall HR strategy is part of _____.
objectives
The role non-HR managers play in making pay decisions is called _____.
ownership
Managers seek internal alignment within their organization by:
paying on the basis of similarities among jobs.
Trying to measure an ROI for any compensation strategy implies that
people are "human capital," similar to other factors of production.
When organization performance declines
performance-based pay plans do not pay off.
The Davis-Bacon Act _____.
requires that mechanics and laborers on public construction projects be paid the prevailing wage in an area
The Worker Economic Opportunity Act _____.
states that income from most stock plans need not be included in calculating overtime pay
The highest rates of child labor are in _____.
sub-Saharan Africa
Incentives do not permanently increase labor costs because:
they are one-time payments.
The ADEA _____.
was amended in 1990 to include the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act
Prevailing-wage laws _____.
were passed in response to conditions on projects such as the construction of the Hoover Dam during the Depression