HRMD630 MIDTERM EXAM
HRMD 630 Mid-Term Exam
This is an open book exam that must be completed as an individual assignment. There are 20 multiple-choice questions (1.5 points each = 30 points), 5 short-answer (5 points each = 25 points), and 3 essay questions (15 points each = 45 points).
Please submit only your answers through Assignments. USE THE PROVIDED ANSWER SHEET FOR THE MULTIPLE CHOICE. Your file should be a word (preferred) or .pdf document and label your file with last name, MTE (i.e. StengerMTE). Short Answer should only be ½ page and essays, no more than 2 pages each. You can append your written answers to the multiple choice sheet or submit a separate file.
Multiple Choice Questions
1.) A software company has a high turnover rate. What staffing strategy would be most appropriate?
A) hiring people with the potential to be promoted over a period of years
B) hiring people quickly even if their skills are not as high as required
C) slowing down the hiring process to try to find better recruits
D) filling vacancies quickly with people who are able to perform with minimal job training
2.) An FTE is defined as:
A) a full-time equivalent employee
B) an independent contractor working at least 36 hours per week
C) an applicant that is searching for work on a full time basis
C) a plan for recruiting full-time workers
3.) Janson Engineering has found it difficult to recruit experienced project managers to lead its many projects. Which of the following would be a proactive action that may help close current and future gaps?
A) adjusting the mix of employees versus contractors
B) working with local universities and colleges to create courses that focus on project management skills
C) source candidates from similar industries with project management skills
D) all of the above
E) A & B only
4.) Which of the following is not a step in workforce planning?
A) look at internal and external factors to estimate job demand
B) calculate the replacement need
C) look to the future for redundancies
D) conduct a strategy meeting to analyze selection methods
E) all of the above are steps in workforce planning
5.) Employment-at-will is an employment relationship which ________.
A) allows either the employee or employer to terminate the employment at any time
B) offers blanket protection to employers for all employee discharges
C) allows an employer to terminate employment only for a just cause
D) offers employees a contract for a definite term of employment
6.) Which of the following examples would qualify the company to hire the intern as an unpaid employee?
A) a local college engineering student is hired to help with filing and data entry for a small engineering firm.
B) an accounting student is given an opportunity to shadow one of your company’s accounting employee’s prior to starting work with the company in the fall.
C) the local university has an internship requirement for their Computer Science majors. The internship is for six weeks and the student must report weekly to their advisor to review their progress.
D) your organization is hiring college students whose parents work at the company for the summer.
7.) Which of the following is the first step in the typical workforce planning process?
A) identifying the firm’s business strategy
B) articulating the firm’s strategic staffing decisions
C) developing and implementing action plans
D) conducting a workforce analysis
8.) The job analysis technique that uses worker oriented job elements is the ________.
A) task inventory method
B) job elements method
C) position analysis questionnaire
D) structured interview method
9.) In analyzing a job of a stenographer that is to be advertised as a vacancy, an employer found that the ________ for the job was rapid typing skills.
A) bona fide occupational qualification
B) employee value proposition
C) desirable criteria
D) essential function
10.) Which of the following would be classified as a skill rather than knowledge, ability or other characteristics?
A) Familiarity with OSHA laws.
B) Operating a forklift.
C) Mentor and coach others.
D) Communicate efficiently in writing and orally.
11.) DAK Corporation had kept all its hiring plans on hold during the last four quarters because the economy was in a state of recession. DAK manufactures oil filters, air filters, and spark plugs for several major auto manufacturers. The company is analyzing market trends in order to reassess its hiring strategy for the coming year. Which of the following, if true, would best support the argument for restarting hiring?
A) The previous recession had only lasted a year.
B) Though there was a decline in profits compared to the previous year, the company recently reported the best numbers in its industry.
C) Auto manufacturers have aggressively started hiring more staff.
D) One of DAK’s fiercest rivals has started laying off its employees.
12.) A systematic process of identifying and describing the important aspects of a job and the characteristic a worker needs to perform the job well is a ________.
A) legal audit
B) job analysis
C) bona fide occupational qualification
D) job specification
13.) Which of the following establishes a prima facie case of discrimination based on disparate treatment?
A) plaintiff applied for a job/promotion; the job was filled by an applicant of another race or gender
B) plaintiff is part of a protected class; he/she applied for a job/promotion etc.; selection ratio for those similarly situated was less than 80 percent
C) plaintiff is part of a protected class; he/she applied for a job/promotion etc.; was rejected, but the job remained open or was filled by someone else
D) the selection ratio for protected class A (the minority group) is less than 80 percent of the selection ratio for protected class B (the majority group)
14.) The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 protects people _______.
A) 30 years of age or older
B) 40 years of age or older
C) 50 years of age or older
D) 60 years of age or older
15.) The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act ______.
A) ensures that members of the uniformed services can return to their civilian employment after their military service ends
B) ensures that veterans are equally represented in the workforce
C) provides job training to members of the uniformed services to assist them in transitioning to civilian jobs
D) requires that a job board be maintained for the sole use of veterans transitioning to civilian jobs after their service ends
16.) A hotel chain that is recruiting front desk receptionists receives 200 applications from males and 100 applications from females. 100 out of 200 men are hired and 25 out of 100 women are hired. Which of the following statements is true of the hotel chain’s hiring policy?
A) There is evidence of a disparate impact of the hiring process on males as a group.
B) There is evidence of a disparate impact of the hiring process on females as a group.
C) There is no evidence of any disparate impact.
D) There is evidence of disparate impact against both males and females.
17.) Which of the following is a characteristic of independent contractors?
A) They have a continuous relationship with the employer.
B) They do not receive benefits from the employer.
C) They control the processes and results of their work.
D) They do not pay their employment taxes, the employer does.
18.) Which of the following visually shows each of the possible successors for a job and summarizes their strengths, present performance, promotion readiness, and development needs?
A) scatter diagrams
B) perceptual maps
C) talent inventories
D) replacement charts
19.) Which of the following is NOT a reason cited in your readings that a company would want to consider current employees as a valuable resource for finding qualified new hires?
A) Current employees generally refer only individuals they believe would make exceptional employees.
B) Applicants hired through employee referrals are more likely to be given a realistic preview of the job which helps them make a good decision as to whether they would fit with the organization.
C) Heterogeneity of a firm is affected positively by this method.
D) This method of recruitment will help to locate qualified candidates that may have not been looking for a job.
20.) Which of the following is NOT a benefit of hiring interns?
A) Provides an opportunity for you to assess a student directly
B) Allows for extra hands to help with administrative tasks
C) Allows a student to get a good view of what working for your organization would be like.
D) Gives the organization an opportunity to find good quality hires for future opportunities.
Short Answer Questions
Respond to all five of the following questions. You should use the Grading Rubric for Written Assignments in the Content area for this MTE (Look at Week 6 materials and Resources) to help you when submitting your responses. Please remember that grammar and spelling are important! You will receive five points maximum for each question.
1. What is the public policy exception to employment at will? Give one example of a termination that may be construed as an exception to employment at will based on public policy.
2. Define disparate impact and disparate treatment. How do they differ?
3. Define job description and job specification and describe how they are used.
4. Compare and contrast replacement charts and succession planning?
5. Discuss the different ways in which a firm can deal with temporary employee surpluses.
Essay Questions
Respond to all three of the following questions. You should use the Grading Rubric for Written Assignments in the Content area (Look at Week 6 materials and Resources) to help you when submitting your responses. Please remember that grammar and spelling are important! You will receive 15 points maximum for each question.
Question 1: What is affirmative action? What is an affirmative action plan?
Question 2: You have just taken on the role of Director of Recruiting at a grocery chain. The first thing you notice is that the Careers page and the website for your company does not represent your company’s desire to be an employer of choice. You have embarked on a quest to change that and your CEO has asked what you think about the company’s website. He has noticed that Fortune Magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” in 2016 listed three grocery stores in the top 100. They are:
(a) Nugget Markets
(b) Wegmans Food Market
(c) Whole Foods Market
Your CEO has asked you to research their websites and provide an evaluation of what you see. You should access the websites of these markets and conduct the following analysis:
Consider and specifically evaluate the design factor considerations (specifically address organization website design information found in your readings) Using this information provide an analysis to your CEO of these websites along with suggestions that would improve the recruitment section of each one.
Please remember – your response should be written for a CEO to read. Grammar, style, and punctuation are important for good communication in HR but CRITICAL when you are communicating with the executive suite. Remember – executives do not want to read a novel – you must learn to be brief but get your points across effectively. Your final analysis is worth a total of 15 points. No more than 2 pages should be submitted for this question and use citations where required!
Question 3: The We Deny Everything Insurance Company (WDE) handled a massive volume of claims each year in the corporate claims function, as well as in its four regional claims centers. Corporate claims were located in sunny California and the regional offices were located in Atlanta, Cleveland, Providence, and Las Vegas. Corporate claims were headed by the senior vice president of corporate claims (SVP). Reporting to the SVP were 2 managers of corporate claims (MCC-Life and MCC Homeowners/Residential) and a highly skilled corporate claims specialist (CCS).
Each regional office (4) was headed by a regional center manager (RCM). The RCM was responsible for both supervisors and claim specialists within the regional office. The RCM’s reported to the vice president of regional claims (VPRC). This is the structure before reorganization (I suggest you draw a chart for your own reference).
WDE decided to reorganize its claims function by eliminating the 4 regional offices (and the RCM position) and establishing numerous small field offices throughout the country. The other part of the reorganization involved creating 5 new CCS positions. The CCS position was to be redesigned and upgraded in terms of knowledge and skill requirements. It was planned to staff these new CCS positions through internal promotions from within the claims function.
The plaintiff in the case was Ron Whyme, a 53 year old RCM. Since his job was being eliminated, Ron was asked by the SVP to apply for one of the new CCS positions. The other RCM’s, all of whom were over the age of 40, were also asked to do so. Neither Ron nor the other RCM’s were promoted to the new CCS positions. Other candidates were also bypassed, and some of them were also over the age of 40. The promotions went to 5 claim specialists and supervisors from within the former regional offices, all of whom were under age 40. Two of the newly promoted employees had worked for, and actually reported to Ron, as the RCM.
Ron was not happy. Upon learning of his failure to be promoted, Ron wanted to determine why he was not promoted. What he learned led him to feel he has been discriminated against because of his age. Ron retained experienced and expensive legal counsel, Bruce Lincoln. Lincoln, a high-powered litigator, met informally with the SVP to try to determine what had happened in the promotion process and why his client Ron had not been promoted. Lincoln was told that there were a large number of candidates who were better qualified than Ron and that Ron lacked adequate technical and communication skills for the new job of CCS. The SVP refused to reconsider Ron for the job and said that the decisions were “final”. Ron, through his attorney Lincoln, then filed a suit in federal district court, claiming a violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (1967). Lincoln then subpoenaed numerous WDE documents and files including the personnel files of all applicants for the CCS positions.
Based on discussions with Ron and the subpoenaed documents, the following information emerged about the promotion process actually used by WDE. The SVP and the 2 MCC’s conducted the total process. They received no input from the VPRC or the HR department. There was no formal written job description for the new CCS position, nor was there a formal internal job posting as required by company policy. The SVP and the MCC’s developed their own list of employees that they thought might be interested in the job, including Ron, and then met to consider the list of candidates. At that meeting, the personnel files and previous performance appraisals of the candidates were not reviewed or consulted. After deciding on the 5 candidates who would be offered the promotion (all 5 accepted), the SVP and the MCC’s did browse the personnel files and appraisals of only these 5 employees to check for any disconfirming information about the employees. None was found.
Inspection of the files by Lincoln revealed no written comments suggesting age bias in past performance appraisals for any of the candidates, including Ron. Also, there was no indication that Ron lacked technical and communication skills. All of Ron’s previous appraisal ratings were above average, and there was no evidence that Ron’s performance had declined recently. An interview with the VPRC (Ron’s boss) revealed that he had not been consulted at all during the promotion process. Ron’s boss could not believe that Ron had not been promoted and in fact said that he was “shocked beyond belief”. In his opinion, there was “absolutely no question” that Ron was qualified in all respects for the CCS job.
Based on the facts above your must respond to Part A and Part B below:
Part A: Prepare an analysis that presents a convincing disparate treatment claim that Ron has been intentionally discriminated against on the basis of his age. Do not address the claim as a disparate impact one. (Hint: Look at the elements for a prima facie case of discrimination in Week 2)
Part B: Prepare a rebuttal, from the viewpoint of WDE, to the disparate treatment claim.
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