Compensation and Benefits
What is the longest a job description should be?
1 Page
A job incumbent is:
An employee that is currently working in a job that you are studying
Eligibility refers to:
Being able to participate in the system and to certify on each skill or competency
To create a strategic total rewards plan, you need to understand all of the following except:
Benefits
A company cannot have a hybrid strategy.
False
Understanding the total rewards system will not allow you to create a meaningful total rewards plan.
False
The mean can be heavily influenced by:
Outliers
Which of the following would not be considered a strategic benefit?
Overtime pay
Which employee benefit is a company not legally required to provide?
Paid leave
Intangible rewards include all except:
Paid time off
A _______________________ takes HR out of the role of policing excuses for absences and places responsibility for managing the days off on the employee.
Paid time off bank
__________________ are an important part of the modern workplace.
Social relationships
A compensable factor is a:
Statement of what the organization values
A drawback to designing your own survey is:
Time
Managing total rewards is an art and a science.
True
Understanding weaknesses can help ask the question:
What can we not do?
Understanding threats can help ask the question:
What societal flaws can hurt the organization?
Understanding opportunities can help ask the question:
Where can we improve?
A graphic rating scale is:
Where raters rate the extent to which the job involves the compensable factor
Job-value structure does not answer the question of:
Whom to recruit for jobs
Which benefit is a statutory benefit that is administered by both the state and federal governments and allows employees to receive compensation for job-related injury or illness?
Workers' compensation
Organizations use pay grades and ranges to monitor how well pay rates are conforming to the pay plan. _____________ is frequently used to measure this conformity.
compa-ratio
Employees attribute their own behavior to being ______________ or ________________.
self-chosen; imposed
SWOT stands for:
strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
Job analysis will be _____________ if management and employees do not buy-in to it.
useless
A job family is:
A grouping of jobs that have similar functions or content
Workers in a small manufacturing company are currently paid whatever the CEO feels is appropriate. The company's new compensation specialist intends to determine the relative worth or value of each job in the company as part of setting a new salary scale. Which human resource activity will this compensation specialist be conducting?
A job evaluation
A benchmark job is:
A sample of jobs that is representative of the type, content, and level of jobs in the organization
A Reference ID is:
A series of numbers and letters that is used to reference the job
Central tendency is:
A single number that best represents a group of numbers
When employees have quality relationships with their peers, it can create a climate of ________________________ that provides Intangible Rewards to employees.
Acceptance AND Collectiveness
sunset clause specifies a program's temporary nature in order to allow the organization to ____________ the program according to the results it produces.
Adapt
A reward survey is:
Aggregations of reward information gathered from other market organizations
Human Resource Strategy is to ______ business strategy and CSFs.
Align
Which of the following is not an example of a job family?
All are considered job families
Which of the following job families would not be affected by total rewards?
All job families are affected by total rewards
There are three distinctions that define an individual bonus. Which of the following is not one of the three?
All of the above ( it is a monetary reward given to a single employee based upon that employee's performance, bonuses do not accumulate into base pay, Individual bonuses provided as a lump sum to employees generally make it easier for employees to perceive the value of the reward)
Which approach is not a way to establish internal reward alignment?
All of the above (Classification approach, Job comparison approach, Point factor approach)
Reward forms include:
All of the above (Salary, Retirement, Intangibles)
The purpose of a pilot program is to better understand:
All of the above (The design parameters, how the program is received, the impact of the program)
Strategic measurement means that that the definition of criteria are all conceptually and empirically connected to the:
All of the above (employee, unit, organizational outcomes)
The purpose of grades is to:
Allow jobs creating the same amount of value for the organization to be treated in the same way
In a traditional interview, one advantage would be:
Allowing for exploration and asking for clarification
The employment relationship is:
An agreed-upon basis for organizations and people meeting each other's needs
What is merit pay?
Annual increase based on past performance
The relative level involves which of the following:
Any of the above (Leading the market, Lagging the market, Matching the market)
A traditional interview does not consist of:
Asking about family history
The mean is also known as the:
Average
Total rewards includes:
Base salary and benefits
Broadbanding allows employees to do all of the following except:
Be promotable within a given time period
A downside to the comparison approach is it:
Becomes inefficient as size of company grows
Of the following, which most aligns with the Strategy Shift?
Being involved in business with a value-driven purpose
A company that produces poker chips intends to benchmark its rewards system.Which method should be used to select the benchmark in this scenario?
Benchmark competitors
Through the use of __________________, an organization is going to create a link between its reward structures and the external markets.
Benchmark jobs
A firm publishes a monthly newsletter highlighting top employees and their contribution to the community and firm.Which benefit would the firm derive from this decision?
Better alignment with the employee purpose principle
Self-reported information is important because:
Both A & B (t provides an additional source of data that can help make your overall reward estimates more reliable AND Data sources often are the exact sources that employees use to define market rates and their own reward expectations)
Rucker plans have a ___________ base on metrics.
Broader
A manager is confronted by an employee who says she is thinking about a job offer from another company. Subsequently, the manager wants to collect verifiable data on what competing organizations are paying so the organization can match up with the market. From where can the manager collect this data?
Bureau of Labor Statistics
In the United States, the _________ conducts a National Compensation Survey to measure broad reward practices and levels.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
How can central tendency in compensation be used to improve a market analysis?
By finding the single number that represents how many people are paid
Another name for flexible benefits plans could be:
Cafeteria-style plan
________________________ refers to the direct monetary pay given to an employee in exchange for their contributions to the organization.
Cash compensation
Fringe benefits have become quite ____________ to compensation plans.
Central
In which approach would it appear that jobs are categorized by job descriptions?
Classification approach
Rucker plans provides incentives for:
Collaboration
Which pay system is often used in sales jobs to motivate employees to increase both the number and size of sales that are made?
Commission
_____________________ reward systems are most often used for jobs with a sales component and provide employees a set percentage of the sales that they make.
Commission-based pay
In a dynamic-role based job:
Compensation plans need to facilitate change
An employee has worked for the same company in two locations over the course of 20 years in Europe and North America. The employee has been trained as an international trade specialist and has been promoted to manager of international operations. Which pay basis should be used to compensate this employee?
Competency-based pay
Which of the following is not a readily available way of obtaining reward information:
Competitors compensation plan
Team performance:
Comprises the collective actions of groups of employees
Reliable measurement means that an employee's level of skill, competency, or experience can be measured ___________ across employees and raters.
Consistently
After the deductible has been reached, organizations often have a ___________ approach in which the insurance only pays for a portion of medical expenses.
Cost-sharing
Job analysis needs to be _____________ to achieve buy in.
Credible
The primary outcome of SWOT analysis is to list out:
Critical Success Factors
Which challenge to market analysis is present if a company expands into an international market that has marginally trained workers?
Cultural norms for compensation
In the differentiation strategy, the costs of the organization will be passed on to the:
Customer
A _______________ is where employers require the employee to pay up to a certain amount in medical expenses before the insurance begins.
Deductible
An employee is assigned the task of designing the job-value structure at his company. The employee has defined which jobs are within the organization and how they are related. What is the next step in defining the job-value structure?
Determining job importance
The point factor approach does all except:
Develops revolutionary ideas for job analysis
Similar to the piece rate, the ________________ is where an organization will pay $xx per unit and then pay more per unit after a certain number are produced.
Differential piece rate
The most fundamental question of internal reward alignment relates to the number of ____________ in an organization.
Distinct reward structures
When low distributive justice occurs, which of the following changes will employees not make?
Earning lower rewards
Overlapping grades allow for ___________ career management as employees are promoted up through their own function or take a lateral position in a different function.
Easier
In order to understand total rewards, managers need to understand both the ________ and _____________ value of those rewards.
Economic, informational
This is a benefit to using generic questions in an interview:
Efficient in time
When distributive justice is low, procedural justice receives a lot of_________________.
Employee attention
The value in having policies that slow the process of topping out include all except:
Employee development
Organizational performance includes all but:
Employee satisfaction
Which provision applies if a job is covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act?
Employees who work more than 40 hours in a week must be paid time and a half for each hour they work over the 40 hours.
Red circle rates refer to:
Employees whose pay is above market range
Green circle rates refer to:
Employees whose pay is below market range
Distributive justice perceptions are based upon __________ views of the distribution of rewards in the organization.
Employees'
Cash compensation is monetary pay from ____________ to __________________.
Employers; employees
Choose the answer which does not complete the blank: internal reward alignment is how _______ the relative value of all jobs in an organization is.
Enjoyable
Distributive justice is also known as the:
Equity theory
The Law of Unintended Consequences can appear in the:
Expectancy theory
Employees should always be provided an ___________ for the reward decision.
Explanation
If an employee can leave your organization and retain the benefits of living in a particular location, this will expand the benefits your organization can accrue from positive externalities.
False
In the development stage it is not important to also design a training support system that is customized to the skills or competencies in the system.
False
It is not important to have both the internal reward alignment process and the external reward alignment process in place.
False
Meaningful work would be considered a discretionary employee benefit.
False
One disadvantage to a profit sharing plan is that when the organization has a profit loss, employees owe a certain percentage of their income to the organization.
False
Pay is not a broad category that refers to the monetary compensation that is provided to an employee in exchange for their work.
False
State, county, or city governments conduct some form of compensation survey. These sources would have great utility for smaller, local labor markets. This data is very specific and provides data on most benchmark jobs.
False
The world is changing, and organizations do not have to change with it.
False
There is not a degree of correspondence between pay grade size and range size.
False
Total Reward Systems do not need to be reviewed to ensure that they are not penalizing such OCBs and instead provide a degree of encouragement for those helpful behaviors.
False
With the principle of overlap, it is impossible that an employee in pay grade three could be paid more than an employee in pay grade four.
False
Which benefit program is federally mandated and allows employees time off for the birth of a child?
Family and Medical Leave
Which of the following industries best demonstrates the cost leadership strategy?
Fast food
This is a disadvantage to using generic questions in an interview:
Financial cost
For compensation levels a ___________________ needs to be established.
Floor and Ceiling
In choosing benchmark jobs, organizations should be careful to ensure adequate representation for all of the following, except:
Government mandates
It is important that multiple people had input into the process. This can be done through all except:
Government mandates
When jobs were grouped into________________, it was for the purpose of treating them the same for compensation purposes.
Grades and bands
________________________ ties rewards to the collective actions and results achieved by teams, groups and units in the organization.
Group-based variable pay
Organizations can establish _____________, wherein organizations or employees put pretax funds into an account upon which employees can draw for medical expense reimbursement.
Health savings accounts
Having a panel:
Helps ensure consistency of standard across employees AND Increase an employee's perception of the procedural justice of the system
____________________ is provided for many federally recognized holidays.
Holiday pay
Without any grade structure, a job-based pay strategy could involve ___________ of different reward strategies in one organization.
Hundreds
An employees' satisfaction with work is heavily influenced by ____________________.
Immediate supervisor
Scanlon plans focus on __________________.
Improvements in labor costs
Having a panel ___________the reliability of the system as having multiple people viewing the performance creates a more accurate picture of the employee's behavior.
Increases
One advantage of using subscription information from a third party is:
Industry specific
Through transformational leadership, employees can receive greater ________________ from their membership in the organization.
Intangible rewards
A firm has strong alignment between their core principles and the principles of the employees. As part of their communication system, the firm decides to put out a monthly newsletter highlighting top employees and the good that their work is doing in the community and at the firm.Which benefit would the employees derive from this decision?
Intangible validation of their efforts under the purpose principle
The rollout of capability-based pay systems, like all reward system changes, should be accompanied by:
Intensive communication
Justice theory has three types of justice. Which is not included?
Interchangeable
Employees will compare their rewards to those both __________ and ___________ to the organization.
Internal, external
At which step in job analysis do employers determine the tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a job?
Interview incumbents
What is the next step in the job analysis after identifying the job and observing the workplace?
Interview incumbents
The advantage of the job comparison approach is that it is:
Intuitive and holistic
To what does internal reward alignment refer?
It refers to how an employee's rewards compare to rewards received by others in the organization.
Individual characteristics should be categorized into two categories:
Job analyses, strategic utility
In which approach are jobs compared and "winning" or more "important" jobs get points?
Job comparison approach
In which approach would it appear that jobs are ordered based on rank and file?
Job comparison approach
Several jobs have been grouped into job families based on their functions within the organization. Compensation levels must now be determined to establish internal award alignment. Which part of the job structure describes this human resources activity?
Job evaluation
aWhich two approaches apply to internal reward alignment?
Job-based approach AND individual-based approach
KSAO's stand for:
Knowledge, Skills, Ability, and Other
Which type of market gives job seekers more negotiation power than employers?
Labor-driven
Which type of market gives job seekers more power in negotiating terms of employment?
Labor-driven
_________________ can have an important impact on employees and the meaning they perceive in work.
Leaders
Of the following, which most aligns with Transformational Leadership?
Leading through directions, stories, & actions
Within the cost leadership strategy, the customers will be charged ________________.
Less
Having a scale that would rank abilities from Unable, Somewhat Able, Able, Very Able, Extremely Able, is an example of:
Level definitions
____________________ provide(s) a payout to survivors of the employee upon his or her death.
Life insurance
Within the cost leadership strategy, a business will have a ____________ cost structure.
Lower
When the core purposes of a business align with the values of an employee, then that employee will perceive value in ________________ his or her relationship with the organization.
Maintaining
What industry is commonly known for using the piece rate system?
Manufacturing
Which compensation method is an annual pay increase based on past performance that is added to an employee's base compensation?
Merit pay
Which method for addressing wage and salary compression does an employer use to pay for future performance based on past performance?
Merit pay
The median is the:
Middle number
Generally, an organization that follows the differentiation strategy will be able to pay their employees:
More
The larger, overlapping ranges make it ______ likely that employees can make such moves without having to dramatically raise or lower their pay.
More
An employee fell off a ladder while working and broke a bone.Why did this person receive workers' compensation coverage?
No-fault principle
In a niche-focused strategy, an organization will have to compete with the following strategies:
None of the above
Which job analysis technique is used to collect information by monitoring the work of employees?
Observation
With the increased use of laser-based vision correction, about ________ of plans also cover that procedure.
One-quarter
Because of profit sharing plans, when an _______________ is profitable, the employees receive a portion.
Organization
Gain sharing attempts to align the interests of the __________ with the interests of the ______________.
Organization, employees
An employer has several job incumbents come together to analyze a job. Which job analysis method is used in this scenario?
Panel interview
A professor who has been at a public university for eight years became aware of a website that lists the salaries of all public sector employees in the professor's state. On the website, the starting salaries of two new professors hired in the department were listed as higher than the veteran professor's current salary.What is the major issue being described in this scenario?
Pay inversion
Job evaluation provides the basis for developing a network or configuration of ________ that make up a rewards structure.
Pay rates
Job analysis is gathered by ____________.
People
Organizations get work done through:
People
______________________ are used when the employee is free to not come into work, even if they are not sick.
Personal days
Intensive communication can be damaging if there is:
Poor participation AND Unrealistic expectations
Cost leadership focuses more on:
Price
As gain sharing is intended to align interests, it will do so by doing all of the following except:
Productivity losses
Interactional justice perceptions grow out of whether or not managers and other personnel show _________________________ to employees in their pay-related interactions.
Professionalism and respect
A _______________ is designed to distribute a portion of the firm's annual profits back to the firm's employees.
Profit sharing plan
An employee is getting bored with her job because she has mastered her basic work activities. What is a good way to keep this employee motivated?
Provide a wider variety of tasks to accomplish
A firm is looking for ways to reward its employees and motivate them to work harder. The firm decides to allow top-performing employees to spend a certain portion of their day working on independent projects that they feel can benefit the firm in the future.Which type of reward is this firm offering?
Psychological reward
It is better to have a _____________ approach in job analysis.
Quantitative
Of the following, which most aligns with the Person-Organization Fit stye?
Recruiting for talent as well as match to the organization
Spot awards draw upon __________________ in that they allow for very short gaps between the demonstrated performance and the reception of the reward.
Reinforcement theory
Job descriptions often contain information about the _________ that are important for accomplishing the job.
Relationships
A company implemented actions to improve its return on investment on human capital. The company wants to be the premier employer in the state. The first step was giving more rewards for jobs compared to its competitors. Which type of reward system is this company using?
Relative
The bulk of job descriptions do not include which of the following:
Requirements
Generally speaking, the eligibility should be ____________ to ensure that the number of employees certifying is in line with current and future needs for that capability.
Restricted
What is the foundation of external reward positioning in an organization's overall compensation program?
Reward surveys
Which of the following would not be included as an intangible reward?
Salary
Base pay includes:
Salary or hourly wages
Relationships at work include all of the following except:
Self
______________________ exist within the range of the broad band and are applied to specific job families to provide guidance on appropriate compensation levels.
Shadow ranges
Rewards strategies that work in the ______ term, while the firm is niche focused, may be forced to change in the _______ term.
Short, long
______________________are used for employees and paid even though they do not attend work but the expectation is that an employee is actually unwell when the days are used.
Sick days
In a ____________________, managers are given a cash budget from which they can immediately draw to provide employees with instant recognition of a high performance.
Spot award system
_____________________ provide employees the right to purchase a set amount of shares of stock for a set price.
Stock options
Data aging refers to:
The adjustment of market reward information to take into account how inflation has likely changed the market rates since the data were collected
What is a key concern when designing a variable pay system?
The behaviors that are rewarded need to match the behaviors that are most valued to the organization.
What is the relationship among laws regarding pay?
The benefit to employees dictates which law is followed.
An employee is immediately terminated after being caught embezzling from a firm. The employee has received good but not outstanding performance reviews and is in good health. The employee is a parent of two young children and is not currently enrolled in school when terminated. The employee begins seeking gainful employment immediately after being terminated. How will this situation affect the employee's eligibility to qualify for unemployment compensation?
The employee will be unable to qualify because the employee was terminated for cause rather than involuntarily.
Dispersion represents:
The gap between two data points
A human resources professional at a large law firm needs to fill an accountant position. The job description provides information about the compensation range, firm location, number of employees in the company, minimal qualifications, and company values. Which part of the job description did the human resources professional fail to include?
The job content
Which element of a job description includes the knowledge, skills, and abilities that an employee needs to perform the job at a satisfactory level?
The job specification
What is the definition of a leading market rate strategy?
The organization provides more of a reward than its competitors.
A medical supply company recently announced it is offering a week-long, all-expenses-paid vacation to Hawaii for the salesperson who sells the highest number of a new model of hospital beds in the upcoming quarter. Why might a salesperson be unmotivated in this situation based on the instrumentality perception of expectancy theory?
The salesperson has won similar competitions in the past, but his company retracted the rewards that were offered.
The job value structure represents:
The structure of jobs internally positioned according to their relative value
Why is it important to evaluate pay systems and keep them current?
To attract top employees
Job descriptions can also reference any _______ involved in doing the job.
Tools
A firm bases its pay systems on rewarding the best employee with a large bonus, while giving only standard pay to all the other employees. Additionally, the employee's picture is posted on the wall with a notice about the accomplishment. Which employee motivational theory is this organization practicing?
Tournament theory
This theory explains why people purchase lottery tickets:
Tournament theory
Which of the following is not a Purpose Principle?
Transformational Management
The CEO of a web development company gives employees a lot of freedom to develop new applications, pays employees by the hour, and allows employees to work as needed to develop applications. Because of this approach, the payroll costs vary quite a bit. The CEO would like to get costs under control and make payroll costs more stable.Which approach can be used to bring payroll costs under control and make them more stable in this situation?
Transition employees from an hourly pay model to a salaried pay model
All capability-based pay systems require sources of skill- or competency-related information.
True
All organizations use some form of hierarchy to organize employees.
True
As organizations systematically define their activities in light of their values, there will be a gradual shift towards being involved in businesses with a more value-driven purpose.
True
By using pay form-specific strategies, organizations can create more customized reward systems that are more likely to differentiate them from their competition in the labor market.
True
CSFs take into account both internal strengths of the organization and the external values of customers and markets.
True
Care must be taken to ensure that the distribution of spot awards is based upon legitimate performance behaviors, guarding against a perception that the spot awards are only given to the managers' preferred employees.
True
Cash compensation can have an influence on the employee's perception of how much they are valued at the firm.
True
Dental insurance supports employees in preventative and routine dental expenses.
True
Employee perception of the organization has potential to lead to turnover and performance.
True
Every reward system should be reviewed to ensure that there are policies in place to address each driver of procedural justice.
True
Flexible benefit plans allow employees to allocate a defined number of benefit units to various programs to design a package that more closely matches their definition of value.
True
Geography has a significant impact on how an organization should define its labor market.
True
Human beings have an inherent need for justice in social exchanges.
True
If pay rates are set based upon what a job was three years ago and not what it is today, then it will not meet the needs of the employees doing the job today.
True
It is wise to leave a buffer zone around the current pay rates to ensure that the range is adequate.
True
Job descriptions are simple and cannot contain every detail relating to the job.
True
Job evaluation is a tool to help organizations create internal reward alignment that is both equitable and conducive to effective employee performance.
True
Key personnel throughout the organization should be involved in the data's collection, synthesis, and documentation.
True
Location is one of the largest pieces of the intangible rewards pie.
True
Many forms of employee benefits and intangible rewards are difficult to quantify.
True
Markets are one way to establish the price for any good or service.
True
Merit pay budget and cost of living adjustment pay increases for all employees to account for inflation.
True
Once jobs are broadly organized into such a job structure, the next step is to create a mechanism for assigning their relative value in the organization.
True
Organizations would be wise to recognize that employee choices are often driven more by what they perceive reality to be than what reality actually is.
True
Pay grades are useful as they allow organizations to simplify reward systems because similar jobs can all be treated in the same way.
True
Reinforcement and expectancy theory would both recommend that contingencies in pay be made very clear. TrueFalse
True
Stock options are often reserved for executive compensation plans.
True
The ACA has implications for continued coverage of dependents, lifetime limits on coverage, premium increases, and preexisting conditions clauses in insurance plans.
True
The first challenge in creating a capability-based pay plan (or "system") is to define those individual characteristics that create value for the organization.
True
The goal of job analysis is to understand the work involved in creating value for the organization.
True
The goal of job evaluation is to create a way to measure the value (and relative value) of each job in the organization.
True
The primary reasons that organizations use performance-based pay is to provide an incentive for the types of behaviors and outcomes that enable higher performance.
True
The quality of these peer and team relationships can have a significant influence on employees experiences at work.
True
The selection of benefits should focus on those benefits in the best position to influence choices to join and remain with the organization.
True
The total rewards perspective is broad enough to capture leadership styles in the organization, one of the intangible drivers of employee satisfaction and motivation.
True
Total Rewards are one of those decisions that businesses make that influences their cost structure and their ability to provide those low costs to customers.
True
Using pay grades is useful because it allows the organization to establish different pay strategies for different pay grades.
True
Utilization rates refer to the extent to which employees are using the different benefit options.
True
When a reward system explicitly attempts to vary rewards based upon the capabilities of the employee, it is referred to as capability-based Pay.
True
When you think about a company's health benefits or retirement plan, you are thinking about employee benefits.
True
Within individual-based systems value is assumed to derive from the characteristics of the person within the job, and therefore pay should be driven by the knowledge, skills, experience, or competencies of that individual.
True
Which of the following is not a primary concern when integrating data from multiple rewards surveys?
Understanding government mandates
Gain sharing plans typically are at the ___________that would include a significant number of the employees in a particular location.
Unit-level
Broadbanding allows organizations to:
Use a few broad bands to organize work for pay purposes
_____________________ would be made available as a break from work, with no constraints on why the employee wants to use the time.
Vacation time
Relationships can either add to or reduce the ___________ employees receive from their employment and performance.
Value
Transformational Leaders inspire employees in a way that they see:
Values AND purpose
A pay-form specific rewards strategy is:
Varying pay level strategy across reward types
When employees have a ___________ in the design of the compensation system they are more likely to see the system as procedurally fair.
Voice
