SHRM SHRM-SCP Online Practice Questions and Exam Preparation

SHRM SHRM-SCP Online Questions & Answers

• Question 1:

  A hybrid multinational consumer goods corporation operates 8 strategic business units which are fully- functional units with their own vision, direction, product/service, location, and target market under the umbrella of the larger business entity. The corporation has a corporate HR department while the SBUs each have autonomous HR departments that are largely independent from corporate HR. The Head of HR of each SBUs has significant authority to operate in a polycentric fashion and only interact with

  the Head of Corporate HR on a quarterly basis.

  Due to a significant reduction in revenue during the pandemic, the organization has made a decision to streamline its HR structure by adopting a more centralized HR structure that can provide HR services to corporate and the SBUs. The proposed centralization of the HR function is expected to result in cost reduction, consistency in HR operations, and increased HR proficiency.

  Corporate HR has created a team comprising of HR managers, HR business partners and HR admin personnel to originate and implement the new HR services model. Anna is a HR manager from a strategic business unit in California that has been drafted to join the team. Anna has 8 years of cognate HR experience working with various SBUs in the organization. Anna is the only team member who has worked with an SBU, the rest of the team have only corporate HR experience. The team has been

  working for over 3 weeks reviewing the feasibility, advantages and disadvantages of several HR structures, with most team members favoring a shared services and center of excellence model.

  One of the team members anticipates resistance from employees when the announcement of a change in the organization's HR structure is made. Anna agrees and states that the change may lead to apprehension and stress among SBU staff. What is the best tactic the team should adopt to ensure a smooth acceptance by employees?

  A. Develop a business case that details the cost-benefit analysis, timeline, risks and justification for adopting the preferred HR structure model.
  B. Encourage employees to supply feedback on the pros and cons of the newly implemented HR structure versus the old HR structure.
  C. Develop a communication plan outlining the team's purpose, rationale for change, and a summary of its goals.
  D. Proactively communicate to employees on the variety of HR structures and best practice models adopted in comparative organizations.
  C. Develop a communication plan outlining the team's purpose, rationale for change, and a summary of its goals.

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  A communication plan outlines the information the team delivers to employees to help them understand why the change is being made and how it will affect them. These include: communicating what the change will mean for the organization and why it is necessary, and outlining the goals of the change. Option B is wrong because communication should begin before the implementation stage (Note the word "newly implemented". Note that communication is at the core of all successful change initiatives but it has to be communication that is relevant to the issue at hand.

• Question 2:

  __________ involves ensuring proper strategic controls and organizational designs.

  A. Strategy implementation
  B. Corporate governance
  C. Corporate-level strategy
  D. Business-level strategy
  A. Strategy implementation

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  Strategy implementation is the translation of chosen strategy into organizational action so as to achieve strategic goals and objectives. Strategy implementation is also defined as the manner in which an organization should develop, utilize, and merge organizational structure, control systems, and culture to follow strategies that lead to competitive advantage and a better performance.

• Question 3:

  _________ is a siloed, top-down, management-driven approach that sends people to formal training events.

  A. push training
  B. centralized training
  C. pull training
  D. design training
  A. push training

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  Push training is a siloed, top-down, management-driven approach that sends people to formal training events where they receive nice-to-know information.In the push training method, employees are not connected to one another during or after the training event, and do not collaborate. The focus is on attendance, participating, and testing.

• Question 4:

  A women clothing manufacturing company has asked the HR manager to prepare a comprehensive risk management plan for the production plant. The HR manager starts by reviewing the HR manager is preparing a risk management plan for a manufacturing floor. The manager has reviewed the reportable injury and accidents records for the past year and sees that several employees have suffered work- related hospitalizations and amputations. The HR Manager speaks to the insurance agency but decides additional information is needed. What is the ideal way to obtain this?

  A. Conduct a walk-through inspection of the production space to observe workplace conditions and work processes during working hours.
  B. Conduct a workplace survey to managers to determine the risks on the production plant.
  C. Conduct a benchmark study to determine the causes of accidents in comparable organizations.
  D. Conduct an analysis of the manual of the equipment used in the production plant to determine risk causes.
  A. Conduct a walk-through inspection of the production space to observe workplace conditions and work processes during working hours.

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  Walk-through inspections and observations of workplace conditions and work processes are ideal to obtain additional information for identifying injury and accident risks.

• Question 5:

  An HR manager of Terrain Inc., a personal goods retail company has to go on FMLA leave to care for her mother who suffered a fall. The HR manager asks a HR professional in the department to collaborate on her behalf with a consultancy firm to provide recommendations to management on employee engagement. The consultancy firm has conducted a focus group with 15% of support employees and 5% of line employees. The HR professional upon reviewing the firm's work believes the firm's method is insufficient to gather the full information needed to create an effective solution. The HR professional determines that a different data collection method is necessary.

  The HR professional chooses to carry out a survey of all employees, proceeds to obtain the support of the CEO, CFO, and COO and makes a presentation to the senior executive team . The senior executive team approves the HR professional's initiative, the survey is carried out, and 85% of the employees respond to the survey. Impressed with the survey exercise, the CEO shares the survey results with the consultancy firm and requests that the firm works closely with the HR professional in the implementation phase.

  Which factor is critical for the HR Manager to consider before conducting the employee engagement survey?

  A. Top management support and guarantee to act on survey results
  B. Ensure all employees have a say in creating and participating in the survey
  C. Clarify the issues that employees consider important
  D. Strengthen the outcome of the survey by clarifying pertinent issues with an employee focus group
  A. Top management support and guarantee to act on survey results

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  Before conducting the employee engagement survey, it is critical for the HR Manager to ensure top management support and guarantee to take action on the survey results. If executive management does not give its support, the survey exercise is a waste of time and effort.

• Question 6:

  The key difference between the general FMLA leave and the military caregiver FMLA leave is:

  A. requirements pertaining to employer eligibility.
  B. group health insurance coverage requirements.
  C. medical certification requirements.
  D. requirements pertaining to duration.
  D. requirements pertaining to duration.

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  The key difference is the duration. Generally, eligible employees may take up to 12 workweeks of leave during any 12-month period for certain family and medical reasons. For military caregiver leave, the leave duration is extended to up to 26 workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period.

• Question 7:

  An HR team is tasked with leading a change initiative. The leadership team believes that creating a sense of urgency around this change is the best approach. Which change management model should work best to achieve this initiative?

  A. Lewin's change management model
  B. Kotter's 8-step change model
  C. Shield's model
  D. Action research model
  B. Kotter's 8-step change model

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  Kotter's 8-step change model begins with establishing a sense of urgency, making it the most appropriate framework for driving a change initiative that relies on urgency to gain momentum.

• Question 8:

  Under the ADA?

  A. An employee who is addicted to alcohol is not considered disabled
  B. An employee who currently uses heroin is considered disabled
  C. An employee who attends a rehabilitation center for substance abuse is considered disabled
  D. An employee addicted to legal prescription drugs is not considered disabled
  C. An employee who attends a rehabilitation center for substance abuse is considered disabled

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  An individual who is currently engaging in the illegal use of drugs is not an "individual with a disability" when the employer acts on the basis of such use. An employer may not discriminate against a person who has a history of drug addiction but who is not currently using drugs and who has been rehabilitated. An employer may prohibit the illegal use of drugs and the use of alcohol at the workplace. It is not a violation of the ADA for an employer to give tests for the illegal use of drugs. An employer may discharge or deny employment to persons who currently engage in the illegal use of drugs. Employees who use drugs or alcohol may be required to meet the same standards of performance and conduct that are set for other employees. Employees may be required to follow the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988 and rules set by federal agencies pertaining to drug and alcohol use in the workplace.

• Question 9:

  Shade is a new manager hired by Gombe Pharmaceuticals Inc. She has discovered that working conditions are not good for her employees--they work in an environment exposed to electrical accidents, exposure to dangerous chemicals, and machinery hazards. Employees have complained that the work hours are tedious and a key supervisor who reports directly to Shade is often absent and cannot assist the employees on unique customer inquiries and supplies. Shade has decided to analyze this work condition using the Herzberg's motivation-hygiene.

  Which of the following would motivate the employees according to Herzberg?

  A. improvement in working conditions for employee health and safety
  B. fixing the mechanical hazards that cause employee injuries
  C. receiving recognition for a job well done
  D. ensuring the supervisor is present and assist the employees
  C. receiving recognition for a job well done

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  Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory (also known as Herzberg's two-factor theory states that certain factors in the workplace cause job satisfaction while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction, all of which act independently of each other.Motivators include challenging work, recognition for one's achievement, responsibility, opportunity to do something meaningful, involvement in decision making, sense of importance to an organization. Motivators give positive satisfaction, arising from intrinsic conditions of the job itself.Hygiene factors include status, job security, salary, fringe benefits, work conditions, good pay, paid insurance, vacations. Hygiene factors or dissatisfiers do not give positive satisfaction or lead to higher motivation, though dissatisfaction results from their absence. The term "hygiene" is used in the sense that these are maintenance factors. These are extrinsic to the work itself, and include aspects such as company policies, supervisory practices, or wages/salary.

• Question 10:

  An organization has typically allowed individual unit managers to handle all interviews, granting the managers a large degree of autonomy to select candidates. However, the new HR director has identified that this policy has caused a large variance in the actual quality of candidates that are hired, impacting the organization's overall performance. The HR director wants to bring all interviews under the direction of HR, but she receives significant pushback from managers, who fear losing control over who they hire.

  Which is the best option the HR director can select to increase the quality of new hires while respecting the desires of managers to have a final say over who they hire?

  A. Continue to allow unit managers to conduct interviews but require that they employ structured interviews for consistency.
  B. Direct HR to pre-screen applicants but allow unit managers to decide who to interview and to hire independent of pre-screen interview results.
  C. Implement a multi-step interview process where unit managers are allowed to sit in on final interviews and provide input.
  D. Continue to allow unit managers to conduct interviews but require that they employ stress interviews to ensure that selected applicants can perform adequately.
  A. Continue to allow unit managers to conduct interviews but require that they employ structured interviews for consistency.

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  The best option is to allow unit managers to conduct interviews but to require them to employ structured interviews. This will help ensure that all unit managers are consistently assessing candidates, and HR will be able to guide the interview process with better questions designed to elicit valuable responses. Creating a new interview process and minimizing the participation of unit managers will still likely face significant pushback. Pre-screening applicants can help, but, if the unit managers are not required to use the results of the pre-screening interviews, they may not result in the selection of better candidates. Stress interviews may not be applicable to many organizational positions and unit managers may not be able to correctly employ them, resulting in less success with candidate selection.