PHR Sample Questions

Slide 1

Which law states that the statute of limitations for pay discrimination lawsuits resets every time an allegedly discriminatory paycheck is issued? Equal Pay Act Workplace Anti-Discrimination Act Wagner Act Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act At your company, you often find that employees have elderly or ill family members they have to take care of. What can you do  as an employer to best help them manage their work and family demands? Make these employees contract workers Offer flex time, job sharing, and work-at-home options Provide a family hardship pay supplement, to help with the expenses of caring for family members Offer workshops on how to deal with the logistical, emotional, and financial challenges of being a caregiver
How long do you have to legally keep payroll records? 10 pay periods 18 months 2 years 3 years Your company receives a court order to garnish an employee's wages for unpaid child support. The employee's manager already isn't happy with his performance at work, and wants to terminate him. From an HR perspective, what advice would you give to the manager? Don't terminate the employee, because Title III of the Consumer Credit Protection Act (CCPA) prohibits termination if pay is being garnished for only one debt Go ahead and terminate the employee, because his employment is at-will Terminate the employee, but only if there's proper documentation of his performance Process the garnishment and put the employee on a performance improvement plan
PHR 50 Questions

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Your company has set an aggressive goal to increase sales volume every quarter for the next 18 months. Which compensation plan would you recommend to motivate the sales organization to reach this goal? A tropical vacation for all sales personnel who meet at least 90% of the quarterly goals A 10% raise in base pay for all salespeople who achieve all quarterly goals Additional PTO days for reaching set goals Cash bonuses directly tied to each sales goal attained After conducting a benefits needs assessment, you discover some benefits that are too expensive, yet they're heavily used by employees. To deal with this, you should: Ask employees to vote on which benefits they'd prefer to keep Implement cost-containment strategies Cut all of the less-used benefits See what other similarly sized companies are doing 
Your company receives three court orders for wage garnishment for an employee, totaling over 85% of her income. How should the payroll department handle it? Process an equal percentage of all garnishments, not to exceed 50% of the employee's total disposable income Process all of the court-ordered garnishments Process part of the garnishments, but no more than 25% of the employee's disposable income Process the garnishments in chronological order; deduct each one until it's been satisfied, then apply the next As an HR generalist, what's your best approach to handling direct communication with regard to job grade changes at your company? Meet individually with each employee to discuss the changes Meet with each department to discuss changes Host a webinar that employees can attend at their convenience Have an ell-employee meeting to explain the changes, with time for Q&A
PHR Questions

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When does your HR department need to send out the Summary Annual Review (SAR), containing plan financial information? Within 6 weeks of the end of the plan year Within 4 months of the end of the plan year Within 6 months of the end of the plan year Within 7 months of the end of the plan year Which of these items is an example of non-taxable indirect compensation? One-time cash performance bonus Gym membership Business expenses Gift card
What's the most effective way to use data collected from years of exit interviews to help with employee retention? Cross-reference it against each former employee's performance reviews Sort the data by category and use it to show areas of strength and weakness Review it with current employees to see if they agree with the feedback Send spreadsheets with raw data to each department head
PHR Questions

Slide 4

The employees at your company are very cynical about the employee engagement survey, and most aren't taking it. They feel like the company won't do anything about their feedback, so why bother. Which approach is likely to help employees see the value of the survey and feel like it's worth their time? Create a graphical analysis of all the responses and compare them to past years to identify trends Prove to employees that the survey is truly anonymous Communicate to employees that no changes or improvements are planned, as a result of their apathy Have managers share survey results with the employees on their team, and develop action plans based on the results
Your company's leadership wants to encourage employees to stay union-free. As the head of HR, which of the following do you think would be most helpful in meeting this objective? Offer 401k matching Conduct a vulnerability assessment Promote open communication between employees and leadership Make sure hours are closely tracked and any overtime is compensated generously You find out that when an employee was offered a job at your quarry, part of the agreement was that he wouldn't join the union. The hiring manager also implied that he might be eligible for a bonus after his first two months with the company, if he kept this verbal agreement. As HR Manager, what worries you most about this situation? It may be a violation of the Taft-Hartley Act It may be a violation of the Labor Management Relations Act It may be a violation of the Norris-LaGuardia Act It may be a violation of the Civil Rights Act
PHR Questions

Slide 5

How would you best sum up the overall goal of an employee relations program? Improve employee perception of the company Create an open dialog between employees and management Maximize employee performance Establish conflict resolution processes A family hardship requires a trusted longtime employee to change his work schedule to a later start time two days per week. Which type of alternate work schedule would you set up to help this employee? Contract Night shift Flextime Part-time
The heavy equipment operators' union provides free food at a campaign event of a candidate running for union president. The group that would most likely investigate this violation would be: Department of Justice Office of Labor-Management Standards Federal Labor Equality Board National Labor Oversight Coalition Your US-based global company has a few employees based in a small Paris office. Leadership wants to close the office and lay them off. Which of the following actions would you advise? Proceed with the layoff, as their employment is at-will Check France's employment laws to make sure you handle the process in accordance with local law Your company is headquartered in the US, so you only need to abide by applicable state and federal laws Transfer the employees to the US site
PHR Questions

Slide 6

Your company is having problems with employee turnover after a big layoff and lots of organizational changes. Managers haven't been getting on board with retention initiatives. Which metric would be most effective to increase manager buy-in on retention initiatives? Attrition rate Productivity trends Time-to-fill Turnover cost
PHR Questions
One of your company's IT specialists has been using the company's credit account to buy iPads, then selling them on eBay and pocketing the money. What action should HR take? Place the employee on probation and require that she pay back the embezzled funds in full Remove the employee's access to all company accounts and tell her that if she does it again, you'll have her arrested and charged Work with the employee's manager to develop a performance improvement plan for her Terminate the employee

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