CHRP Professional Practice and Ethics 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: An HR professional discovers that a colleague has been falsifying employee performance records. What is the CHRP's ethical obligation?
- Ignore it to avoid workplace conflict
- Report the misconduct through appropriate channels (Correct answer)
- Confront the colleague privately and take no further action
- Wait to see if the behavior continues before acting
Correct answer: Report the misconduct through appropriate channels
CHRP ethics require reporting misconduct through appropriate internal or external channels to uphold integrity and protect the organization.
Question 2: Which concept refers to an HR professional's duty to serve both the organization's interests and employees' well-being simultaneously?
- Dual allegiance (Correct answer)
- Fiduciary duty
- Stakeholder neutrality
- Role duality
Correct answer: Dual allegiance
Dual allegiance describes the HR professional's responsibility to balance organizational goals with fair treatment of employees.
Question 3: When an HR manager is asked to implement a policy that may violate employment law, the most appropriate first step is to:
- Implement the policy as directed by leadership
- Resign from the position immediately
- Advise leadership of the legal risk and recommend compliance alternatives (Correct answer)
- Refer the matter directly to regulators without informing leadership
Correct answer: Advise leadership of the legal risk and recommend compliance alternatives
HR professionals must counsel leadership on legal risks while proposing lawful alternatives rather than blindly executing or escalating externally first.
Question 4: What does 'evidence-based HR practice' primarily require?
- Relying solely on industry benchmarks from peer companies
- Using data, research, and critical thinking to inform HR decisions (Correct answer)
- Following HR trends regardless of organizational context
- Applying only government-mandated HR standards
Correct answer: Using data, research, and critical thinking to inform HR decisions
Evidence-based HR practice integrates research findings, organizational data, and professional judgment to drive sound decisions.
Question 5: An employee requests access to their own personnel file. Under typical US employment practices, the HR professional should:
- Deny access to maintain confidentiality
- Grant access in accordance with applicable state law and company policy (Correct answer)
- Allow access only with written approval from the CEO
- Provide a summary only, never the original documents
Correct answer: Grant access in accordance with applicable state law and company policy
Several US states grant employees the right to inspect their personnel files, and HR must comply with applicable state law and internal policy.
Question 6: Which of the following BEST describes the concept of 'professional credibility' for a CHRP?
- Holding the most advanced degree in the HR field
- Demonstrating consistent ethical behavior, competence, and reliability over time (Correct answer)
- Being popular among employees and managers
- Accumulating the most years of HR work experience
Correct answer: Demonstrating consistent ethical behavior, competence, and reliability over time
Professional credibility is built through consistent demonstration of ethics, competence, and trustworthiness — not credentials or popularity alone.
Question 7: A CHRP learns that company layoffs are planned but is instructed to keep this confidential while recruiting new employees. The ethical tension here involves:
- Duty of confidentiality versus duty of honesty to candidates (Correct answer)
- Balancing departmental budgets versus recruitment costs
- Employer branding versus compensation benchmarking
- Performance management versus succession planning
Correct answer: Duty of confidentiality versus duty of honesty to candidates
HR faces an ethical conflict between organizational confidentiality obligations and the duty not to mislead job candidates about the organization's stability.
CHRP Professional Practice and Ethics 2
An HR professional discovers that a colleague has been falsifying employee performance records.
What is the CHRP's ethical obligation?