Workplace
Situation in which a person or organization may benefit from undue influence due to involvement in outside activities, relationships, or investments that conflict with or have an impact on the employment relationship or its outcomes.
Conflict of Interest
Defensive behavior that occurs when an organization recruits a diverse workforce but, consciously or otherwise, promotes assimilation rather than inclusion.
Covering
State in which an organization's strategy is consistent with its external opportunities and circumstances and its internal structure, resources, and capabilities.
Strategic fit
Systematic and comprehensive evaluation of an organization's HR policies, practices, procedures, and strategies.
HR Audit
Leadership approach in which the leader sets a model for high performance standards and challenges followers to meet these expectations.
Pacesetting leadership approach
How would a bank teller who works 38 hours per week and is paid $36,000 per year be classified under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)?
Non-Exempt Employee
Rationale:
According to DOL Fact Sheet #17, an employee would need to meet the salary requirement of $684 per week ($35,568 per year) in order to be exempt. The employee would also need to fit into one of the white-collar exemptions (executive, administrative, professional, outside sales, and, depending on the state, computer employees). A bank teller would most likely not fit into one of the white-collar exemptions, regardless of making above the salary threshold.
Statistical method that examines data from different points in time to determine if a variance is an isolated event or if it is part of a longer trend.
Trend Analysis
Employees' emotional commitment to an organization, demonstrated by their willingness to put in discretionary effort to promote the organization's effective functioning.
Employee Engagement
Act of reorganizing the legal, ownership, operational, or other structures of an organization.
Restructuring
Quantifiable measures of performance used to gauge progress toward strategic objectives or agreed standards of performance.
Key Performance Indicators (KPI's)
According to the upstream/downstream strategic model, what HR activities are most likely to be placed at headquarters?
Workforce alignment
Rationale:
The upstream/downstream model considers it useful to localize downstream HR activities (compensation, benefits, labor relations), placing them closer to HR customers. Upstream functions (strategic planning, workforce alignment) should be closer to corporate headquarters.
Providing guidance to organizational stakeholders; involves diagnosing problems or identifying opportunities, developing effective solutions, winning support for solutions, and implementing them effectively.
Consulting
A retail sales manager of a bank sees a commercial for a local competitor advertising low rates for a home equity loan. The next day, the manager develops a promotion offering a lower rate than the competitor’s. What conventional business strategy is this?
Red Ocean
Rationale
Red ocean strategies seek to obtain market share through lower cost or differentiation. Blue ocean strategies create competitive advantage through innovation, typically by creating a completely new arena. A growth strategy is simply the way in which an organization tends to grow. Focus strategies apply cost leadership or differentiation within narrow industry segments.
A company has reorganized its employees into new team structures and employee morale declined. Which stage of team formation is the company in?
Forming
Rationale:
In Tuckman’s ladder of team development, forming identifies when individuals come together around a common activity and shared goals. Members are polite, but there is little sense of trust, shared experience, or common values.
HR structural alternative in which headquarters HR specialists craft policies and HR generalists located within divisions or other locales implement the policies, adapt them as needed, and interact with employees.
Functional HR
What term describes a web of interconnectedness or the movement of people (labor) and knowledge (technology) across borders?
Globalization
Rationale:
This describes globalization. Offshoring relates to the practice of basing some of a company’s processes or services overseas in order to take advantage of lower costs. Multicultural relates to or constitutes several cultural or ethnic groups within a society. Generation Z is referred to as the first "digital-native generation."
An organization has mature products and services, and HR believes that the organization has grown somewhat complacent and is not learning or improving. What could HR recommend the organization adopt to get it out of the status quo?
Balanced Scorecard
Rationale:
A balanced scorecard features a feedback and learning component. This provides organizations with more opportunities to learn from ongoing performance.
Which type of learning program would best suit an organization where employees at all levels expect to be able to access training anywhere and anytime, across varied formats?
A 'Pull' Learning model
Rationale:
A "pull" training model allows employees to access training anywhere and may feature content in various formats, accessible from work computers, personal computers, and mobile devices. A "push" training model is more rigid and works well for required training, such as compliance training, but wouldn’t be broadly suitable for the organization.
In an effort to sustain change, how can HR ensure a positive relationship between strategy and organizational culture?
Align culture and strategy for maximum effectiveness.
Rationale:
Organizational culture is a lever that can increase or decrease strategic effectiveness, depending on whether culture and strategy are aligned. HR provides leadership with a structural diagnosis, identifies gaps and conflicts, and develops change initiatives. Conflict does not always produce innovation. There may be multiple subcultures, even in the most effective organizations.
A global consulting organization with employees in 23 countries is concerned about the ability to communicate with employees during a crisis. The CEO asks the HR director to develop a written communication plan. What should be the HR director’s first step?
Create an executive communication team to oversee the project.
Rationale:
Senior management will know the organization’s operations best and where inability to communicate would have the greatest impact. Obtaining information from senior management regarding the most valuable assets and their vulnerabilities will help the director prioritize his or her focus.
How does a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program impact employee retention?
Increases brand image as an ethical and sustainable organization
Rationale:
Employees want to be associated with an organization that is viewed by the public as ethical and sustainable.
According to Edgar Schein, implicit culture represents the innermost layer of culture. What cultural features does this layer include?
Basic Assumptions
Rationale:
Basic assumptions depict the innermost layer of culture. Artifacts and products as well as norms and values are outer layers of explicit culture. Power distance is not a layer at all.
What tool uses in-basket tests, role plays, and psychological inventories to gauge the abilities of a company’s leadership team?
Assessment Centers
Rationale:
Only assessment centers are integrations of in-basket tests, role plays, and psychological inventories.
When opening a new software facility in China, what first step should be accomplished as soon as possible to evaluate the labor market for the new facility?
Conducting a supply analysis of available employees
Rationale:
Evaluating the current supply of U.S. workers and Chinese workers will help to identify the skill sets required and how many workers from each country will be needed.
The HR manager needs to determine the retention rate of a cohort of employees hired one year ago. The manager knows the number of employees from that cohort who still remain in their positions. What additional information about the cohort does the HR manager need to calculate the retention rate?
Number of employees hired one year ago.
Rationale:
The retention rate is calculated by dividing the number of employees hired at the start of the measurement period (in this case, one year ago) by the number of those employees who remain at the end of the measurement period. The number of employees hired less than one year ago (within the measurement period) should not be counted, and the employee absence rate is not relevant to this calculation. The turnover rate is a complementary metric to the retention rate; it gives the employer a more complete picture of retained and separated employees.