CRA Staff Management & Training 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A research office is experiencing high turnover among post-award administrators. Which intervention is MOST likely to improve retention?
- Increase workload to keep remaining staff busy
- Conduct stay interviews and implement targeted career development programs (Correct answer)
- Freeze hiring until turnover stabilizes
- Outsource post-award functions to a third-party vendor
Correct answer: Conduct stay interviews and implement targeted career development programs
Stay interviews identify retention drivers and career development programs address professional growth needs, both of which are proven retention strategies.
Question 2: When delegating effort reporting responsibilities to departmental staff, the research administrator MUST ensure that delegates understand which core principle?
- Effort reports are optional for federal awards under $100,000
- Certified effort must reasonably reflect actual work and cannot be falsified (Correct answer)
- Personnel can certify effort for colleagues when they are unavailable
- Effort percentages only need to match the budget, not actual time
Correct answer: Certified effort must reasonably reflect actual work and cannot be falsified
Federal regulations require that certified effort reasonably reflect actual work performed; falsification constitutes research misconduct and fraud.
Question 3: Which type of training is MOST appropriate for teaching staff how to navigate the institution's grants management system?
- Classroom lecture with slides only
- Hands-on simulation or sandbox environment training (Correct answer)
- Reading the system user manual independently
- Shadowing a colleague without guided practice
Correct answer: Hands-on simulation or sandbox environment training
Hands-on simulation in a sandbox environment allows staff to practice system navigation without risk to live data, accelerating competency.
Question 4: A research administrator is building a succession plan for a key grants specialist position. What is the FIRST action?
- Post the position externally as a contingency
- Identify high-potential internal candidates and assess their development gaps (Correct answer)
- Wait until the incumbent announces departure plans
- Transfer all institutional knowledge to a shared drive
Correct answer: Identify high-potential internal candidates and assess their development gaps
Succession planning begins with identifying and developing internal talent before a vacancy occurs, not reacting to departures.
Question 5: Which federal act governs confidentiality requirements that research administrators must train staff on when handling personally identifiable information (PII) in research records?
- Bayh-Dole Act
- Privacy Act of 1974 (Correct answer)
- Federal Advisory Committee Act
- Sarbanes-Oxley Act
Correct answer: Privacy Act of 1974
The Privacy Act of 1974 governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of PII held by federal agencies and recipients handling federal data.
Question 6: When evaluating a staff member's performance in managing subrecipient monitoring, which metric is MOST indicative of competency?
- Number of subrecipient agreements executed per month
- Timeliness and completeness of risk assessments and monitoring reviews (Correct answer)
- Amount of funding passed through to subrecipients
- Number of subrecipient site visits conducted regardless of risk level
Correct answer: Timeliness and completeness of risk assessments and monitoring reviews
Competent subrecipient monitoring is demonstrated by thorough, timely risk assessments and follow-through on monitoring activities, not volume metrics.
Question 7: A department administrator completes a cost transfer after the 90-day institutional deadline without proper justification. As the research administrator, your FIRST action is to:
- Process the transfer and note it is late
- Reject the transfer and explain that late unjustified transfers are non-compliant (Correct answer)
- Escalate directly to the federal sponsor
- Approve the transfer pending a retroactive justification memo
Correct answer: Reject the transfer and explain that late unjustified transfers are non-compliant
Late cost transfers without adequate justification are a compliance risk; rejecting them and educating the department administrator is the appropriate corrective response.
CRA Staff Management & Training 3
A research office is experiencing high turnover among post-award administrators.
Which intervention is MOST likely to improve retention?