SPHR Senior Professional in Human Resources MCQ 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an employer is required to provide a reasonable accommodation unless it causes:
- Any measurable increase in operational costs
- Undue hardship based on the employer's size and resources (Correct answer)
- A change to an essential function of the position
- Disruption to any co-worker's workflow
Correct answer: Undue hardship based on the employer's size and resources
The ADA's undue hardship standard considers the nature and cost of accommodation relative to the employer's overall resources and operations.
Question 2: A multinational corporation is establishing HR policies for a new subsidiary in a country with highly collectivist cultural values (per Hofstede). Which compensation design is MOST culturally congruent?
- Individual merit pay tied to personal performance ratings
- Team-based bonuses and seniority-based pay progression (Correct answer)
- Broad-based stock options emphasizing personal wealth accumulation
- Commission-only pay structures for all employees
Correct answer: Team-based bonuses and seniority-based pay progression
Collectivist cultures prioritize group harmony and loyalty, making team incentives and seniority-based rewards more culturally aligned than individual performance pay.
Question 3: Which of the following BEST describes the primary purpose of a 'stay interview'?
- To assess an employee's readiness for promotion
- To understand why engaged employees remain and what might cause them to leave (Correct answer)
- To document performance issues before termination
- To gather feedback on a recently completed training program
Correct answer: To understand why engaged employees remain and what might cause them to leave
Stay interviews proactively surface retention risks and engagement drivers before an employee decides to leave, enabling targeted retention actions.
Question 4: Under the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), how must an employer treat a pregnant employee who requests light-duty work?
- Grant light duty automatically without comparing to other employees
- Treat her the same as other employees with similar work limitations (Correct answer)
- Require medical certification before considering any accommodation
- Transfer her to an administrative role for the duration of the pregnancy
Correct answer: Treat her the same as other employees with similar work limitations
The PDA and the Young v. UPS Supreme Court decision require employers to extend light-duty policies to pregnant workers on the same basis as other temporarily disabled employees.
Question 5: Which HR metric is MOST useful for diagnosing whether a compensation structure has become misaligned with market rates over time?
- Compa-ratio distribution across salary grades (Correct answer)
- Turnover rate by department
- Internal pay equity ratio (highest to lowest paid)
- Benefits cost as a percentage of total compensation
Correct answer: Compa-ratio distribution across salary grades
Compa-ratios compare actual pay to the midpoint of a pay range; a skewed distribution signals that pay is drifting below or above market benchmarks.
Question 6: An organization is implementing a new HRIS. Which project risk is MOST likely to derail the implementation?
- Insufficient server capacity for the new platform
- Inadequate change management and end-user adoption planning (Correct answer)
- Selecting a vendor with fewer modules than the legacy system
- Over-investing in data migration from legacy records
Correct answer: Inadequate change management and end-user adoption planning
HRIS implementations most commonly fail due to poor change management — even technically sound systems are abandoned if users don't adopt them.
Question 7: A union files a grievance alleging that management violated the collective bargaining agreement by assigning bargaining-unit work to a supervisor. What is this type of grievance called?
- Jurisdictional dispute
- Zipper clause violation
- Work preservation grievance (Correct answer)
- Management rights grievance
Correct answer: Work preservation grievance
A work preservation grievance asserts that management transferred bargaining-unit work outside the unit, violating jurisdictional boundaries established in the CBA.
SPHR Senior Professional in Human Resources MCQ 5
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), an employer is required to provide a reasonable accommodation unless it causes: