aPHR Associate Professional in Human Resources MCQ 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects employees' rights to engage in 'concerted activity,' which includes:
- Individual complaints to HR about pay
- Two or more employees discussing wages or working conditions (Correct answer)
- Filing individual EEOC charges
- Requesting a performance review
Correct answer: Two or more employees discussing wages or working conditions
Concerted activity under the NLRA protects employees acting together to improve working conditions, including two or more employees discussing wages, hours, or workplace safety.
Question 2: During an HR audit, the team discovers that the company's I-9 forms for several employees are incomplete. The best immediate action is to:
- Terminate employees with incomplete I-9 forms
- Correct the forms within a reasonable timeframe and document the process (Correct answer)
- Ignore minor errors to avoid drawing attention
- Report the issue to ICE proactively
Correct answer: Correct the forms within a reasonable timeframe and document the process
I-9 errors can often be corrected by drawing a line through incorrect information, entering the correct information, and initialing and dating the correction without using white-out.
Question 3: Which compensation structure links pay increases directly to individual performance ratings rather than seniority or cost-of-living adjustments?
- Step progression pay
- Merit pay (Correct answer)
- Broadbanding
- Skill-based pay
Correct answer: Merit pay
Merit pay ties salary increases to individual performance evaluations, rewarding higher performers with larger increases as an incentive for strong results.
Question 4: A company wants to measure the effectiveness of its onboarding program. Which metric would be MOST relevant?
- Cost-per-hire
- 90-day retention rate of new hires (Correct answer)
- Time-to-fill open positions
- Benefits enrollment rate
Correct answer: 90-day retention rate of new hires
The 90-day retention rate of new hires directly measures whether the onboarding experience is effective at integrating and retaining employees past the critical early period.
Question 5: Under ERISA, a defined benefit pension plan is one where:
- Employees contribute to individual investment accounts
- The employer promises a specific monthly benefit at retirement based on a formula (Correct answer)
- Benefits depend on investment returns
- Both employer and employee contributions are defined
Correct answer: The employer promises a specific monthly benefit at retirement based on a formula
A defined benefit plan specifies the retirement benefit an employee will receive, typically calculated using a formula based on salary history and years of service, with the employer bearing investment risk.
Question 6: Which type of organizational structure groups employees by the specific products, projects, or geographic regions they support?
- Functional structure
- Divisional structure (Correct answer)
- Matrix structure
- Flat structure
Correct answer: Divisional structure
A divisional structure organizes employees around products, services, or geographic markets, giving each division its own HR, marketing, and operational resources.
Question 7: An HR professional notices a pattern where female engineers receive lower performance scores than male engineers with similar output. This most likely indicates:
- A compensation equity issue
- Rater bias in the performance appraisal process (Correct answer)
- A training deficiency among female engineers
- A job classification problem
Correct answer: Rater bias in the performance appraisal process
When performance scores diverge by gender without objective performance differences, it suggests rater bias such as gender bias, halo/horn effect, or similar subjective evaluation errors.
aPHR Associate Professional in Human Resources MCQ 5
The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) protects employees' rights to engage in 'concerted activity,' which includes: