Summer

 

 

Instructions (read all carefully).                          

1. Please work alone; this is not a group assignment. Test 1 must be submitted to your assignment folder by 11:59 pm EST, Tuesday, June 30^th. Start early!
2. LEO time governs. The university late penalty is 10 points per day late. The late penalty applies even 1 minute after the due date and time.
3. Please submit your answers only in a Word document to your individual student folder. Having the answers only makes it easier for me to grade.
4. I cannot grade assignments submitted only to Turnitin.com. You must submit your test answers to your individual student folder in order for me to grade it.
5. Please be sure you have submitted the Word document you intended; posting the wrong document may cause you to be penalized, especially if it is late.  Please, please double-check by opening your document in your folder after you’ve submitted it to make sure it is complete and the one you intended to submit.  After the deadline, I cannot accept revisions to your assignment. 
6. Please do not email me your test answers. The university requires that graded assignments appear in your student assignment folder.
7. Please remember to contact 360 Support for LEO technical questions. I’m really not a techie. J
8. Realize that I cannot answer questions that are actually part of the test itself. I will answer “administrative type” questions. Post questions to the General Q & A/Class Feedback area (vs. email) so everyone has the same information.
9. Do not consult sources other than those we have already used in the course. The test examines your understanding of the existing reading material, not your ability to do research. Please do use APA to reference your answers. You may create a reference list at the end and use the (author, year) format within the text; or, if it is a direct quote, the (author, year, page number) format.
10. com is required for Part C only. Turnitin.com instructions are in the Content area.
11. You must submit all responses in a Word document to your student assignment folder. I cannot grade responses in Turnitin.com.
12. Good luck!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part A. –Multiple Choice.  Provide the question number and letter answer only. (This section is worth 40% of the test grade.  Each question is worth 2 points). 

 

1. Which of the following is an example of job rotation?
2. Angie is the office receptionist on Tuesdays and Fridays, but Bill fills this job on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday.
3. A worker paints chairs on Monday, operates the metal stamping press on Tuesday and Wednesday, and works on final assembly Thursday and Friday
4. A customer service representative deals with multiple customers during the week.
5. A manager Skypes into a meeting while dealing with a crisis in another part of the company.
6. Employees are given quality control authority over their own work.

 

2. Southwest Airlines gives their ticket agents the authority to resolve customer complaints, including authority to decide whether to issue refunds or provide upgrades. Southwest is exhibiting:
3. Job-audits.
4. Job declension.
5. Job authorization.
6. Job enrichment.
7. Job simplification.

 

3. Harrington manufacturing just received a very large order from a customer. They don’t have the ability to fill the order using their current workforce working a normal workweek and don’t expect to continue receiving such orders from this customer. Which of the following options would best address this temporary shortage of employees?
4. Reducing turnover
5. Outsourcing
6. New hires
7. Overtime
8. Retraining non-manufacturing employees

 

4. Lauren and Casey are working to identify the work processes that create Acme Global’s products. They are beginning with the organizational output. Next they will identify the tasks and the inputs. The tool they are using is _______.
5. job design
6. job specification
7. workflow analysis
8. hoteling

 

5. When identifying the effective labor market, you must determine if you can find the ________ of candidates in that market.
6. best and brightest
7. right number and right type
8. simplest and most eligible
9. easiest and most useful

 

6. Ahmad has identified the recruiting area for Balm Industries new plant. There are many skilled laborers in the area who are looking for work. Ahmad believes that will make his job recruiting qualified applicants easier. Which external force acting on recruiting efforts is Ahmad examining?
7. Competitors
8. Supply and demand
9. Cost per hire
10. Social environment

 

7. Elliot was asked to privately nominate two of his subordinates for promotion to a sales position. He gave the human resource management director the names of his two top workers, Nick and Allison. This recruitment method is known as __________.
8. open recruitment
9. targeted recruitment
10. closed recruitment
11. regular recruitment

 

8. Colleen has a short-term labor shortage. She needs to hire some workers quickly and does not have time to screen them herself. Her best external recruitment source would be ___________.
9. walk-ins
10. educational institutions
11. temporary agencies
12. the internet

 

9. Language Corporation is hiring a translator. The job advertisement reads, in part, “In meetings, translate messages simultaneously into specified languages with a high degree of accuracy while dealing with difficult people who are frustrated by their lack of ability to communicate directly with others in the meeting.” This type of job advertisement would be considered a ___________.
10. high yield advertisement
11. dispatch preview
12. realistic job preview
13. precise advertisement

 

10. Rosie assigned her employees a goal. The employees planned, organized, led, and controlled one another to reach the goal. This is an example of a(n) _______.
11. self-managed work team
12. rotating work team
13. enriched work team
14. integrated work team

 

 

 

 

 

11. Aziz sent all his employees to training on project management. Afterward, Aziz collected data on the time each project took to complete and how much was spent on each project. He compared that data to the same information from before his employees attended training. Aziz was completing a _________ assessment of training.
12. reaction
13. learning
14. behavior
15. results

 

12. When Laura started working in the accounting department, her boss hovered over her all day and constantly double checked her work because she usually made errors. As time went along, Laura made sure she always did her work exactly as the boss would like and that she double checked her own work so the boss would find no errors. Eventually, she found that her boss stopped hovering and double checking her work. What Laura experienced was _________.
13. positive reinforcement
14. extinction
15. punishment
16. negative reinforcement

 

13. “I feel stuck in my job as mid-manager with no chance of moving up.” What is this mid-manager stuck in?
14. A dead job path
15. A dead pan job
16. A horizontal path
17. A career plateau
18. An unstable challenge

 

14. Allie is showing Sam how to process certain types of laboratory specimens. Allie always works one-on-one with new hire employees. Sam and Allie are engaged in a training activity known as ___________.
15. distance training
16. classroom training
17. on-the-job training
18. simulation training

 

15. Robert arrives at work 15 minutes early every day. When Dillon arrives right on time each day, he notices that the boss has already given Robert the best assignments. Dillon decides to start arriving 20 minutes early to try to get the better assignments. What Dillon is experiencing is _________.
16. classical conditioning
17. operant conditioning
18. social learning
19. positive reinforcement

 

16. Patrick is looking for a method of training his employees for complex situations. He would like a method that allows employees to try out experimental solutions to a problem and receive feedback on how they did. Patrick’s best choice of training method would be ________ training.
17. on-the-job
18. classroom
19. distance
20. simulation

 

17. “Give me an example of a time when you used problem-solving technique on a work project” is an example of what type of interview question?
18. hypothetical
19. closed ended
20. representational
21. behavioral descriptive

 

18. When Jacqueline was hired by Tricord Industries to be an office cleaner, the human resource management department skipped the background check. Now Jacqueline has pass keys to all the offices in one of Tricord’s buildings. What a background check would have revealed is that Jacqueline has several past convictions for assault. This could be a case of __________.
19. compensatory selection
20. a negligent hire
21. unfitness for duty
22. compensatory recruitment

 

19. Katherine is hiring a data entry clerk. She is looking for someone who can enter data quickly and accurately. She gives each applicant a set of data and asks the applicant to enter the data into the computer. She measures their speed and accuracy in entering the data. Katherine’s test appears to have _________.
20. business validity
21. content validity
22. construct validity
23. reliability

 

20. Acme Global uses four different selection tests: an honesty test, a skills test, a cognitive ability test, and an interview. To become a finalist, a job candidate must first score highly on the honesty test. After that, the candidate must score at least 50 on both the skills and cognitive ability tests. Once those are passed, the candidate must pass the interview to become a finalist for the job. Acme Global is using a(n) __________ selection model.
21. open-ended
22. inquiry
23. compensatory
24. multiple-hurdle

 

 

 

Part B. – Fill in the Blank.  Provide the question number and answer only. (This section is worth 20% of the test grade.  Each question is worth 2 points.

 

1. What type of interview or interview question is indicated:

 

1. When conducting selection interviews, Kevin does not prepare questions. He prefers to greet each job candidate and allow the interview to develop organically. He says he likes to have more of a “conversation” than an interview with each candidate. His questions to each candidate are different. Kevin uses a(n) __________interview.

 

1. When conducting selection interviews, Barrett likes to ask a series of yes/no questions such as “If hired, can you arrive at work each day by 8 a.m?” and “Do you understand the essential functions of the job?” Barrett is asking ________

 

1. When conducting selection interviews, Judson has a list of prepared questions that she asks each candidate. However, she also finds it useful to ask some unplanned questions when the candidate mentions something interesting or when it seems appropriate to gather more information. Judson uses a(n) __________

 

1. When conducting selection interviews, Allie likes to ask questions like “What would you do if a customer requested a refund on a product one year after the product was purchased?” Allie is asking __________

 

1. When conducting selection interviews, Kristi has a list of prepared questions from which she does not deviate. She asks all job candidates the same questions in the same order. Kristi uses a(n) _____________ interview.

 

1. Indicate how to deal with each of the labor supply and demand issues:

 

1. Due to a recession, the AB Corporation has a labor surplus. It wants to find a way to reduce the surplus while both being fair to employees and being ready to respond to increased demand when the recession is over. So, downsizing and layoffs are out of the question. It has already instituted a hiring freeze and is not filling positions when workers leave the company. One method for dealing with its surplus would be

 

1. The Design Corp. just received a large order and needs more work hours very quickly to complete the order. The order must be finished in two weeks. At that time, the labor shortage will be over. Design Corp.’s best method for dealing with its labor shortage would be

 

1. Tire Company forecasts that it will have a labor shortage in two years. Given the new products the organization is developing, there will not be enough skilled workers for Tire Company to hire. One method for dealing with its labor shortage would be

 

1. The Eat-in Industries has a very large labor surplus and needs to cut costs quickly due to a reduction in business. Its best method for dealing with its surplus would be ___________________.

 

1. Resting Easy Corp. has a shortage of workers in their manufacturing operation in Kentucky, but has a surplus of people in their customer service center in neighboring Ohio. ___________ and transferring employees from Ohio to Kentucky is probably the best option for the company.

 

 

Part C – Paragraph Short Answer.  This section is worth 40% of the test grade. Each question is worth 10 points.  Turnitin.com required for this section only. Your Originality Score should be 15% or less to avoid a reduction in your score of up to 10%.

 

 

Beemon is a diverse differentiated industrial conglomerate with segments such as transportation systems, performance materials & technologies, and aerospace and automation & control solution. It is best known by the average consumer for its thermostats. According to the 2014 Fortune 500 list, Beemon ranked 67^th  out of all US companies with a revenue of $69 billion.

 

In 2003 Beemon merged with AlliedTemp and Bidway but encountered problems when it realized that each company possessed its own unique corporate culture. During the next several years, Beemon found itself addressing new challenges while trying to absorb its acquisitions. For example, environmental-related business liabilities had never been addressed and now required real attention.  While managers were reducing research and development, new product development ceased.  Beemon also experienced high turnover in upper management having three different CEOs in four years.

 

Beemon’s main focus in the past decade has been resolving these issues by first implementing their “One Beemon” culture.  “One Beemon” or “One Bee” resulted from the identification of 12 measurable behaviors the company wanted to exhibit—including customer focus, self-awareness and championing change.  The major focus is on continuous improvement processes.  This strategy increased overseas sales by 10% while also helping Beemon to become more aware and responsive to their environmental responsibilities. Investments in new products and services increased while the turnover rate started to decrease with employees filling more than 85% of the vacancies in top-level positions. Just as Beemon turned the corner in 2008, the US entered a recession and Beemon’s orders were being cancelled or postponed. No new orders were being placed and sales were decreasing. As a result, direct costs of production were decreasing because the company simply did not need to purchase raw materials to make new products.

 

In the manufacturing industry, the cost of people covers more than 30% of the total expenses and most firms responded to the recession by restructuring their workforce by firing thousands of employees. Cutting costs for production was not an option because a loss of customers is a major risk for a company therefore; the only option left was cutting costs through employees.

 

Beemon knew though that even the worst recessions are not permanent and that they usually last about 12-18 months.  Beemon wanted to be prepared when the economy started to heal. So, with its new culture in place Beemon took a different approach than their competitors. They projected the possible impact of economic recovery on their business noting that they would have to rehire many of the employees they would lay off during the recession. Given this projection Beemon then followed a different method of restructuring and instituted mandatory furloughs.  A furlough is when the employer directs that some employees do not report to work due to special needs of a company, which may be due to economic conditions at the specific employer or in the economy as a whole.  Furlough days are unpaid and therefore save the company money.  Beemon knew that furloughs would harm the morale and the loyalty of its employees. Therefore, in order to benefit from furloughs, Beemon limited their use by implementing more diligent performance reviews and avoiding hiring for new positions. In the end, furlough days were rarely used by Beemon.

 

Many Beemon managers disagreed with the CEO Daryl Kite’s furlough approach.  They believed that bigger savings could be realized by laying off employees.  Kite, however, believed that the managers hugely overestimated the potential savings from a layoff and underestimated how disruptive layoffs would be given that the average employee received six months’ worth of severance pay.  Beemon believed that the value of the employees’ contributions was intangible; and the company might be losing its most skilled employees if it utilized layoffs. In the end, Kite was correct:  keeping their valuable employees, Beemon bounced back quicker than their competitors after the recession and Beemon’s business increased at a higher pace.

 

Answer the following questions:

 

1. How does the use of HR forecasting reflect Beemon’s strategy and culture? Explain in fewer than 10 sentences.

 

2. Which quantitative or qualitative manpower forecasting method do you believe Beemon used to decide to move forward with furloughs rather than layoffs? Explain in fewer than 15 sentences.

 

3. Name three options Beemon could have used other than furloughs to overcome the projected labor surplus during the recession? Also, give one downside to each of the options you select.

 

4. Compared to layoffs, do you expect the impact of furloughs to be higher on the turnover rate or lower? Explain in fewer than 6 sentences.