Exam 2

Steve has a small company with 12 employees. One of his employees, Larry, has been laid off because his work has been outsourced. Larry had health coverage through Steve's company and he wants to continue that coverage after being laid off. According to C.O.B.R.A. how long can Larry continue his coverage through Steve's Company?

0 months

CEO average pay is...

14.3 Million

On average how much more do union employees in the public sector make than the private sector

22%

The majority of defined benefit plans calculate average earnings over the last _____ years of service for a prospective retiree.

3 to 5

Difference in union __________ higher in union environment for benefits

30-40%

For an employee to gain lifetime coverage under Social Security, they must have worked for_____ quarters during which they were covered by the Act.

40

Alternatives to financing benefit plans include all of the following except:

401K

A study of ratings of managers found that approximately ____ percent were rated below average.

5

The differential between supervisors' base pay and their highest paid subordinate is typically _____ percent

5-30%

Approximately _____ percent of employers who offer child care also offer elder care.

50

Data from WellPoint shows that __ percent of its customers' accounts for over 60 percent of its medical costs.

7

Approximately _____ percent of social security benefits go to retirees and their dependents.

70

Dental insurance is provided by _____ percent of all employers with above 500 employees.

90

_____is the most frequent method of benefit communication.

An employee benefit handbook

Movement through wage range where seniority is specified through the movement

Automatic Progression

Which of the following is not one of the clauses relating to benefits employers can provide executives?

Average value of benefits for low-paid employees must be at least 90 percent of those for highly paid employees

When a job involves very routine, mechanistic tasks, the best appraisal format that is most appropriate is:

BARS

Which of the following is not a part of the cost-centered approach for deciding to provide a benefit?

Basing benefits on historical costs

Which of the following is not a benefit administration issue?

Benefit adequacy

In 1959, benefits were approximately _____ percent of payroll and in 2010, the percent was _____.

C. 25, 30

The total cost of employee benefits in the U. S. is _____ dollars.

C. four trillion

_____ allows employees who have resigned or were laid off to continue to purchase health insurance under their employer's plan.

COBRA 1984

Which of the following involves periodically adjustment changes in consumer price index?

COLA - Cost of Living Adjustment

_____ is not an example of an approach to customer-driven health care.

Cafeteria plans

Which of the following is not a defined contribution plan?

Cash-back

Which of the following statements is true regarding ways to improve rater training?

Combine performance-standard and performance-dimension training.

_____ is/are not a method of determining employee

Competitor pay surveys

_____ is/are the primary reason why businesses adopt flexible benefit programs.

Cost savings

Which of the following would an employer be least likely to use if they sought to reduce benefit costs?

Defined benefit plans

Which of the following is not a major benefits planning and design issue?

Diversity compliance

Two ways to make money on a stock

Dividend Selling Appreciation

In recent years, some firms have tried to deal with the plateau effect and also accommodate the different career motivations of mature scientists and engineers through a(n) _____.

Dual Career Ladder Style

Which of the following is not one of the dimensions on which an appraisal format is evaluated?

Employee agreement

Which of the following is not a reason for the move to contingent workers?

Employees who accept the idea of bounded careers may view contingent status as part of a fast-track developmental sequence

Employee Stock Options

Encourages ownership. Part owner of the company

In the negotiation stage multi year wage the manger mark from cifo specifies changes with the consumer price index and mentions it will effect the adjusted dates. Which of the following types of clauses has Mark introduced into time contract

Escalator Clause

_____ mandates 12 weeks of leave for all workers at companies that employ 50 or more people.

FMLA 1993

Which of the following types of workers are generally not covered by workers' compensation?

Farm workers

The major reasons motivating U.S. corporations to provide domestic partner benefits include all of the following except:

Federal legislation mandating these provisions

Which of the following acts has caused HR and information technology staff considerable difficulty regarding compliance and privacy?

HIPPA

_____ was designed to reduce an employer's ability to deny coverage to an employee based upon a preexisting condition.

HIPPA

Which of the following is not an example of a method to control health care costs by changing the structure of health care delivery systems?

In-house medical teams

A primary benefits objective of most employers is to:

Increase employee understanding of plan objectives.

Louie received the highest performance rating and is in the second quartile of his pay range, and received a pay increase of 8 percent. Bart also received the highest performance rating and is in the third quartile. Given the way most merit increase grids work, what size pay increase would you expect Bart to receive?

Less than 8 percent

Across five studies ranking preference for benefits,_________ had the lowest average rating.

Long-term disability

The best appraisal format for employee development is:

MBO

The most common form of outcomes-based appraisal is:

MBO

When a job involves less routine tasks, but an outcome can be specified, an excellent rating format is:

MBO

All of the following are true findings regarding MBO except that:

MBO requires less documentation than other rating methods.

In what type of system are annual goals established and passed down through the organization?

Management by objectives

Deferred Wage Increase

Negotiation at the beginning and over time certain amount determined

Which of the following is not a disadvantage of flexible benefit programs?

New benefits are more difficult to introduce.

Which of the following benefits has been found to increase productivity in organizations?

No benefit has been found to increase productivity.

Reopener Clause

Open negotiations again @ certain time or condition

An account set up to cover part of a high health care deductible is a:

PCA.

_____ represent a variation on health-care delivery in which there is a direct contractual relationship between and among employers, health-care providers, and third-party payers.

PPOs

Which of the following types of rankings would be least preferred by managers of more than 10-15 employees?

Paired comparisons

The __________ act requires individuals to maintain minimal essential health insurance coverage or pay a penalty unless exempted for religious beliefs or financial hardship.

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Which of the following is not a benefit that is required by statutory law?

Pension and retirement benefits

Which of the following benefits are not mandated by state or federal legislation?

Pensions

A _____ is a cash or stock award earned through achieving specific goals and is taxed as ordinary income.

Performance Share Plans

The question, "Does the instrument lend itself well to validating employment tests?" applies to which criterion of appraisal formats?

Personnel research

Which of the following is the most popular executive perk offered by most companies (91 percent)?

Physical Examination

_____ is a hybrid health plan combining features of HMO and _____.

Point-of-service, preferred provider organization

CEO of boardcom inc in June negotiates new contract with union leader if James wants to reduce expenses and and keep the union happy. Which of the following suggestions would be most helpful

Provide lump sum award in exchange for merit base

Which of the following (is)are not true regarding performance appraisals?

Race has no effect in layoff decisions.

Which of the following is most likely to motivate employees to perform better?

Raises based on demonstration of competencies

In which of the following rating formats are leniency, severity, and central tendency errors not present?

Ranking

_____ relieve an employer's liability when a pre-employment injury combines with a work-related injury to produce a disability greater than that caused by the latter alone.

Second-injury funds

Jennifer is hurt at work while driving a forklift. Her employer claims that she was driving too fast and therefore she is responsible for her own injury and is not eligible for workers' compensation. What will be the outcome of the employer's challenge to her worker's compensation claim?

She will likely receive workers' compensation benefits.

Which of the following benefits is a federally administered program?

Social Security

Last year your performance was not very good and your performance rating was below average, but this year you have done very well exceeding your performance goals. To your surprise, your boss gives you just an average performance rating. What error has your boss most likely committed?

Spillover

_____ is/are one of the most preferred benefits.

Stock plans

A useful tool for determining the true worth of an entire executive compensation package is a ____________.

Tally Sheet

Which of the following is not a strength of supervisors as raters?.

Their ratings show little halo and leniency.

What do yo call pay plan where contracts negotiated the specify employee hired after give target date see more wages than peers?

Tier two

_____ plans are more favorable to long-term than to short-term employees.

Traditional defined benefit

Which of the following statements is true regarding rater training?

Training to reduce halo and improve accuracy have been most successful.

_____ is (are) a relatively uncommon form of board of directors' pay. '

Tying pay to stock performance

What group is NOT a special group?

Unpaid Interns

Lump Sum

Used to reduce cost one time thing

The first question to ask in determining how much retirement income an employer should provide is:

What level of retirement compensation should be provided?

Which of the following statements is not true?

Workers whose performance is consistently average are rated higher than those with greater variability.

_____ has been described as a major cost of doing business.

Workers' compensation

The general health care plan that uses a direct contractual relationship between employers, health-care providers and third-party payers is:

a PPO.

All of the following are categories of rater training except _____ training.

behavior modeling

A comparison of employee benefits for private and state and local government sector reveals that:

both wages and benefits are higher in the state and local governments.

Raters who are low on conscientiousness and very agreeable tend to:

commit leniency error.

Contingent workers receive _____ benefits than regular workers; contingent workers' benefits cost employers _____ than regular workers.

fewer, less

The traditional performance component of the balanced scorecard is__________

financial

Research shows that the best predictor of executive pay, by far, is _____.

firm size

A type of benefit plan that allocates a set dollar amount to employees and allows them to select benefits is called _____ plan.

flexible benefit

"Rank and yank" is a _____ rating format.

forced distribution ranking

All of the following factors are reasons for the growth of benefits except:

foreign competition.

Today, _____ percent of the workforce is covered under the pension plan coverage by their employers.

forty-nine

An employer experiencing high turnover and seeking to reduce pension cost is likely to prefer:

full vesting after three years.

The highest level of agreement among respondents to a study of successful MBO programs was on the fact that:

goals and objectives should be specific.

An employee who changes jobs four or more times during their career will likely experience a pension approximately _____ as that of an employee whose working career is spent with one employer.

half the size

Telling raters that sometimes the work environment and system affect job performance more than the individual employee's behavior:

leads to higher ratings.

The typical employee can recall _____ percent of the benefits they receive.

less than 15

If the work of a secretary is judged by the number of words per minute and errors per page, the measure is:

likely deficient.

The _____ component of executive compensation has grown the most since the 1970s.

long-term incentives

A _____ is an employer-provided subsidized basic medical plan with buy-up options.

managed competition

All of the following are benefits under Social Security except:

medical expenses for work-related injuries.

Surveys show that the most highly valued benefit is:

medical insurance.

A negative outcome of MBO is ________

performance pressure and stress increases

Teaching raters what constitutes good, average, and poor performance is _____ training.

performance-standard

All of the following are cost containment practices except:

physical exams of all new hires.

Employer advantages of defined contribution plans versus defined benefit plans include all of the following except:

pre-retirement contributions are smaller.

All of the following are examples of methods to motivate employees to change their demand for health care except:

promotion of preventive health plans.

A major criticism of standard rating scales is:

raters have different definitions of scale levels

First impression error is to _____ error as leniency error is to severity error.

recency

A recent survey shows that the majority of employers are responding to increased benefit costs by______

requiring employees to pay higher deductibles and copays.

In situations in which the nature of the task is so uncertain that it may be difficult to specify expected goals, the most appropriate rating format is ______________

standard rating scale

In the _____ type of performance evaluation, supervisors answer open-ended questions.

standard rating scale

The criticism, "different raters have different ideas about what "average work" is, is associated with the ________ rating format.

standard rating scale

When tasks are highly uncertain and it is not clear how to define successful performance, the most appropriate rating format is:

standard rating scales.

The most reliable performance ratings are done by:

supervisors

Subordinate ratings ___________ .

tend to be inflated if they are not anonymous.

Which of the following is not true regarding self-ratings? Self-ratings:

tend to be more reliable than peer ratings.

The most widely used benefit survey is conducted by:

the U. S. Chamber of Commerce.

Deming's major argument regarding performance appraisals is that:

the work situation is the major determinant of performance.

Executives, supervisors and sales staff often receive special compensation treatment because _____.

these jobs face conflicting demands.

Roughly _____ of all employees have access to paid life insurance.

three-fourths

A customer-driven health care plan that offers employees a choice of medical plans that include systems of varying cost is the:

tiered networks.

Which of the following is the most likely reason unions insist on group base performance measures with equal pay outs to members

to cut down and strife measure internal corals

All of the following are steps to creating a good performance appraisal process except:

use experienced consultants to develop the rating process.

An employer seeking to use pensions to reduce turnover is likely to prefer:

vesting 20 percent after 2 years and 20 each year thereafter.

The first issue in setting up a benefits package is:

who should be protected or benefited.

All of the following except _____ would be considered a special compensation group.

workers covered by the ADA

_____ is one of the best appraisal formats in terms of legal defensibility.

BARS

_____ is the best appraisal format across the five criteria for evaluating rating formats.

BARS

All of the following are advantages of flexible benefits except:

administrative expenses increase.

In _____ ranking, raters look at a list of employees, decide who the best employee is, and cross that person's name off the list. From the remaining names, the manager decides who the worst employee is and crosses that name off the list—and so forth.

alternation

The type of health insurance requiring covered employees to use designated doctors and facilities is __________.

an HMO

A type of general health care plan in which health services are provided for a fixed fee at a specific site is:

an HMO.

The major complaint of both managers and employees regarding the appraisal process is that: .

appraisals are too subjective.

The best way for companies to decide whether or not the company can afford a benefit is on a _____ basis.

cost-centered

Tiered networks, managed competition and health savings accounts are all examples of choices for _____________

customer-driven health care.

In a _____ plan an employer agrees to provide a specific level of retirement pension, which is expressed as either a fixed dollar or a percentage-of-earnings amount that may vary (increase) with years of seniority in the company.

defined benefit

All of the following are ways to control unemployment taxes except:

dismiss employees "for just cause" rather than by layoffs.

A study of the factors affecting MBA students' job choice showed _____ was ranked as least important.

employee benefits

Advantages of employer sponsored life and health insurance include all of the following except:

employees can choose coverage levels.

All of the following are advantages of managing benefits via the internet or intranet except:

employees have fewer interactions with HR staff.

Experts attribute the decline in dollar cost of workers' compensation cost after 2005 to:

employer safety programs.

Unemployment insurance is usually financed by:

employer taxes paid to both federal and state funds.

All of the following except _____ are factors affecting employer choices of components of a benefits package.

equity

Among peer raters, the most objective evaluations are given by:

high performing workers.

The rising costs of Social Security have been covered by:

increases in the maximum earnings base and the tax rate at which it is taxed.

All of the following are strengths of 360-degree feedback except that it:

is useful for both administrative and development purposes. B. improves employee self-awareness.

Employers prefer contributory benefits financing for all except which of the following?

more favorable tax treatment

The proportion of outside-to-inside the company members of the board of directors in two-thirds of companies is _____.

more outsiders than insiders

Some companies have dropped the use of "rank and yank" because _____.

of law suits charging age discrimination.

The biggest trend in cost-containment is:

outsourcing.

The time of benefit provided by the largest percent of both large and small firms is

paid time off

The most prevalent practice these days, in place of short-term sick leave is:

paid time off.

Various studies have found that only two specific benefits curtailed employee turnover: _____ and _____.

pensions; medical coverage

Merit guidelines allocate pay increases based upon:

performance level and employee position in their pay range.

A recent survey shows employees ranking employee benefits __________ in explaining job satisfaction.

second

As the compensation manager for a small company, the CEO has asked you to explain why an experienced supervisor gave many employees who reported to her inaccurate performance ratings this year. Which of the following factor is not a likely cause for the behavior? The supervisor:

spent too much time preparing the ratings.

In the _____ benefit package, a package is designed with the average employee in mind.

standard