HRCS-310 – Midterm Exam

A firm monitored its employees’ emails and Internet use while on the job. That firm is in violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986.

Women who are employed full-time today make about __________ percent of what men employed full-time make.

Gene uses HR data such as employee demographic information, performance ratings, and employee surveys to try to predict which employees are most likely to quit. Gene is making use of

Approximately __________ percent of mothers with school-age children are employed.

Oftentimes, knowledge goes unshared and unused in organizations because

XLT Corp. wants to employ workers who work out of their homes rather than in the traditional office environment. XLT Corp. is considering outsourcing.

When external forces have already affected an organization’s performance, the strategic changes made by the organization to combat those forces are said to be

XLT Corp. used __________ when it moved jobs from India to Mexico, which is closer to its domestic market in the United States.

Older workers are generally undependable and prefer to operate like free agents.

Technology—and automation in particular—has reduced the number of jobs that require routine tasks and little skill and has increased the number of jobs that require considerable skill.

XLT Corp. needs to take some steps to manage the size of its workforce. All of the following options could help achieve that goal EXCEPT

Pat is in a demographic group that currently accounts for slightly more than half of the American workforce. Pat is most likely female.

Organizational core values form the foundation of a firm’s decisions.

When developing a statement that provides a perspective on where her company is headed and what the organization can become in the future, Elana is working on the organization’s mission.

Clara’s firm has been unable to execute effectively. Clara feels that this can be corrected through educational learning. Clara wants to address which section of the “4As” framework?

In international joint ventures, the issue of culture is one of the top concerns.

An internal analysis enables strategic decision makers to assess an organization’s workforce—its skills, cultural beliefs, and values.​

An organization’s core values are the strong, enduring beliefs and principles that serve as a foundation for its corporate culture.

In the telephone industry, mobile phones and VOIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) are examples of __________ for traditional firms.

In order to be prepared to quickly fill potential job openings with internal candidates, Mary should use skill and management inventories to create an employee replacement chart.

Among Paula’s responsibilities are identifying, developing, and tracking talented individuals so that they may eventually assume top-level positions within the firm. Paula is responsible for succession planning.

An HR manager will use strategic planning to anticipate and provide for the movement of people into, within, and out of an organization.

Clara’s firm has been unable to execute effectively. Clara found that the primary reason is that the firm lacks streamlined processes. Clara has identified a flaw is which section of the “4As” framework?

Core values are the essence of corporate cultures and an expression of their personality.

Which of the following people would not fall under the broad definition of protected classes?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act provides employees with a statutory right to complete religious freedom in the workplace.

Top management at ValuTech want to proactively leverage diversity within the company. The first step towards this goal is to

Which of the following are the two forms of sexual harassment recognized by the EEOC?

A 35-year-old applicant who is denied employment based upon age may file a claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act if the organization hired a 21-year-old.

A “national origin group” is defined as a group of people sharing a common

State and local governments are exempted from the provisions of the Civil Rights Act and Equal Employment law.

Twelve associates at Felton Corp. took a test administered by the firm to be promoted to senior associate. Eight men passed the test, but one man and three women failed it. Because no women passed the test, Felton Corp. did not promote any of the applicants and devised a new selection tool. The eight men who passed could bring a lawsuit against Felton Corp. based on the Ricci ruling.

The managers at ValuTech need to determine whether or not the racial makeup of its staff accurately reflects the surrounding labor market. The best way to collect this information is to

Sarah is responsible for making sure that her employer’s workforce is at parity with the relevant labor market. She accomplishes this by performing a workforce utilization analysis.

Which of the following would be able to use the Equal Pay Act as a basis for a pay discrimination complaint against an employer?

The Griggs case established the principle that employment selection practices must be related to job success.

UniTel is going through a restructuring process. The goal is to structure the organization around projects, rather than around jobs. UniTel is in the process of dejobbing.

KSAOs refer to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other attributes required of a person performing a job.

A critical aspect of industrial engineering is the establishment of time standards for a particular work cycle.

Susan would like to achieve a better balance between her work and personal lives. Her job duties do not require that she actually be in the office in order to complete them, and she has the self-discipline necessary to work alone with little supervision. Which nontraditional work option would be most suitable for Susan to pursue?

A review of certain positions at TRG Corp. revealed that those positions provide substantial freedom, independence, and discretion to the employees who hold them. According to the job characteristics model, these positions contain a high level of feedback.

__________ are groups of highly trained individuals performing a set of interdependent job tasks within a natural work unit. The team members rely on consensus-type decision-making to perform their work duties, solve problems, or deal with internal or external customers.

Neil is interested in job design. He feels that the design of equipment that accommodates human capabilities is more important to business success than just time and efficiency. Ergonomics would be a good field of study for him to pursue.

Work arrangement programs involving a work schedule that differs from normal workweek schedules of 9 to 5, five days a week, include all of the following EXCEPT

A job analysis method by which behaviors that can lead to success and to failure on the job are identified is known as

According to the job characteristics model, what three psychological states of a jobholder result in motivated, satisfied, and productive employees?

A job analysis approach that utilizes an inventory of the various types of work activities that can constitute any job is known as

Why might a manager resist having his or her department restructured into an employee team?

Private employment agencies

Tim wanted to work at TruTech. He did not see any positions advertised by the company, so he sent an unsolicited resume along with a cover letter inquiring about job opportunities. In this recruitment situation, the applicant was active and the company was passive.

Retirees seldom return to work for their previous employers.

Mentoring is an important indicator of management support in career development.

Trade schools can be a good source of applicants even for high-level positions within organizations.

A realistic job preview informs applicants about all aspects of the job, including both its desirable and its undesirable facets.

Often, applicants respond to an advertisement even if they don’t meet the job requirements.

Lines of advancement within an organization are commonly referred to as career paths.

Because it is fast, inexpensive, and easy to do, __________ works well as a means of recruiting.

When TruTech transfers an employee to one of its offices in another city, it offers that employee help with things like moving expenses, buying a new house, and finding a good school for the children. This type of assistance is known as

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) reports that companies with fewer than 50 employees can save anywhere from __________ in time and labor costs annually by hiring a professional employer organization.

A program that offers students an opportunity to learn the job and gain hands-on experience while they are still in college is known as a(n)

A major problem women face in employment is balancing their managerial careers with their families.

Interviews as a method of selection are popular for all of the following reasons EXCEPT

A review of BluTech’s hiring practices indicated that it has a selection ratio of 0.95. This level of selectivity indicates that only the most promising applicants are hired.

While aptitude is important, Ken, a hiring manager, is equally interested in candidates’ agreeableness, extroversion, and openness to experience. He can collect this information by having candidates take personality tests.

Which of the following is inappropriate on an application form?

The selection ratio is the ratio of the number of applicants to be selected to the total number of applicants.

In order to determine the validity of its tests, BluTech tests applicants and then obtains criterion data after they have been hired and on the job for some indefinite period. BluTech is validating its tests through concurrent validity.

Measures of general intelligence, such as IQ tests, are not generally regarded as good predictors of job performance across a variety of jobs.

The type of information obtained from an applicant should be based on

The question “Should an employee who falsified information on a timecard be fired?” might appear on a(n) __________ test.

Validity coefficients range from

Sequential interviews are very common.

The interview remains a mainstay of selection because of all of the following EXCEPT

In order to fit well with the existing team, a hiring manager needs to find a candidate who is agreeable. That means the manager is looking for someone who is

Jennifer’s supervisor has started giving her tasks to do that are important functions of the supervisor’s job. They both see this as a way to prepare Jennifer for promotion into a supervisory position. This type of training is known as

A study by the American Society for Training and Development found that organizations conduct need assessment less than __________ percent of the time.

Benchmarking is concerned with measuring employee retention of training materials at specific points in time.

Lako Systems is calculating the firm’s training costs. While they were able to easily account for the direct costs of the programs, their calculations were somewhat misleading because they left out the indirect costs associated with

By some estimates __________ of employee learning occurs via on the job training.

A football coach has the team watch game tapes to see their errors, and then follows that up with instructions on how to correct them. This is an example of a case study.

__________ involves the use of a learning management system (LMS) , often custom built for the firm by software vendors.

Because management is focused on the ROI of its training programs, it has a program in which managers and trainers feature identical elements and focus on general principles. These elements maximize the criterion of ROI.

Apprenticeship programs originated in

Practicing job tasks enables the trainee to forget about distinct behaviors and become proficient on the subtleties of how they are used.

Awareness building in diversity training provides employees with the KSAOs necessary for working with people who are different from them with regard to race, gender, or age.

Although on-the-job training is the most common means of facilitating learning at the workplace, it is sometimes poorly implemented.

As part of its training-needs assessment, Lako Systems should conduct a person analysis in order to determine what the content of the training program should be by studying the tasks and duties involved in each job.

Dividing the performance evaluation meeting into two sessions, one for the performance review and the other for the employee’s growth plans, is a good strategy to improve communication between the parties.

It is recommended that a diagnosis of poor employee performance focus on all of the following EXCEPT

Which rating format uses three specific behavioral descriptions relevant to each trait and then asks supervisors to evaluate whether an employee’s behavior is better than, equal to, or worse than the standard for each behavior?

When evaluating their employees, managers at TrueBlue focus on measurable contributions that the employees make to the company, rather than just focusing on employee characteristics. TrueBlue is taking a results-oriented approach to performance review.

​The mixed-standard scale method evaluates traits according to a single scale.

​The two most common purposes of performance management programs are administrative and developmental.

An audit of TrueBlue’s performance appraisal process found that it was inexpensive to develop and was easy to use, but that it was not particularly useful for employee counseling or for allocating rewards. TrueBlue most likely uses what review method?

Which method of performance appraisal requires managers to place a certain percentage of employees into various performance categories?

Freedom from criterion deficiency of performance appraisals refers to the extent to which

One major advantage of a behaviorally anchored rating scale is that it is possible to use a scale developed for one job to appraise individuals in another, unrelated job.

Behavior observation scales have rater check statements that they believe are characteristic of the employee.

Developmental purposes for performance appraisal include evaluating goal achievement and validating selection criteria.

Internal customers can provide extremely useful feedback for both developmental and administrative purposes.