Deck 13: Strategic Human Resource Management

Question 1

The responsibility of attracting a quality workforce encompasses career development, work-life balance, compensation and benefits, retention and turnover, and labour-management relations.

Answer 1

False

Question 2

The use of bona fide occupational qualifications based on sex, religion, age, and national origin are not allowed under any circumstances.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Human resource specialists are increasingly important in attracting, developing, and maintaining a quality workforce in an environment complicated by legal issues, labour shortages, economic turmoil, and changing corporate strategies.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

The basic goal of human resource management is building organizational performance capacity by raising human capital to ensure that highly capable and enthusiastic people are always available.

Question 5

Keeping track of expertise is a challenge in a global workforce.

Question 6

The goal of human resource management is to support organizational performance by aligning people and their talents with organizational strategies and objectives.

Question 7

Person-organization fit is the extent to which an individual's values, interests, and behaviour are consistent with the culture of his or her organization.

Question 8

Affirmative action is an effort to give preference in employment to women and minority group members.

Question 9

The strategic importance of HRM has been accentuated by the spate of corporate ethics scandals.

Question 10

Whenever national origin, race, gender, religion, marital or parental status, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or other diversity characteristics interfere with finding, hiring, and utilizing the best employees, one organization's loss in human capital can be another's gain.

Question 11

Strategic human resource management mobilizes human capital through the HRM process to best implement organizational strategies.

Question 12

Quid pro quo sexual harassment occurs when job decisions are made based on whether an employee submits to or rejects sexual advances.

Question 13

The strategic role of HRM does not extend to supporting core values and corporate culture.

Question 14

In Canada, human resource management practices are affected by the Canadian Human Rights Act.

Question 15

The HRM function being headed by a human resources director reporting to an executive vice president is an important indicator that human resource management is truly strategic in an organization.

Question 16

All organizations that are financially successful treat people as costs to be reduced.

Question 17

The responsibility of developing a quality workforce involves human resource planning, recruitment, and selection.

Question 18

Discrimination occurs when someone is denied a job or a job assignment for reasons that are not job relevant.

Question 19

Race, religion, political belief, and criminal conviction are prohibited grounds for discrimination in all provinces of Canada.

Question 20

People are the most critical and valuable strategic assets an organization can have; consequently, people must be a top priority in any organization with high performance aspirations.

Question 21

The Employment Equity Act applies only to the federal government.

Question 22

A job analysis lists the qualifications required of a job holder.

Question 23

The qualifications required of any job applicant are called job descriptions.

Question 24

Recruitment is a set of activities designed to attract a qualified pool of job applicants to an organization.

Question 25

A job analysis provides information that can be used to develop or update job descriptions and job specifications.

Question 26

Recruiting websites such as Monster and CareerBuilder are sources of internal recruits.

Question 27

Employment equity gives preference to four designated groups-Aboriginals, women, visible minorities, and people with physical/mental disabilities.

Question 28

Before a company can begin the process of attracting a qualified workforce, it must have a clear understanding of the jobs to be done, know what talents are required to perform the jobs, and have systems in place to excel at employee recruitment and selection.

Question 29

A written statement detailing the duties and responsibilities of a job is called a job specification.

Question 30

The potential disadvantages of external recruitment include bringing in outsiders with fresh perspectives, providing access to specialized expertise not otherwise available from current employees, and providing access to work experience not otherwise available from current employees.

Question 31

Sexual harassment occurs when people experience conduct or language of a sexual nature that affects his/her employment situation.

Question 32

The Canadian Human Rights Act guarantees people the right to employment and advancement without regard to race, colour, national origin, religion, gender, age, or mental or physical ability.

Question 33

Higher levels of early job satisfaction, greater trust in an organization, and less inclination to quit prematurely are among the expected benefits of traditional recruitment practices.

Question 34

Each province has the right to impose remedies on organizations that do provide a timely resolution to any discrimination charges brought against them.

Question 35

Comparable worth refers to the notion that persons performing jobs of similar importance should be paid at comparable levels.

Question 36

Until the legal status of employee surveillance through the use of information technology is clarified, the best advice for everyone is to assume your employer will protect your privacy and will let you know whenever you are being monitored.

Question 37

External recruitment brings outsider applicants with fresh perspectives, expertise, and work experience, but extra effort is needed to get reliable information on them.

Question 38

Human resource planning is the process of analyzing an organization's human resource needs and determining how to best fill them.

Question 39

Permatemps are independent contractors that are engaged regularly by the same organization.

Question 40

Job analysis is the orderly study of job facts to determine what is done, when, where, how, why, and by whom in existing jobs or potential new jobs.

Question 41

A selection device is said to be valid when it yields the same results over time if taken by the same person.

Question 42

An application form declares an individual to be a formal candidate for a job and documents the applicant's personal history and qualifications.

Question 43

The best selection decisions are most likely made when responsibility for analyzing all the data and making the final decision to hire or reject an applicant rests with the applicant's prospective manager or team leader, potential co-workers, and the human resources staff.

Question 44

Lift-cam Inc. has an immediate need for accountants and does not have sufficient funds to invest in training. Hence, hiring for best existing qualifications, rather than the best person, should be preferred.

Question 45

Selection is the process of choosing from a pool of applicants, the person or persons who offer the greatest performance potential.

Question 46

In an assessment centre, applicants are evaluated while performing actual work tasks.

Question 47

Work sampling has applicants work on actual job tasks while being graded by observers on their performance.

Question 48

To succeed in a telephone interview, an applicant should be prepared ahead of time, take the call in private, dress professionally, practice an interview voice, have reference materials handy, have a list of questions ready, and ask what happens next.

Question 49

The three steps in the typical recruitment process are advertising job vacancies, screening résumés, and making preliminary contacts.

Question 50

The selection process involves the completion of a formal application, interviewing, testing, reference checks, physical examination, and final analysis and decision to hire or reject.

Question 51

A physical examination helps ensure that the applicant is physically capable of fulfilling job requirements, but it does not provide the basis for enrolling the applicant in health-related fringe benefits programs.

Question 52

Realistic job previews seek to "sell" the firm to outsiders by communicating only the most positive features of the job to potential candidates. Traditional recruitment seeks to provide the candidate with complete information regarding the actual job and organizational features before the job is accepted.

Question 53

Reference checks are inquiries to previous employers, academic advisors, co-workers, and/or acquaintances regarding the qualifications, experience, and past work records of a job applicant.

Question 54

An assessment centre is an employment test that evaluates a person's potential by observing his or her performance in experiential activities that simulate daily work activities.

Question 55

Interviews can be difficult for job applicants, if the applicants are unprepared, are poor communicators, or lack interpersonal skills.

Question 56

One of the major goals of realistic job previews is to promote job satisfaction and reduce turnover.

Question 57

Any selection device should be both reliable and valid.

Question 58

Interviews can be potential stumbling blocks in the selection process, particularly if the interviewer asks the wrong things, talks too much, or lets personal biases prevent an applicant's capabilities from being fully considered.

Question 59

When orientation is weak or neglected, socialization largely takes place informally as newcomers learn about the organization and their jobs through casual interactions with co-workers.

Question 60

Recruiting is the six-step process that involves completion of a formal application, interviewing, testing, reference checks, physical examination, and final analysis and decision to hire or reject.

Question 61

The evaluation purpose of performance appraisal focuses on future performance.

Question 62

The act of sharing experiences and insights between a senior person and a new or early-career employee is known as management development.

Question 63

A performance management system sets standards, assesses results, and plans actions to improve future performance.

Question 64

Top managers will likely benefit from management development programs that focus on developing a better understanding of multifunctional viewpoints.

Question 65

The first six months of employment in a given organization is crucial because it is during this time that original performance expectations are set and patterns for future employee-employer relationships are established.

Question 66

The development purpose of performance appraisal is intended to let people know where they stand relative to performance objectives and standards.

Question 67

The primary intent of orientation is to enable new employees time to complete job-related paperwork.

Question 68

Employee orientation typically involves clarifying the organization's mission and culture, explaining operating objectives and job expectations, and communicating policies and procedures.

Question 69

Socialization is a set of activities designed to familiarize new employees with their jobs, with co-workers, and with the organization as a whole. Orientation is the process of influencing the expectations, behaviours, and attitudes of a new employee in a manner considered desirable by the organization.

Question 70

Management development involves training that is specifically targeted to improve a person's knowledge and skills in the fundamentals of management and leadership.

Question 71

A manager acts in a judgmental role when he or she gives a direct evaluation of another person's accomplishments, and in a counselling role when he or she focuses on a subordinate's developmental needs.

Question 72

Mentoring is a form of off-the-job training in which early-career employees are formally assigned as protégés to senior persons.

Question 73

The critical-incident technique is a behaviour-based approach that can reduce the influence of recency bias on evaluations.

Question 74

A manager is using the behaviourally anchored rating scale method of performance appraisal when the employee's performance is evaluated using specific descriptions of actual behaviours in a given job.

Question 75

When an experienced person provides performance advice to another person, the on-the-job training method being used is known as coaching.

Question 76

The intent of socialization in the human resource management process is to help newcomers fit into the work environment in a way that furthers their development and performance potential.

Question 77

All trait-based performance appraisal methods tend to be very subjective and as a result, have relatively poor reliability and validity.

Question 78

The critical-incident technique of performance appraisal involves keeping a running log or inventory of effective and ineffective job behaviours.

Question 79

Performance appraisal is the process of formally assessing someone's work accomplishments and providing feedback.

Question 80

The evaluation purpose of performance appraisal is intended to assist people in their training and continued personal development.