Human Resource Management Exam #3
A typical unemployment insurance program requires which of the following?
Eligible individuals must submit an application for benefits.
In most instances who is in the best position to perform the function of evaluating an employees performance?
The employee's supervisor
Which of the following is an internal factor that can influence the rates at which employees are paid?
The employer's ability to pay
Which of the following explains why a company would increase the amounts that employees have to pay toward their benefits by increasing premiums or deductibles?
To contain costs
The two primary purposes of performance appraisals are....
administrative and developmental.
Flexible benefit plans.....
allow employees to choose benefits suited to their needs.
An employee's relative worth can be determined by
an effective performance appraisal system.
Employer-sponsored child care programs and elder care programs are similar because...
both programs try to maintain or increase productivity by assisting employees with their responsibilities outside the workplace
If an appraisal focuses on a narrow set of results criteria to the exclusion of other important but less quantifiable performance dimensions, the performance management system may suffer from......
criterion deficiency.
The philosophy behind the Scanlon plan is that...
employees should make suggestions to improve performance and be rewarded for their contributions
When communicating benefits programs to employees, it is a good idea to use....
multiple media techniques.
Employees covered by the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act are labeled.....
nonexempt employees
contemporary reasons given by organizations for implementing incentive plans are..
1) improving or maintaining high levels of productivity. 2) focusing employee efforts on specific performance targets 3)linking compensation rewards to the achievement of results.
Halle and Tierney work for the federal government. How many holidays can they expect to be paid for each year?
10
Laid off employees who have been working in employment covered by the Social Security Act may get unemployment insurance benefits for up to ____ weeks
26
TO qualify for retirement benefits a person must reach retirement age and have earned how many credits?
40
For the Family and Medical Leave Act to apply to an organization, it must have how many employees during 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding year?
50
Which of the following falls outside of what is considered pay-for-performance?
Base salary
When individual employees are able to choose the benefits best suited to their particular needs, their employer is offering which of the following?
Cafeteria plans
Which of the following is an external factor that can influence the rates at which employees are paid?
Cost of living
_________ encompasses employees wages and salaries, incentives, bonuses, and commissions
Direct compensation
Administrative purposes of performance appraisal include which of the following?
Documenting personnel decisions
Which of the following pieces of legislation greatly improved the communication of employee benefits information?
Employee Retirement Income Security Act
Which of the following statements presents a guideline for meeting legal requirements of performance reviews?
Employee evaluations must be based on clear, written job standards.
Which of the following is an example of nonfinancial compensation?
Employee recognition programs
VirtualCorp is reviewing its benefits package. Which of the following benefits would VirtualCorp be able to discontinue since it is not a legally required employee benefit?
Employer contributions to minimum life insurance
Globisys uses a bonus plan that is based on overall group productivity in which the determination of a bonus includes both production employees and nonproduction. Which type of gainsharing program is being used?
Improshare
Group incentive plans include which of the following?
Improshare
Which of the following is an individual type of incentive plan?
Lump sum merit pay
Which rating format uses three specific behavioral descriptions relevant to each trait and then asks supervisors to evaluate whether an employee's behavior is better than, equal to, or worse than the standard for each behavior?
Mixed-standard scale
Developmental purposes of performance appraisal include which of the following?
Recognizing individual performance
Employees on the G13 production line at Globisys are paid a set rate for each unit produced. They are working under which type of incentive plan?
Straight piecework
Which of the following explains the failure of an appraisal program?
They are not useful for the majority of employees in the middle in terms of performance.
Which of the following is a common goal of a strategic compensation policy?
To reward employees' past performance
Performance appraisal methods can be broadly classified as which of the following?
Trait, behavioral, or results
When setting performance measures for incentive systems, we can say that the best measures are those that....
are quantitative, simple to understand, and show a clear relationship to improved performance
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act, exempt employees.....
are those employees not covered by the overtime provisions of the act.
The term pay-for-performance does not encompass
base salary
Social Security payments of survivors' insurance benefits calculations are...
based on the worker's lifetime earnings covered by Social Security
A manager who rates an average employee's performance high based on a comparison of that employee to poor performers commits a....
contrast error
If the performance evaluations that salespeople receive are based solely on sales revenue to the exclusion of other important factors, the performance management system suffers from....
criterion deficiency.
Employee wages and salaries, incentives, bonuses, and commissions are part of....
direct compensation.
The Social Security insurance program is funded by...
employee contributions with matching employer contributions
Online benefits systems, which can result in significant cost savings in benefits administration, are often referred to as...
employee self-service systems.
Which of the following is an internal factor that would effect an employees pay?
employers ability to pay
Employees' anticipation that greater work effort will result in a valued reward forms the basis of...
expectancy theory
When the organization pays wages that are relatively equal to that of other employers for similar work, it is the basis of...
external equity
When the organization pays wages that are relatively equal to that of other employers for simular work, it is on the basis of ....
external equity.
A method of rating performance in which the rater chooses from statements that appear equally favorable or equally unfavorable is known as the....
forced-choice method.
One section of the evaluation form used at SkyGen lists the traits of initiative, independence, cooperation, attention to detail, and punctuality. The rater indicates the degree to which the employee exhibits each trait on a 5-point scale. This illustrates the.....
graphic rating scale method
A system where a person submits a timecard every week to get compensation based on the amount of time worked is....
hourly
group incentive plans include
improshare
Job evaluation helps to evaluate....
internal equity
According to Sammer, establishing a clear link between performance and payout....
is one of the characteristics of a successful incentive plan
Job evaluation helps to establish...
labor market conditions that affect pay
A rating error in which the rater tends to give employees either extremely high or extremely low ratings is referred to as an/a ...
leniency or strictness error.
Holiday pay, sick leave, and vacation pay are examples of...
payment for time not worked
One advantage of peer evaluations is that....
peers may furnish more accurate and valid information than supervisors
Jamie and Blake are both line workers at CompteOrg. This week, they each worked 40 hours. Jamie produced 83 units this week, and Blake produced 71 units. Jamie received higher pay for the week than Blake did. Jamie and Blake are compensated based on...
piecework
A manager who rates an employee's performance largely on the basis of the employee's behavior in the last month, rather than considering the entire six-month evaluation period, commits a......
recency error.
If a performance standard is found to be stable or consistent, it is said to be....
reliable
Instrumentality of compensation package elements refers to...
rewards that are valued and motivate employees.
Employees whose compensation is calculated on the basis of weekly, biweekly, or monthly periods are classified as....
salaried employees
Which of these bonus incentive plans uses employee and management committees to gain cost-reduction improvements?
scanlon plan
Raj likes to give small rewards to employees "caught in the act" of doing something good, even if that effort is not directly tied to a performance standard. By doing this, Raj is making use of a.....
spot bonus
The pay for employees on the GRX line at Globisys is not based on the actual amount of time it takes them to complete a job. Rather, they are paid based on a predetermined amount of time for completing the job. These employees are working under the.....
standard hour plan.
The strategic relevance of performance appraisals refers to the extent to which.....
standards relate to the overall objectives of the organization.
Enterprise incentive plans include:
stock options
Which of the following falls into the category of enterprise incentive plans?
stock options
Salespeople at Globisys are compensated based on a percentage of sales. This is known as a....
straight commission plan.
Shares people at Jullee's are compensated based on a percentage of sales. This is known as a .........
straight commission plan.
Employees on the T13 production line at Robix are paid a set rate for each unit produced. They are working under the _________
straight piecework
A sales incentive plan that permits salespeople to be paid for performing various duties not reflected immediately in their sales volume is known as a.....
straight salary plan.
In order to motivate employees, Evan wants to use an appraisal system that allows them to see clearly how their performance ties into the overall performance of the firm. Evan should use.....
the balanced scorecard approach
The measure of the average change in prices over time in a fixed "market basket" of goods and services is known as
the consumer price index
The measure of the average change in prices over time in a fixed "market basket" of goods and services is known as...
the consumer price index
Piecework is appropriate when....
the job is fairly standardized
Piecework is appropriate when.....
the job is fairly standardized
the choice of appraisal method should be largely based on
the purpose of the appraisal.
Unemployment compensation payments to individuals vary according to...
their previous wage rate and length of previous employment.
Pay-for-performance programs....
tie rewards to employee effort
Why a company would consider increasing the amounts that employees pay towards benefits by increasing premiums/deductibles
to contain costs
performance appraisal methods can be broadly classified into what three categories
trait, behavioral, results
Globisys is launching a new incentive plan for individual pay. To increase its chances for success, the plan should measure.....
work that is independent of others' contribution.
Robix is launching a new incentive plan for individual pay. To increase the chances for success the plan should measure.....
work that is independent of others' contribution.
