Free SHRM SHRM-CP Exam Questions

Which activity is part of the assessment and selection step of the global assignment process?

Under the system of codetermination, whose approval is required by management prior to implementing strategic plans?

An HR manager is the liaison for the sales department at an organization with roughly 600 employees. Recently the organization had a slight downturn in revenue and profit. To save money, over the past year, the sales department's senior management has laid off several administrative assistants and assigned their work tasks, such as photocopying and processing sales orders, to the sales staff. Additionally, the department has modified its compensation system by reducing base pay but increasing sales commissions. The HR manager believes that the additional work duties and new compensation system have put substantial stress on employees. It's been observed that employees seem dissatisfied with their jobs and are leaving the organization or thinking of leaving. One recently departed employee told the HR manager that he had looked for a new job because the increased workload caused him to make fewer sales, thereby significantly reducing his salary.

The HR manager brings their concerns to the vice president (VP) of sales. The manager tells the VP that he is worried about the effects of these changes on the department, such as high turnover and the loss of institutional knowledge. The VP disagrees with the manager; he believes that turnover is good for the department because poorly performing employees are leaving. The VP notes that one employee comes in late, leaves early, and takes a long lunch break every day. The VP believes that the recent changes to compensation save the company money by not employing administrative assistants and motivate sales employees to work harder by focusing on sales commissions. The VP tells the HR manager to ignore employees' complaints and focus on hiring new employees who are willing to take on the additional tasks and work harder.

Which approach is most effective for the HR manager to use to resolve his disagreement with the vice president of sales?

A global consulting firm hires a director of business development from outside the organization, much to the disappointment of one of the managers in the department, who also applied for the position.

This manager complains bitterly about the decision to go outside of the firm, and he continues to exhibit disruptive and angry behavior. He feels that he has been unfairly treated, since he believes that he has more experience than the newly hired director.

Two months later, the new director of business development has made changes that most of her team are quite excited about. Unfortunately, this does not include the disappointed manager. He openly criticizes the director's ideas, even escalating this criticism to the CEO. He comes to HR to discuss his options in the company.

The new director has also come separately to HR regarding the continued hostility from this manager and also about a new employee on the global sales team, who tends to stay to herself and does not interact with the rest of the team. The new sales employee has no problems with attaining her sales goals, but the director does not see her as a "team player" and asks the HR manager for assistance with how best to deal with both of these situations.

What response should the HR manager provide to the disappointed and angry manager?

A young learning and development specialist, having recently completed graduate studies in adult education and training, is hired into an HR department that has a strong history of management and employee training programs. For now, the specialist's assignment is to undertake scheduled revisions of specific elements in the learning and development system.

The programs have been well-attended and well-received by the organization, so there has been little need to change the learning approach. The specialist soon realizes that, while the course content is well-designed, built on sound practices, and engaging for participants, it offers little support or direction for transferring learning to the job environment. It is missing a major opportunity for improving job performance. She also notes a lack of competency-based learning that can be used by participants and their managers as performance standards to make it easier to implement and assess learning and performance levels.

The specialist would like to propose changes, but she is new to the company and the HR function. Her colleagues are older than she is and much more experienced. They have created or directed the curriculum that she wants to change. She notices that they smile condescendingly when she speaks at department meetings about her ideas. They seldom talk to her and have been rather harsh in their reviews of her initial projects. It is difficult for her to argue for change using actual data because the evaluation tools the department uses focus primarily on Kirkpatrick's Levels 1 and 2.

How can the specialist improve her relationship with her colleagues?