Analytical Aptitude Quiz
A call center needs to hire more than 1,000 employees over the next three months to meet its hiring needs for a new health-care contract. The terms of the contract require that all employees have clear background screenings and at least half be multilingual. Currently, 25 managers and 10 employees meet all the requirements. Senior management has offered to actively participate in the hiring process and has made many suggestions, including group interviews, mass training, and virtual hiring and training. The CEO has asked HR to take the lead in putting together a comprehensive project plan within the next week to be presented to the management team. The HR team decides to implement a structured interview as part of the hiring phase. What should the HR director do to ensure that the interviews provide the same quality and quantity of information on each candidate? A. Train a group of HR team members and call center managers to conduct the interviews. B. Assign HR team members to conduct the interviews. C. Advise interviewers to adapt the interview questions based on how the applicants respond. D. Arrange for there to be at least two interviewers per applicant.
A.
A call center needs to hire more than 1,000 employees over the next three months to meet its hiring needs for a new health-care contract. The terms of the contract require that all employees have clear background screenings and at least half be multilingual. Currently, 25 managers and 10 employees meet all the requirements. Senior management has offered to actively participate in the hiring process and has made many suggestions, including group interviews, mass training, and virtual hiring and training. The CEO has asked HR to take the lead in putting together a comprehensive project plan within the next week to be presented to the management team. Which strategy should HR use to decrease turnover of the multilingual new-hire population? A. Assign the 35 qualified current employees to serve as peer mentors for the new hires. B. Implement weekly training for the new hires on job content and requirements. C. Ask new hires and current employees who speak the same language to form special interest groups. D. Designate new hires to language-specific teams with a manager who speaks the same language.
A.
A company has experienced a high degree of turnover during the past year. Senior leadership is concerned about the amount of turnover and worried that HR is not moving fast enough to fill these positions. The hiring managers say that the applicant pools have been weak lately and they have had trouble finding qualified applicants to hire from within the pools HR provides. HR has relied heavily on recruiting by word of mouth, which in the past has generated applicants that fit the company's culture. The award for referrals that result in hiring has also been popular with employees. What would be the best way for HR to bring in more qualified applicants? A. Post job openings on Internet job sites and examine the effect on the applicant pool. B. Talk to senior leaders to figure out which types of jobs are most difficult to fill. C. Investigate how other organizations are identifying quality applicants. D. Interview hiring managers to determine the specific gaps in knowledge and skill that need to be addressed.
A.
A company has experienced a high degree of turnover during the past year. Senior leadership is concerned about the amount of turnover and worried that HR is not moving fast enough to fill these positions. The hiring managers say that the applicant pools have been weak lately and they have had trouble finding qualified applicants to hire from within the pools HR provides. HR has relied heavily on recruiting by word of mouth, which in the past has generated applicants that fit the company's culture. The award for referrals that result in hiring has also been popular with employees. What would be the most effective step to avoid unwanted turnover in the future? A. Develop and administer an employee satisfaction survey that solicits candid feedback about employee perceptions. B. Schedule meetings with senior leaders to discuss the impact turnover has on their business. C. Implement team-building activities to foster a collaborative work environment. D. Conduct interviews with senior leaders about why they think turnover at the organization is so high.
A.
An HR strategic planning team wants to see what the effects on payroll will be if management realigns production capacity using different strategies. What analytical tool should HR use? A. Scenario analysis B. Root cause analysis C. Trend analysis D. Variance analysis
A.
A restaurant chain located in multiple regions with thousands of employees makes a policy change in its payment procedures. The new policy requires servers at sit-down restaurants to take table orders from patrons and collect payment before the meal is brought to the table instead of after the food is served and consumed. A few months after implementation, several customers file complaints of unfair treatment, alleging that servers are being selective and not all guests are asked to pay for their meal immediately after the order is placed. An investigation by the VP of HR reveals that indeed not all employees are following the new protocol, resulting in different service experiences. The VP of HR identifies a critical, immediate need for training to mitigate risk related to any future allegations of unfair treatment of guests. The company's president is in agreement with the idea. However, she will support only a limited financial contribution for the training. The VP of HR shares the purpose of the training, the time line, and key deliverables during an HR team meeting. The team expresses concerns about the nonnegotiable, short time frame, the total number of employees to be trained, and the impact on other initiatives in progress. What is the best course of action for the VP of HR to take to ensure high employee engagement during the retraining? A. Certify the HR managers to deliver the training. B. Ask regional locations to establish a prioritization list based on size and revenue. C. Allow employees to sign up voluntarily to attend D. Purchase an existing e-training program to ensure consistency.
A.
A restaurant chain located in multiple regions with thousands of employees makes a policy change in its payment procedures. The new policy requires servers at sit-down restaurants to take table orders from patrons and collect payment before the meal is brought to the table instead of after the food is served and consumed. A few months after implementation, several customers file complaints of unfair treatment, alleging that servers are being selective and not all guests are asked to pay for their meal immediately after the order is placed. An investigation by the VP of HR reveals that indeed not all employees are following the new protocol, resulting in different service experiences. The VP of HR identifies a critical, immediate need for training to mitigate risk related to any future allegations of unfair treatment of guests. The company's president is in agreement with the idea. However, she will support only a limited financial contribution for the training. The VP of HR shares the purpose of the training, the time line, and key deliverables during an HR team meeting. The team expresses concerns about the nonnegotiable, short time frame, the total number of employees to be trained, and the impact on other initiatives in progress. Which metrics should the VP of HR share to demonstrate the impact of the training on company goals? A. Number of complaints received B. Completed checklists and questionnaires C. Pre- and post-test scores D. Performance tests
A.
A small division of a company lacks a formal compensation structure for employees. Due to recent recruitment and retention challenges, the division recognizes the need to review newly hired and existing employees' pay rates to ensure market competitiveness and internal equity among staff. For a number of years, the division has lacked human resources support and relied upon the general managers to determine initial pay rates for new hires as well as promotional rates for internal staff based on the amount of hours worked and the employee's attendance record. No pay ranges currently exist, and leaders have the discretion to pay whatever fits within their budget. On occasion, a human resources representative from another division has offered general advice on pay practices to the division's leadership. However, they have their own divisional responsibilities, and therefore there has been very little oversight. The divisional president is considering whether or not to bring in a contract human resources leader to research, design, and implement an appropriate pay structure for all positions. What should the human resources leader do to establish new pay ranges? A. Compare, contrast, and analyze multiple different benchmark data sources to design a new wage structure that is best for the division. B. Apply cost-of-living adjustments to one data source, favoring that source over any others. C. Use the source data to identify compliance issues that have existed for many years. D. Focus on judgmental forecasting, using the general managers as a primary source to develop pay ranges.
A.
An HR manager is asked by the Vice President of HR to define and implement a simulation-based assessment center that uses specially trained observers to rate each candidate's performance. The need is to assess which employees have potential for promotion into management. The VP of HR is familiar with this practice, having used the technique in a prior company, and she sees the assessment center as a best practice innovation. The VP of HR is new and comes from a large but entirely domestic organization with an aging workforce. Her new company is a global organization with eight operations located around the world. It is highly diverse in terms of ethnicity, and the average worker is probably 15 to 20 years younger than the VP of HR is used to. In researching methodologies, the HR manager stumbles onto an online assessment system that requires no trainers and raters, takes 75% less time to complete than the assessment center process, and has higher validity and reliability as an assessment technique. What should the HR manager do with the information they have uncovered? A. Create a business case including cost-benefit analyses of both options. B. Forward materials about the online option to the VP of HR and let them make their own decision. C. Put it aside as an option that is not viable now but should be researched and tested further. D. Move forward with option that the HR manager deems to be the best.
A.
An HR manager is asked by the Vice President of HR to define and implement a simulation-based assessment center that uses specially trained observers to rate each candidate's performance. The need is to assess which employees have potential for promotion into management. The VP of HR is familiar with this practice, having used the technique in a prior company, and she sees the assessment center as a best practice innovation. The VP of HR is new and comes from a large but entirely domestic organization with an aging workforce. Her new company is a global organization with eight operations located around the world. It is highly diverse in terms of ethnicity, and the average worker is probably 15 to 20 years younger than the VP of HR is used to. In researching methodologies, the HR manager stumbles onto an online assessment system that requires no trainers and raters, takes 75% less time to complete than the assessment center process, and has higher validity and reliability as an assessment technique. What would be the best criteria to use in deciding whether to implement either or both assessment alternatives? A. Validity in predicting success and accessibility to all qualified employees. B. Opinions from a few of the HR manager's colleagues who have used the system in their company. C. Cost-effectiveness and number of employees who can be assessed in each period. D. Acceptance by users and time required for assessment.
A.
An HR vice president briefly reviews the company's employee performance scores and relevant compensation increases over the past four years. The data reveals a .7 correlation between performance scores and salary increases and a significance level of less than .05. Additionally, the HR VP finds that the use of personal days increases by 30% around the annual performance review time and production falls by 5%. Over the past three years, there has been a steady decline in profits and employee morale. Employees seem less engaged, and both the voluntary and involuntary turnover rates are currently 15 percentage points over the industry average. The senior team asks HR if there is any correlation between the performance scores, decreased production, and employee engagement. As the HR VP is conducting a cursory review of the current performance management system and analyzing the data to make recommendations, the CEO asks the HR VP to increase all salaries by 4%, citing the correlation between salaries and performance as a rationale. The next week, at the weekly management team meeting, one of the senior leaders states that at her previous company the employees were 80% engaged, and she suggests using the same number as an engagement benchmark. The CEO likes this number and asks the HR VP to put a plan in place to meet this engagement number. Another senior leader suggests to the HR VP that the company should prohibit the use of personal leave before, during, and after the review period. How should the HR VP respond to the CEO's request to use a benchmark figure of 80%? A. Explain that all engagement surveys and organizations are not equal and additional research is needed before launching an engagement survey and establishing a benchmark. B. Have the HR department launch an engagement survey to all employees asking for their level of engagement so that an engagement benchmark can be established. C. Agree with the CEO's assessment that it is a good benchmark since there is external evidence to support it. D. Ask the managers for their perceptions as to why they believe employee engagement is low.
A.
How should an HR professional use trend analysis? A. To plan possible responses to changes in labor supply B. To understand how the organization's policies can be adapted globally C. To assess the effectiveness of organizational development efforts D. To align organizational and HR strategies
A.
The owner of a small sales company approaches the HR manager to discuss annual promotion decisions. Due to the company's small size and limited budget, only a few employees are promoted to a supervisory role each year. Promotions result in employees receiving increased responsibility and increased salary. The owner tells the HR manager that the owner wants to promote an employee who was hired six months ago. The new employee has been performing at a high level, and the owner believes the employee has demonstrated leadership potential. However, the owner is concerned about accusations of favoritism because the owner has also become close friends with the new employee. This especially concerns the owner because other employees at the company would receive negative promotion decisions despite having more tenure with the company. The owner worries that more-tenured employees may decide to leave the company if they are not promoted. Promotion decisions are currently made by the owner and are based on quarterly ratings of overall performance. What should the HR manager recommend to improve how promotion decisions are made? A. Create a list of behavioral performance standards to evaluate promotion candidates. B. Ask promotion candidates to create and submit a list of their qualifications for promotion. C. Collect performance ratings on a monthly basis and use those ratings to inform promotion decisions. D. Advise the owner to delegate hiring decisions to the HR manager.
A.
The owner of a small sales company approaches the HR manager to discuss annual promotion decisions. Due to the company's small size and limited budget, only a few employees are promoted to a supervisory role each year. Promotions result in employees receiving increased responsibility and increased salary. The owner tells the HR manager that the owner wants to promote an employee who was hired six months ago. The new employee has been performing at a high level, and the owner believes the employee has demonstrated leadership potential. However, the owner is concerned about accusations of favoritism because the owner has also become close friends with the new employee. This especially concerns the owner because other employees at the company would receive negative promotion decisions despite having more tenure with the company. The owner worries that more-tenured employees may decide to leave the company if they are not promoted. The owner wants to begin hiring more sales employees. The owner asks the HR manager to develop a new job ad because the current ad is outdated and does not detail current job duties and responsibilities. What should the HR manager do first to write the job ad? A. Interview current sales employees about their job tasks. B. Ask HR employees in other sales companies how they make job ads. C. Ask an HR employee to observe the activities of sales employees for a day. D. Search online for existing sales employee job ads to determine the type of content included.
A.
What best describes the appearance of a distribution curve in a data set with a low standard deviation (SD)? A. High and narrow B. Short and tapered C. Wide and bell-shaped D. Flat and long
A.
A call center needs to hire more than 1,000 employees over the next three months to meet its hiring needs for a new health-care contract. The terms of the contract require that all employees have clear background screenings and at least half be multilingual. Currently, 25 managers and 10 employees meet all the requirements. Senior management has offered to actively participate in the hiring process and has made many suggestions, including group interviews, mass training, and virtual hiring and training. The CEO has asked HR to take the lead in putting together a comprehensive project plan within the next week to be presented to the management team. Which stakeholders are the most critical for HR to include in the initial project planning process? A. Members from local sources for recruiting new employees. B. Recruiting manager, talent development manager, and employee relations manager. C. Law enforcement personnel who will conduct background screenings. D. The 35 employees currently meeting contract requirements.
B.
A company has experienced a high degree of turnover during the past year. Senior leadership is concerned about the amount of turnover and worried that HR is not moving fast enough to fill these positions. The hiring managers say that the applicant pools have been weak lately and they have had trouble finding qualified applicants to hire from within the pools HR provides. HR has relied heavily on recruiting by word of mouth, which in the past has generated applicants that fit the company's culture. The award for referrals that result in hiring has also been popular with employees. What would be the best way for HR to address the senior leaders' concerns about turnover? A. Tell senior management that HR will ask the hiring managers why so many positions are open in order to determine the cause of the turnover. B. Tell senior management that HR will do an analysis of the current turnover rate across fiscal years to determine if the turnover rate has changed drastically. C. Tell senior management that HR will meet with hiring managers about projecting hiring needs more effectively. D. Tell senior management that HR will benchmark the company's experiences against those of similar companies to determine if the organization's situation represents an industry-wide trend or is an isolated occurrence.
B.
A restaurant chain located in multiple regions with thousands of employees makes a policy change in its payment procedures. The new policy requires servers at sit-down restaurants to take table orders from patrons and collect payment before the meal is brought to the table instead of after the food is served and consumed. A few months after implementation, several customers file complaints of unfair treatment, alleging that servers are being selective and not all guests are asked to pay for their meal immediately after the order is placed. An investigation by the VP of HR reveals that indeed not all employees are following the new protocol, resulting in different service experiences. The VP of HR identifies a critical, immediate need for training to mitigate risk related to any future allegations of unfair treatment of guests. The company's president is in agreement with the idea. However, she will support only a limited financial contribution for the training. The VP of HR shares the purpose of the training, the time line, and key deliverables during an HR team meeting. The team expresses concerns about the nonnegotiable, short time frame, the total number of employees to be trained, and the impact on other initiatives in progress. How should the VP of HR ensure the effectiveness of the training? A. Implement the program across the company once the design phase is complete. B. Invite HR managers and randomly selected employees to a pilot class and make adjustments based on their feedback. C. Collect employee feedback forms after the training and share results with all employees. D. Identify select HR managers to participate in a pilot class and make adjustments based on their feedback.
B.
A small division of a company lacks a formal compensation structure for employees. Due to recent recruitment and retention challenges, the division recognizes the need to review newly hired and existing employees' pay rates to ensure market competitiveness and internal equity among staff. For a number of years, the division has lacked human resources support and relied upon the general managers to determine initial pay rates for new hires as well as promotional rates for internal staff based on the amount of hours worked and the employee's attendance record. No pay ranges currently exist, and leaders have the discretion to pay whatever fits within their budget. On occasion, a human resources representative from another division has offered general advice on pay practices to the division's leadership. However, they have their own divisional responsibilities, and therefore there has been very little oversight. The divisional president is considering whether or not to bring in a contract human resources leader to research, design, and implement an appropriate pay structure for all positions. How should the HR leader approach analyzing internal equity among the employee population as part of the compensation structure project? A. Keep the pay rates of the current employees the same and focus only on those hired going forward. B. Review employees' rates of pay to determine if they are appropriately positioned within the range. C. Recommend that newly hired employees be paid a minimum rate of pay when joining the organization. D. Focus only on nonmonetary items and other benefits to reward tenure and address internal equity issues.
B.
A small division of a company lacks a formal compensation structure for employees. Due to recent recruitment and retention challenges, the division recognizes the need to review newly hired and existing employees' pay rates to ensure market competitiveness and internal equity among staff. For a number of years, the division has lacked human resources support and relied upon the general managers to determine initial pay rates for new hires as well as promotional rates for internal staff based on the amount of hours worked and the employee's attendance record. No pay ranges currently exist, and leaders have the discretion to pay whatever fits within their budget. On occasion, a human resources representative from another division has offered general advice on pay practices to the division's leadership. However, they have their own divisional responsibilities, and therefore there has been very little oversight. The divisional president is considering whether or not to bring in a contract human resources leader to research, design, and implement an appropriate pay structure for all positions. Why should the division president be concerned about having a compensation structure? A. A compensation structure will enhance the strategic business partnership between human resources and finance. B. A compensation structure can help to reduce turnover by offering competitive salaries to attract new talent while promoting fair pay practices to retain tenured staff. C. The president shouldn't be concerned, since the organization has survived so long without having a formal compensation structure in place. D. A compensation structure will educate leaders how to budget for new hires in the future.
B.
An HR manager is asked by the Vice President of HR to define and implement a simulation-based assessment center that uses specially trained observers to rate each candidate's performance. The need is to assess which employees have potential for promotion into management. The VP of HR is familiar with this practice, having used the technique in a prior company, and she sees the assessment center as a best practice innovation. The VP of HR is new and comes from a large but entirely domestic organization with an aging workforce. Her new company is a global organization with eight operations located around the world. It is highly diverse in terms of ethnicity, and the average worker is probably 15 to 20 years younger than the VP of HR is used to. In researching methodologies, the HR manager stumbles onto an online assessment system that requires no trainers and raters, takes 75% less time to complete than the assessment center process, and has higher validity and reliability as an assessment technique. The VP of HR has already indicated a preference for the assessment center approach, what would be the most effective way to reopen the options for this project? A. The HR manager should lobby the other VPs to convince the VP of HR to consider other options. B. The HR manager should emphasize business needs met by the online assessment option that are not provided by the traditional method. C. The HR manager should urge the VP of HR to experience the online option by completing an online assessment herself. D. The HR manager should conduct a small pilot study on their own and present company-related data rather than the manufacturer's claims.
B.
An HR vice president briefly reviews the company's employee performance scores and relevant compensation increases over the past four years. The data reveals a .7 correlation between performance scores and salary increases and a significance level of less than .05. Additionally, the HR VP finds that the use of personal days increases by 30% around the annual performance review time and production falls by 5%. Over the past three years, there has been a steady decline in profits and employee morale. Employees seem less engaged, and both the voluntary and involuntary turnover rates are currently 15 percentage points over the industry average. The senior team asks HR if there is any correlation between the performance scores, decreased production, and employee engagement. As the HR VP is conducting a cursory review of the current performance management system and analyzing the data to make recommendations, the CEO asks the HR VP to increase all salaries by 4%, citing the correlation between salaries and performance as a rationale. The next week, at the weekly management team meeting, one of the senior leaders states that at her previous company the employees were 80% engaged, and she suggests using the same number as an engagement benchmark. The CEO likes this number and asks the HR VP to put a plan in place to meet this engagement number. Another senior leader suggests to the HR VP that the company should prohibit the use of personal leave before, during, and after the review period. Which recommendation should the HR VP make after conducting the review and analysis of the current performance management system? Answers A. Do nothing, since correlation does not imply causation. Recommend leaving the performance management system the way it is. B. Suggest a complete review of the performance management system due to perceived central tendency errors. C. Wait six months and then review the performance management system again to see if the data remains consistent. D. Eliminate the current performance appraisal process, since there is no correlation between performance scores and salary increases.
B.
Management has requested that HR conduct a focus group to better understand the results of a recent compensation survey. Which is the most important factor HR will want to consider when forming the focus groups? A. Focus group objectives should be kept general to encourage the group to move in its own direction. B. Members should be a representative sample of the employee population. C. Participants should include only subject matter experts to ensure that the time is well spent. D. The focus group facilitator should be well known to participants, preferably one of their managers.
B.
What is the mode of the salary values $50,000, $50,000, $45,000, $70,000, and $65,000? A. 45,000 B. 50,000 C. 54,000 D. 59,000
B.
A company sends an employee engagement survey to a randomized group of employees. Upon viewing the demographic data, the HR manager notices that a disproportionate number of the employees surveyed were male. What bias should the HR manager be concerned about? A. Response B. Selection C. Sampling D. Performance
C.
A restaurant chain located in multiple regions with thousands of employees makes a policy change in its payment procedures. The new policy requires servers at sit-down restaurants to take table orders from patrons and collect payment before the meal is brought to the table instead of after the food is served and consumed. A few months after implementation, several customers file complaints of unfair treatment, alleging that servers are being selective and not all guests are asked to pay for their meal immediately after the order is placed. An investigation by the VP of HR reveals that indeed not all employees are following the new protocol, resulting in different service experiences. The VP of HR identifies a critical, immediate need for training to mitigate risk related to any future allegations of unfair treatment of guests. The company's president is in agreement with the idea. However, she will support only a limited financial contribution for the training. The VP of HR shares the purpose of the training, the time line, and key deliverables during an HR team meeting. The team expresses concerns about the nonnegotiable, short time frame, the total number of employees to be trained, and the impact on other initiatives in progress. What step should the VP of HR take to communicate the reason for the training? A. Instruct the marketing department to send a company-wide e-mail discussing the training. B. Direct the learning and development team to introduce the new workshop in a monthly blog. C. Send a video to employees from the president explaining the revised policy and the training. D. Allow supervisors to communicate the pending change and training in their respective staff meetings.
C.
A small division of a company lacks a formal compensation structure for employees. Due to recent recruitment and retention challenges, the division recognizes the need to review newly hired and existing employees' pay rates to ensure market competitiveness and internal equity among staff. For a number of years, the division has lacked human resources support and relied upon the general managers to determine initial pay rates for new hires as well as promotional rates for internal staff based on the amount of hours worked and the employee's attendance record. No pay ranges currently exist, and leaders have the discretion to pay whatever fits within their budget. On occasion, a human resources representative from another division has offered general advice on pay practices to the division's leadership. However, they have their own divisional responsibilities, and therefore there has been very little oversight. The divisional president is considering whether or not to bring in a contract human resources leader to research, design, and implement an appropriate pay structure for all positions. How should the HR leader address the information uncovered in relation to promotional pay practices? A. Implement a wage structure program considering employees' insights and suggestions. B. Be transparent and share the information with all employees during a company meeting. C. Benchmark multiple data sources and recommend a comprehensive structure for all positions. D. The HR leader should not worry about the practice, as it has worked for the organization for years.
C.
What data analysis tool should be used to show the relationship between employees' formal education and job performance ratings? A. Pie chart B. Trend analysis C. Scatter diagram D. Pareto chart
C.
Which action best illustrates the use of evidence-based decision making in HR? A. Staff participates in monthly lunches to discuss recent studies in journals on organizational performance. B. A director bases promotion decisions on the recommendations of trusted staff. C. Staff performs a regression analysis to identify likely factors for success in candidate profiles. D. HR documents and educates all staff about standard operating procedures.
C.
A call center needs to hire more than 1,000 employees over the next three months to meet its hiring needs for a new health-care contract. The terms of the contract require that all employees have clear background screenings and at least half be multilingual. Currently, 25 managers and 10 employees meet all the requirements. Senior management has offered to actively participate in the hiring process and has made many suggestions, including group interviews, mass training, and virtual hiring and training. The CEO has asked HR to take the lead in putting together a comprehensive project plan within the next week to be presented to the management team. Which should be the first step HR includes in the project plan to meet hiring needs and contract requirements? A. Offer the 35 qualified employees incentives for referring additional qualified applicants. B. Determine the format and evaluation method for the interviews. C. Prepare an onboarding process to introduce new employees to the contract. D. Develop a recruiting strategy to reach as many potential applicants as possible.
D.
A new CEO has asked the HR team to complete an engagement survey to assess the organization's culture. She requests that tenured employees must participate. What type of bias does this present? A. Response B. Performance C. Selection D. Sampling
D.
An HR professional is analyzing retention rates across all the functions and divisions in a large organization. There is a high standard deviation (SD) for the dataset. What does this indicate? A. A high number of errors were made in the data entry process. B. The dataset was probably not structured appropriately for analysis. C. Retention rates are unusually uniform across the organization. D. There is a considerable spread in the data from high to low rates.
D.
An HR vice president briefly reviews the company's employee performance scores and relevant compensation increases over the past four years. The data reveals a .7 correlation between performance scores and salary increases and a significance level of less than .05. Additionally, the HR VP finds that the use of personal days increases by 30% around the annual performance review time and production falls by 5%. Over the past three years, there has been a steady decline in profits and employee morale. Employees seem less engaged, and both the voluntary and involuntary turnover rates are currently 15 percentage points over the industry average. The senior team asks HR if there is any correlation between the performance scores, decreased production, and employee engagement. As the HR VP is conducting a cursory review of the current performance management system and analyzing the data to make recommendations, the CEO asks the HR VP to increase all salaries by 4%, citing the correlation between salaries and performance as a rationale. The next week, at the weekly management team meeting, one of the senior leaders states that at her previous company the employees were 80% engaged, and she suggests using the same number as an engagement benchmark. The CEO likes this number and asks the HR VP to put a plan in place to meet this engagement number. Another senior leader suggests to the HR VP that the company should prohibit the use of personal leave before, during, and after the review period. How should the HR VP respond to the CEO's request to increase all salaries by 4%? A. Agree, since the data reveals causation. B. Agree with the CEO to implement salary increases, since it is believed that employee engagement and salary increases are correlated with performance. C. Inform the CEO that while increasing salaries may have a short-term impact on employee performance, the HR VP cannot guarantee longer performance improvements with a salary increase. D. Agree with the CEO in regard to the strong correlation; however, since the data does not reveal causation, more research and discussion would be needed prior to increasing everybody's salary.
D.
An HR vice president briefly reviews the company's employee performance scores and relevant compensation increases over the past four years. The data reveals a .7 correlation between performance scores and salary increases and a significance level of less than .05. Additionally, the HR VP finds that the use of personal days increases by 30% around the annual performance review time and production falls by 5%. Over the past three years, there has been a steady decline in profits and employee morale. Employees seem less engaged, and both the voluntary and involuntary turnover rates are currently 15 percentage points over the industry average. The senior team asks HR if there is any correlation between the performance scores, decreased production, and employee engagement. As the HR VP is conducting a cursory review of the current performance management system and analyzing the data to make recommendations, the CEO asks the HR VP to increase all salaries by 4%, citing the correlation between salaries and performance as a rationale. The next week, at the weekly management team meeting, one of the senior leaders states that at her previous company the employees were 80% engaged, and she suggests using the same number as an engagement benchmark. The CEO likes this number and asks the HR VP to put a plan in place to meet this engagement number. Another senior leader suggests to the HR VP that the company should prohibit the use of personal leave before, during, and after the review period. How should the HR VP respond to the request to prohibit personal leave near the performance review time? Answers A. Agree that production is important and suggest an additional approval level to use leave before or after the review. B. Since production is important to the bottom line, agree and implement this as a policy. C. Agree, since the data indicates that eliminating personal days will solve the company's problem. D. Inform the leader that current turnover and production decreases are likely a systemic issue from low engagement and recommend not decreasing personal days.
D.
The owner of a small sales company approaches the HR manager to discuss annual promotion decisions. Due to the company's small size and limited budget, only a few employees are promoted to a supervisory role each year. Promotions result in employees receiving increased responsibility and increased salary. The owner tells the HR manager that the owner wants to promote an employee who was hired six months ago. The new employee has been performing at a high level, and the owner believes the employee has demonstrated leadership potential. However, the owner is concerned about accusations of favoritism because the owner has also become close friends with the new employee. This especially concerns the owner because other employees at the company would receive negative promotion decisions despite having more tenure with the company. The owner worries that more-tenured employees may decide to leave the company if they are not promoted. The owner asks the HR manager how to retain longer-tenured employees who do not get promoted. What should the HR manager recommend? A. Hold a social event thanking the longer-tenured employees for their work. B. Send a company-wide email thanking all employees for their hard work this quarter. C. Improve the benefit package for longer-tenured employees. D. Conduct stay interviews to determine why longer-tenured employees have stayed at the company over time.
D.
The owner of a small sales company approaches the HR manager to discuss annual promotion decisions. Due to the company's small size and limited budget, only a few employees are promoted to a supervisory role each year. Promotions result in employees receiving increased responsibility and increased salary. The owner tells the HR manager that the owner wants to promote an employee who was hired six months ago. The new employee has been performing at a high level, and the owner believes the employee has demonstrated leadership potential. However, the owner is concerned about accusations of favoritism because the owner has also become close friends with the new employee. This especially concerns the owner because other employees at the company would receive negative promotion decisions despite having more tenure with the company. The owner worries that more-tenured employees may decide to leave the company if they are not promoted. The owner wants the HR manager to decide whether to promote the employee who was hired six months ago. What should the HR manager do? A. Promote the new employee and one longer-tenured employee. B. Promote the new employee and ask the owner to end the friendship with the employee. C. Promote the new employee but implement a fraternization policy. D. Collect 360-degree feedback on the new employee to ensure that the employee is a high performer.
D.
Which best describes the mode in a set of data? A. Average of numbers B. Range of values C. Middle point of values D. Value appearing most often
D.
