Deck 2: Aligning HR With Strategy

Question 1

At Sears, which of the following will NOT be an impact on customers if employees are trained to change their behaviours?

A) customer satisfaction
B) customer retention
C) customer sales
D) customer appreciation

Answer 1

D

Question 2

What is the purpose of strategic HRM?

A) to ensure the effective functioning and survival of the organization and its members
B) to implement the planning, timing, and delivery of an effective organizational strategy
C) to motivate and attract employees who will internalize the organization's culture
D) to emerge as an industry leader with numerous distinct competencies and a competitive advantage

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Which of the following is NOT a risk associated with strategic HR planning?

A) losses in productivity
B) over-concern with employees' reactions
C) impossible commitments to employees
D) information overload

Answer 3

A

Question 4

According to the textbook, which company did NOT modify its strategy when external environment conditions changed and went bankrupt?

A) Marks and Spencer
B) Consumers Distributing
C) Eaton's
D) Woolco

Question 5

What two items does an organization match together in the human capital perspective of HRM?

A) Values of employees and the organization's budget
B) capacity of employees and the organization's motivation
C) capabilities of employees and the organization's strategy
D) creativity of the employees and the organization's goals

Question 6

According to the textbook, which company does NOT support a low-cost provider strategy?

A) Chapters
B) McDonalds
C) Zellers
D) Timex

Question 7

To the HR practitioner, what does human capital incorporate?

A) knowledge, commitment, values
B) commitment, experience, culture
C) experience, knowledge, skills
D) skills, values, culture

Question 8

Payroll represents a routine activity which must be done for the organization to operate on a daily basis. What term best describes this type of activity?

A) transitional
B) transactional
C) temporal
D) transformational

Question 9

In many ways, HR strategy generates the business strategy, and business strategy determines the HR strategy. What is the concept that describes this relationship?

A) reciprocal strategy
B) reciprocal partnerships
C) reciprocal dependence
D) reciprocal interdependence

Question 10

Which of the following does NOT align human resources strategy with business strategy?

A) Start with organizational strategy and create HR strategy.
B) Start with HR competencies and create corporate strategy.
C) Start with HR strategy and create HR competencies.
D) Start with business strategy and create HR strategy.

Question 11

What does McDonald's "no unique response" system mean?

A) that employees are not expected to contribute ideas
B) that employees are not expected to communicate formally
C) that employees are not expected to accommodate customer inquiries
D) that employees are not expected to respond beyond a basic standard

Question 12

According to concurrent strategy formulation, when does strategy development occur?

A) prior to when HRM issues are considered
B) simultaneously when HRM issues are considered
C) subsequent to when HRM issues are considered
D) mutually exclusive of when HR issues are considered

Question 13

According to Google, which of the following does NOT produce innovative behaviours from employees?

A) selecting people with high creativity
B) providing employees with time and freedom to innovate
C) motivating innovation through incentive programs
D) stimulating opportunities for job enlargement

Question 14

What does it mean if an organization's human capital ROI is $3?

A) For every dollar an organization invests in human capital, the employees will generate $3 in return.
B) For every dollar an organization invests in human capital, the employees will generate $3 in revenue.
C) For every dollar an organization invests in human capital, the employees will generate $3 in capital assets.
D) For every dollar an organization invests in human capital, the employees will generate $3 in productivity.

Question 15

In the text, Sears demonstrates that there is a link between employee behaviour and the company's performance. What two employee attitudes had the greatest significance on employee retention and behaviour toward the company?

A) perceptions about their value and about their compensation
B) perceptions about their jobs and about the company
C) perceptions about their performance and about their training
D) perceptions about their retention and about their career plans

Question 16

Costs incurred in training, motivating, compensating, and monitoring employees can be viewed as investments in human capital which result in gains to productivity per worker. How does this type of investment yield such gains?

A) by matching the business strategy to the external environment
B) by matching the capabilities of employees with the corporate strategy
C) by matching the needs of the employees to their desires for empowerment
D) by matching the HR strategy to the potential employee competencies

Question 17

When the HR training department teaches individuals a new customer service computer program, the HR recruiting department must work together with the HR training department to hire individuals with comparable computer skills. What is this collaborative approach called?

A) cross-functional HR practices
B) industry-consistent HR practices
C) exemplary HR practices
D) bundling HR practices

Question 18

If you accept the emerging view of HRM, into how many areas should HR be divided?

A) Two
B) Three
C) Four
D) Five

Question 19

If IBM introduces a new software package in January, Microsoft can probably imitate or duplicate this package by February of the same year. However, if IBM technical support people are trained and motivated to provide "knock your socks off service", Microsoft will have a difficult time imitating this service within a month. This is an example of how employees can provide a competitive advantage. What theory is being applied here?

A) behavioural perspective
B) resource-based view
C) human capital
D) strategic management

Question 20

What is the primary reason that strategic HRM aligns HR policies, practices, and philosophies with organizational strategy?

A) to develop new methods to deliver training and orientation
B) to constrain undesirable behaviours within an organization
C) to ensure that the institutional memory remains current
D) to facilitate the attainment of organizational strategy

Question 21

Google established a human analytics function to study its human capital.

Question 22

What percentage of payroll do Canadian organizations typically pay for fringe benefits for their employees?

A) 20%
B) 25%
C) 30%
D) 35%

Question 23

A possible drawback to strategic HR planning includes a greater amount of time required for decision making.

Question 24

Fit is an important consideration when designing HR programs. What is it called when an organization fits its HR strategy to its organizational strategy?

A) internal fit
B) best fit
C) external fit
D) organizational fit

Question 25

According to the textbook, which of the following does NOT use a differentiation strategy?

A) BMW
B) Polo Ralph Lauren
C) Rolex
D) IBM

Question 26

Human resources management used to be called the personnel department.

Question 27

The statistical technique in HR examining, demand forecasting, and resource supply is based on a linear relationship.

Question 28

In order to retain valuable employees, Google gave all its employees a 20% raise in 2010.

Question 29

According to the textbook, what is the annual turnover rate for organizations using a low-cost provider strategy?

A) 100%
B) 200%
C) 300%
D) 400%

Question 30

Professional certification is NOT a human capital asset.

Question 31

If a company uses a differentiation strategy, what is it more concerned with relative to equity with the external market?

A) pay structures
B) compensation strategy
C) pay for performance
D) internal equity

Question 32

A clearly written mission statement typically increases turnover.

Question 33

Human resources create competitive advantage for organizations, which reflects a resource-based view.

Question 34

Recently HR departments have been required to move from demonstrating real value to articulating perceived value.

Question 35

According to the resources-based view, the less a resource can be imitated, the more it contributes to competitive advantage.

Question 36

According to classical economics, what are the three most important resources or inputs?

A) labour, capital, land
B) capital, knowledge, land
C) knowledge, economics, land
D) economics, assets, land

Question 37

From the human capital perspective, companies should invest in their employees.

Question 38

What kind of strategy is an organization using if it attempts to pay wages slightly below industry norms?

A) Outsourcing
B) Compensation
C) Differentiation
D) Lag

Question 39

The aggregate of all employees' knowledge is an example of human capital.

Question 40

Traditionally the HRM program influenced the creation of the corporate strategy.

Question 41

The HR senior manager team moves from insider status to outsider status with strategic HRM.

Question 42

What are the THREE ways in which HR becomes a strategic business partner?

Question 43

A resource-based view of HR involves the thinking that different strategies require different behaviours from employees, which in turn are influenced by different HR practices.

Question 44

A firm's human resources are more valuable for sustained competitive advantage than technological and physical resources.

Question 45

Michael Porter estimates that it takes approximately 5 years to duplicate a competitive edge in human resources.

Question 46

What is human capital? What comprises human capital?

Question 47

Define Strategic Human Resources Management and discuss some of the major elements it encompasses.

Question 48

What employee skills do employers look for if they have a differentiation strategy?

Question 49

Almost 70% of Canadian organizations indicated they had difficulty recruiting quality candidates.

Question 50

Identify and describe THREE ways that HR processes can be linked to business strategy.

Question 51

Human capital refers to the collective sum of the attributes, experience, knowledge, and commitment that employees choose to invest in their work.

Question 52

There are NO risks to developing an HR strategy.

Question 53

Human resource professionals recognize the need to play a more strategic role within the organization, but many executives do not.

Question 54

There is a negative relationship between the amount of money spent on training employees and the perceived value of human capital.

Question 55

Making decisions such as how to best use human capital is an example of a transactional activity in HR.