Deck 3: Planning

Question 1

Which of the following are likely responses to labor shortages?

A) Decreased pay and benefits packages
B) Hiring bonuses and stock options
C) Decreased use of temporary employees
D) Higher hiring standards

Answer 1

B

Question 2

There has been a major workforce trend in reduced costs of health care for employers.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

Human resource managers are concerned that as the workforce ages, increases in retirement, will lead to shortage of skilled workers in some fields.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

In general, the labor force is becoming ____.

A) younger
B) older
C) less skilled
D) less diverse

Question 5

Federal laws prohibit labor unions from bargaining regarding any practices related to human resources planning.

Question 6

Most data suggest that there will be job growth in the service sector, the education sector, and in business/professional services.

Question 7

The apparent skills gap in the American workforce appears to be arising because of an increase in demand for highly skilled workers.

Question 8

Very few people prefer part-time work, as surveys suggest 88% of part-time workers are seeking full-time employment.

Question 9

There is a trend toward increasingly fewer new entrants to the labor force.

Question 10

HR professionals generally report that high school graduates have sufficient basic skills in reading comprehension, writing, and math for entry-level jobs.

Question 11

Job creation and growth is largely independent of the overall economic climate.

Question 12

Which of the following are likely to occur during job expansion periods?

A) New hire rates increase for entry level jobs, but decrease for higher level jobs
B) Departure of some employees to take opportunities at other firms
C) Stagnation of movement through internal labor markets
D) Reductions in turnover rates

Question 13

Technology can serve to create new jobs and eliminate old jobs.

Question 14

Which of the following is a likely effect of technology on employment demand?

A) Changes in the skill requirements of the workforce
B) Elimination of some jobs
C) Creation of new jobs
D) All of the above

Question 15

The four major source of external influence on HR and planning are economic conditions, labor markets, technology, and labor unions.

Question 16

The American workforce is increasingly made up of young people.

Question 17

Projections suggest that there will be growth in which of the following sectors of the economy?

A) Manufacturing
B) Education
C) Health services
D) Both B and C

Question 18

What percentage of employers believe high school graduates are deficient in work habits such as professionalism, critical thinking, personal accountability, and time management?

A) 70%
B) 15%
C) 40%
D) 95%

Question 19

Data collected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggest the demand for individuals with college degrees or more peaked a while back, and will decrease in the near future.

Question 20

In human resources planning, a comparison is made between labor force requirements and labor availability.

Question 21

In project based HR planning, the organization's representatives set up a system that looks far into the future and tries to avoid consideration of short term perturbations in the market.

Question 22

The gap between current workforce size and available workforce size is a critical part of the reconciliation process.

Question 23

In regression analysis, historical predictors of workforce size, like sales or new customers, are used to predict staffing levels.

Question 24

Succession planning precedes replacement planning.

Question 25

Trend analysis directly takes into account external factors that might change trends.

Question 26

Markov Analysis is used to assess a previous period's workforce demands on the basis of historical patterns of external applications.

Question 27

When conducting Markov analysis, it is desirable to have 20 or more employees in each job category/level.

Question 28

In plan-based HR planning, the organization's representatives set up a system that is integrally related to the organization's strategic planning process.

Question 29

The unit of human resource planning and analysis is the KSAO.

Question 30

Manager judgment is an ideal method for forecasting workforce availabilities for companies with large numbers of employees in many job categories.

Question 31

Planning based on a specific group of employees, such as faculty in specialized areas of a university or nursing employees, is called population-based HRP.

Question 32

Counting the number of employees on payroll may be a misleading indicator of the workforce because it ignores the amount of scheduled time worked by each employee relative to a full workweek.

Question 33

The quality of a replacement or succession plan is largely independent of the quality of an organization's performance appraisal systems.

Question 34

The process of determining reconciliation and gaps tells managers _____.

A) how many employees will be needed for jobs in the coming period
B) why employees are leaving the organization
C) which activities should be performed to place new employees in appropriate positions
D) when employees are most likely to quit

Question 35

The key to ratio analysis is assessing each promotable employee for KSAO or competency gaps, and where there are gaps, creating employee training and development plans that will close the gap.

Question 36

Statistical techniques are of little importance to HR managers and should usually be rejected as methods for evaluating HRP needs.

Question 37

Plan-based HRP consists of _________.

A) organizational responses to sudden changes in the environment
B) planning focused on a specific employee group
C) planning that is part of the organization's strategic planning process
D) planning based on best practices of competitors

Question 38

Human resource planning activities most directly involve _____.

A) assessing external environmental factors
B) forecasting labor requirements and availabilities
C) generating technological replacements for labor
D) all of the above

Question 39

Through replacement and succession planning the organization constructs internal talent pipelines.

Question 40

Replacement and succession planning are conducted primarily for managerial jobs.

Question 41

Population-based HRP consists of _________.

A) organizational responses to sudden changes in the environment
B) planning focused on a specific employee group
C) planning that is part of the organization's strategic planning process
D) planning based on best practices of competitors

Question 42

Manager judgment is an important method for staffing in _________.

A) organizations with extensive records on human resources outcomes
B) smaller organizations
C) organizations with lateral diffusion of responsibility
D) organizations in the manufacturing sector

Question 43

If an organization faces a surplus of workers, it is likely that they will have to either downsize or encourage voluntary retirement, because there aren't many alternatives to these actions.

Question 44

Employment reconciliation analyzes gaps between ________.

A) AA requirements and the external labor force
B) future HR requirements and AA requirements
C) future HR requirements and HR availability
D) all of the above

Question 45

A manager has collected data on the dollar value of sales and has divided this by the number of FTE. Assuming this relationship will hold in the future, and using projected sales, the manager estimates the number of employees required. This is an example of _______________.

A) regression analysis
B) ratio analysis
C) trend analysis
D) Markov analysis

Question 46

For succession planning to work, organizations must also have _____.

A) historical data on product demand
B) training and development systems in place
C) reimbursable expenditure accounts
D) none of the above

Question 47

One advantage of a core workforce is that the organization maintains the legal right to control employees working in its behalf, in terms of both work process and expected results.

Question 48

Which of the following creates a problem for Markov analysis?

A) large sample sizes
B) lack of employee moves
C) poor economic conditions
D) small sample sizes

Question 49

In Markov analysis for staffing, __________ is used to forecast future workforce availabilities.

A) cost data
B) product demand
C) transition probabilities
D) Bayesian inference

Question 50

Markov analysis is a technique for __________.

A) job analysis
B) availability forecasting
C) HR requirement forecasting
D) seniority estimation

Question 51

A core workforce is nearly always less expensive than a flexible workforce because the core workforce will accept lower pay and benefits.

Question 52

A core workforce is an excellent technique for acquiring new technical and administrative knowledge.

Question 53

A transition matrix would appear in a _________.

A) regression analysis
B) stochastic analysis
C) Markov analysis
D) time series analysis

Question 54

A manager has collected data on sales, the economy, and taxes over a number of years, and statistically estimates an equation that describes how each of these predictors has affected staffing levels in the past. This equation is used to predict future staffing levels. This is an example of _______________.

A) regression analysis
B) ratio analysis
C) trend analysis
D) Markov analysis

Question 55

Project-based HRP consists of _________.

A) organizational responses to sudden changes in the environment
B) planning focused on a specific employee group
C) planning that is part of the organization's strategic planning process
D) planning based on best practices of competitors

Question 56

Which of the following would not be addressed in forecasting HR availabilities?)

A) Promotions
B) Transfers
C) Exits
D) Motivation level

Question 57

A manager has gathered data on staffing levels over time, and then predicts future requirements based on the pattern of demand, taking seasonal variations in demand into account. This equation is used to predict future staffing levels. This is an example of _______________.

A) regression analysis
B) ratio analysis
C) trend analysis
D) Markov analysis

Question 58

Long term options for dealing with an employee shortage include hires, transfers into the position, retraining workers, or transferring the work out of the firm.

Question 59

Which of the following is not a shortcoming of using manager judgment for forecasting availability?

A) managers may not know employee intentions
B) the complexity of forecasting may overwhelm the manager
C) managers are always overly aggressive in making estimates of hiring requirements
D) none of the above are shortcomings of manager judgment

Question 60

Staffing objectives are derived from identified gaps between requirements and availabilities.

Question 61

Evidence suggests that demographically diverse teams are far more effective than homogeneous teams.

Question 62

Internal hiring methods are often less expensive than external hiring methods.

Question 63

Employing organizations usually have a lot of control over the quality of the flexible workforce.

Question 64

A key advantage of having a core work force is that it provides _________.

A) greater predictability
B) increased ability to rapidly modify organizational plans
C) greater organizational profitability
D) lower costs

Question 65

Outsourcing is a more drastic step than using independent contractors or temporary employees.

Question 66

Sometimes members of the internal workforce will resent external hires, which can limit the effectiveness of external hiring.

Question 67

One reason organizations outsource is because specialized vendors can achieve economies of scale for routine tasks that would be performed across many organizations.

Question 68

A flexible workforce can bring in new technical and administrative knowledge that isn't available from the core workforce.

Question 69

Despite popular press to the contrary, there hasn't really been an increase in the number of Latinos and Asians in the American workforce.

Question 70

Companies often prefer internal hiring because it gives them a large labor market to recruit from.

Question 71

A(n) ______ provides specific task and project assistance to the organization, such as maintenance, bookkeeping, advertising, programming, and consulting, with payment contingent on completion of the project (rather than time worked or methods of completing the task).

A) external service provider
B) independent contractor
C) temporary worker
D) offshore site

Question 72

Advantages of a core workforce include ______________.

A) stability, continuity, and predictability
B) a sense of commitment and shared purpose toward the organization's purpose
C) an organization can directly control how it acquires its workforce
D) all of the above

Question 73

Active diversity planning occurs when the organization encourages underrepresented minorities to apply for positions, actively recruits from a variety of sources, and provides additional training and mentoring to underrepresented groups.

Question 74

Studies show that women and minorities are largely indifferent to whether an organization has a commitment to diversity in their recruiting efforts.

Question 75

Outsourcing is confined almost exclusively to manufacturing work.

Question 76

A major disadvantage of a flexible work force is that ________.

A) it leads to loss of some control over workers
B) it can lead to conflict between core and flexible workers
C) flexible workers are often less familiar with equipment
D) all of the above

Question 77

Which of the following are advantages of external staffing?

A) bringing in employees with new KSAOs
B) quick method to identify job applicants
C) it's less expensive than internal staffing
D) all of the above

Question 78

Organizations need to take diversity into account because the workforce has become more diverse.

Question 79

Which of the following services is not provided by staffing firms?

A) Advance screening of job candidates
B) They may provide on-site managers to help with training
C) They absorb full legal liability for temporary workers
D) None of the above

Question 80

A flexible workforce can be obtained by using staffing firms or independent contractors.