SHRM Society for Human Resource Management MCQ 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Under the FLSA, which of the following employees is correctly classified as exempt from overtime requirements?
- A receptionist earning $35,000 annually
- A software engineer earning $70,000 who primarily performs intellectual work (Correct answer)
- A non-supervisory production worker paid on a salary basis
- A retail sales associate earning commission plus a base salary below $684/week
Correct answer: A software engineer earning $70,000 who primarily performs intellectual work
The FLSA white-collar exemption applies to employees earning at least $684/week whose primary duties are executive, administrative, professional, or computer-related.
Question 2: A manager notices two employees of different races performing the same job but receiving different pay. This situation most directly implicates which federal law?
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Correct answer)
- The Equal Pay Act
- The Age Discrimination in Employment Act
- The Americans with Disabilities Act
Correct answer: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
Title VII prohibits pay discrimination based on race, making it the most directly applicable law when race is the differentiating factor.
Question 3: Which HR metric best measures the effectiveness of an organization's recruiting process relative to cost?
- Time-to-hire
- Offer acceptance rate
- Cost-per-hire (Correct answer)
- Turnover rate
Correct answer: Cost-per-hire
Cost-per-hire calculates total recruiting expenditures divided by the number of hires, directly measuring recruiting efficiency relative to cost.
Question 4: An employee requests intermittent FMLA leave for a chronic condition. What is the employer's primary obligation?
- Deny the request if it disrupts operations
- Designate qualifying absences as FMLA leave and track them (Correct answer)
- Require the employee to exhaust all PTO before FMLA begins
- Transfer the employee to a less critical role during leave periods
Correct answer: Designate qualifying absences as FMLA leave and track them
Employers must designate absences that qualify under FMLA and track the leave used, regardless of whether the employee requests it.
Question 5: Which of the following best describes the 'balanced scorecard' approach when applied to HR?
- A method for ranking employees on a bell curve
- Linking HR metrics to organizational strategy across financial, customer, internal process, and learning dimensions (Correct answer)
- A compensation benchmarking tool comparing internal pay to market rates
- A performance appraisal format using behaviorally anchored rating scales
Correct answer: Linking HR metrics to organizational strategy across financial, customer, internal process, and learning dimensions
The balanced scorecard aligns HR activities and metrics with organizational strategy across four perspectives: financial, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth.
Question 6: A company implements a policy requiring all employees to speak only English in the workplace at all times. Under Title VII, this policy is most likely:
- Lawful because employers may set workplace communication standards
- Unlawful because it constitutes national origin discrimination on its face (Correct answer)
- Lawful if applied uniformly to all employees
- Unlawful only if it affects employees in safety-sensitive positions
Correct answer: Unlawful because it constitutes national origin discrimination on its face
An English-only rule applied at all times is presumptively discriminatory on the basis of national origin under the EEOC's guidelines under Title VII.
Question 7: Which succession planning approach involves systematically identifying and developing multiple internal candidates for each key leadership role?
- Replacement planning
- Bench strength development (Correct answer)
- Talent segmentation
- Career lattice mapping
Correct answer: Bench strength development
Bench strength development focuses on cultivating a pool of ready-now and near-ready candidates for critical roles rather than designating a single successor.
SHRM Society for Human Resource Management MCQ 2
Under the FLSA, which of the following employees is correctly classified as exempt from overtime requirements?