Q&A Hero

Q: The American Disabilities Act makes it illegal for employers to discriminate against women by providing benefits of a lower amount or duration for pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.

Q: Women affected by pregnancy and childbirth are eligible for the same benefits as disabled employees.

Q: If an employee is injured at work due to a blatant disregard for company safety policies, the company is not required to pay workers' compensation.

Q: Workers' compensation benefits can be medical or monetary.

Q: Employee benefits account for about one-third of wages and salaries.

Q: What steps can organizations take to enhance the promotional and career prospects for their female employees?

Q: What roles and responsibilities should a manager have in an employee's career development?

Q: What is the main difference between performance appraisal and performance management?

Q: There are several guidelines for developing an appraisal that is legally defensible. Identify four of these guidelines.

Q: Explain how an MBO program works and describe the six steps involved in this type of program.

Q: Explain the three steps in the performance appraisal process.

Q: Why do we have performance management?

Q: Explain what the SMART acronym tells us about goal setting.

Q: 360-degree feedback is sometimes called the wheel of feedback because ratings are collected from all around an employee.

Q: 360-degree feedback is generally used for development purposes, rather than for pay increases.

Q: The barriers for women to advance at work are referred to as the glass ceiling because it is so easy to break through it.

Q: Matching individual strengths and weaknesses with occupational opportunities and threats is the key to the career planning process.

Q: The employee, the manager, and the employer should all share the responsibility for an employee's career development and career success.

Q: A career is the occupational positions one holds at a single organization.

Q: Career development is the lifelong series of activities that contributes to a person's career exploration, establishment, success, and fulfillment.

Q: An appraisal interview is used to make plans for new hires as they move through the selection and training process.

Q: Managers who receive feedback from subordinates who identify themselves view the upward appraisal process more negatively than do managers who receive anonymous feedback.

Q: Peer appraisals have been shown to have an immediate positive impact on improving task motivation, cohesion, and satisfaction, while reducing social loafing.

Q: Central tendency is defined as the influence of a rater's general impression on ratings of specific ratee qualities.

Q: Graphic rating scales are the most reliable for rating performance.

Q: The advantages of the BARS appraisal tool include accuracy, clear standards, and consistency.

Q: Electronic performance monitoring (EPM) allows supervisors to electronically monitor the amount of computerized data an employee is process each day.

Q: MBO relates an employee's work goals to his or her departmental goals and to the organization's goals.

Q: BARS is a rating approach that involves keeping a record of uncommonly good or undesirable examples of an employee's work-related behavior and reviewing it with the employee at predetermined times.

Q: The basic problem with rankings is that while it is not difficult to identify the extreme good and bad performers, it is difficult to differentiate meaningfully between the others.

Q: The forced distribution method is similar to grading on a curve meaning that predetermined percentages of those being rated are placed into performance categories.

Q: Quantitative goals are best.

Q: The alternation ranking method is the simplest and most popular technique for appraising performance.

Q: Once you have a supervisor to conduct a performance appraisal there is no need to worry about anything else.

Q: The HR department conducts performance appraisals, develops the appraisal tools, and monitors the appraisal system.

Q: The evidence suggests that participatively set goals consistently result in higher performance than assigned goals.

Q: Goals should be challenging, but not so difficult that they appear impossible or unrealistic.

Q: A properly designed performance management system utilizes yearly meetings to ensure continuous improvement in the employee's capacity and performance.

Q: Electronic performance monitoring seems to raise employee stress levels.

Q: In practice, appraisal forms often blend several approaches to appraisal into one.

Q: The critical incident method forces supervisors to consider all the important aspects of an employee's performance.

Q: The forced distribution method is sometimes referred to as the "rank and yank" method.

Q: 360-Degree feedback is usually used for developmental purposes rather than pay purposes.

Q: Most managers are very willing and able to set measurable goals for their subordinates.

Q: Setting useful goals is easy to do.

Q: Managers should appraise employees with respect to the specific goals by which he or she expected to be measured.

Q: Performance appraisals assume that the employee understood what his or her performance standards were.

Q: When a supervisor must criticize a subordinate in an appraisal interview, it is best to ________. A) hold the meeting with other people who can diffuse the negative situation B) provide examples of critical incidents C) acknowledge the supervisor's personal biases in the situation D) provide feedback once per year

Q: When conducting an appraisal interview, supervisors should do all of the following except: A) compare the person's performance to a standard. B) encourage the employee to talk. C) give specific examples of poor performance. D) compare the person's performance to that of other employees.

Q: What is another term for 360-degree feedback? A) feedback loop B) multi-source feedback C) upward feedback D) wheel feedback

Q: Which of the following best captures the meaning of the term, glass ceiling? A) structural, yet subtle barriers in corporate environments which inhibit the rise of talented women to positions of leadership B) inadequate networking opportunities which result in a lack of an "old girl's network" to mirror that of men C) unspoken decision by corporate leadership that women should not be encouraged to advance beyond middle management levels D) the lack of desire among women to pursue jobs with extreme levels of responsibility and authority

Q: Miranda wants to make partner at her law firm. She is worried, though, because everyone understands that 70-hour work weeks are the norm for someone striving to make partner. Miranda wants to be fair to her family as well as excel at work. To address this problem, the law firm could help by ________. A) providing Miranda with a career coach B) encouraging Miranda to join a career success team C) eliminating institutional barriers that disproportionately affect women D) encouraging Miranda to temporarily work in a different job

Q: When Amanda interviewed for a job with the employment commission, the interviewer warned her that the job could be very stressful with long hours and a lot of bureaucracy. The interviewer was trying to provide ________. A) reality shock B) a realistic job interview C) disincentive D) a challenge

Q: Assessing interests, seeking out career information, and utilizing development opportunities are all part of the ________ role in career development. A) individual's B) manager's C) supervisor's D) company's

Q: Responsibility for career development should always be left to the ________. A) employee B) supervisor C) manager D) career success team

Q: Who is responsible for the planning, guiding, and developing an employee's career? A) the immediate supervisor B) the employee C) the organization D) the development officer

Q: Jackie is working with a coach to identify her personal skills and interests. Then she plans to get information about opportunities that fit her skills and interests and set career goals for what she seeks to accomplish. Jackie is in the midst of ________. A) organizational development B) career development C) career planning D) training

Q: The process through which someone becomes aware of personal skills, interests, knowledge, motivations; acquires information about opportunities; identifies career goals; and establishes action plans to attain those goals is called ________. A) organizational development B) career management C) career development D) career planning

Q: Career planning refers to the ________. A) process through which someone becomes aware of personal skills, interests, knowledge, motivations; acquires information about opportunities; identifies career goals; and establishes action plans to attain those goals B) the lifelong series of activities that contributes to a person's career exploration, establishment, success, and fulfillment C) process of using activities like training and appraisal to provide a career focus D) occupational positions a person has over his or her lifetime

Q: Career development refers to the ________. A) process through which someone becomes aware of personal skills, interests, knowledge, motivations; acquires information about opportunities; identifies career goals; and establishes action plans to attain those goals B) the lifelong series of activities that contributes to a person's career exploration, establishment, success, and fulfillment C) process for enabling employees to better understand and develop their career skills and interests and to use these skills and interests most effectively within the company and afterwards D) process of using activities like training and appraisal to provide a career focus

Q: The lifelong series of activities that contributes to a person's career exploration, establishment, success, and fulfillment is called ________. A) organizational development B) career management C) career development D) career planning

Q: Career management refers to the ________. A) the lifelong series of activities that contributes to a person's career exploration, establishment, success, and fulfillment B) process for enabling employees to better understand and develop their career skills and interests and to use these skills and interests most effectively within the company and afterwards C) process of using activities like training and appraisal to provide a career focus D) occupational positions a person has over his or her lifetime

Q: ________ is a process for enabling employees to better understand and develop their career skills and interests and to use these skills and interests most effectively within the company and afterwards. A) Organizational development B) Career management C) Career development D) Career planning

Q: When subordinates provide feedback for supervisors, the comments should be anonymous because identifiable responses tend to result in more ________. A) critical ratings B) negative attitudes from managers receiving the feedback C) inflated ratings D) All of the above.

Q: What process allows top management to diagnose the management styles of supervisors, identify potential "people" problems, and take corrective action with individual supervisors as necessary? A) strategic performance appraisal B) organizational development C) upward feedback D) critical incidents

Q: Firms that use ________ let subordinates anonymously rate their supervisor's performance. A) downward feedback B) upward feedback C) narratives D) critical incidents

Q: What usually occurs when employees rate themselves in a performance appraisal? A) interrater reliability is higher B) appraisals are subject to halo effects C) ratings are higher than when rated by supervisors or peers D) ratings are about the same as when determined by peers

Q: Peer appraisals have been shown to result in a(n) ________. A) reduction of social loafing in the team B) reduction of group cohesion C) decrease in satisfaction with the group D) tendency to inaccurately predict who would be promoted

Q: Rating committees, made up of an employee's immediate supervisor along with other supervisors, usually have ________ other members. A) 1-2 B) 3-4 C) 6-7 D) 8-9

Q: Performance appraisals may be conducted by ________. A) the immediate supervisor B) peers C) rating committees D) All of the above.

Q: Who is in the best position to observe and evaluate an employee's performance for the purposes of a performance appraisal? A) peers B) rating committees C) top management D) immediate supervisor

Q: Which of the following could result in a legally questionable appraisal process? A) conduct a job analysis to establish criteria and standards for successful performance B) base appraisals on subjective supervisory observations C) administer and score appraisals in a standardized fashion D) use clearly defined job performance dimensions

Q: When an employee's personal characteristics such as gender influence a supervisor's evaluation of his or her performance, the problem of ________ has occurred. A) bias B) stereotyping C) central tendency D) halo affect

Q: One way of reducing the problems of leniency or strictness in performance appraisals is to ________. A) rank employees B) be aware of the problem C) train supervisors to avoid it D) consider the purpose of the appraisal

Q: Which personality trait is associated with performance appraisal ratings that are too lenient? A) agreeableness B) extroversion C) conscientiousness D) openness

Q: One personality study focused on how individual traits influenced the evaluations that students gave their peers. Raters who scored higher on ________ tended to give their peers lower ratings. A) agreeableness B) extroversion C) conscientiousness D) openness

Q: The ________ problem occurs when supervisors tend to rate all their subordinates consistently low. A) central tendency B) leniency C) strictness D) bias

Q: The ________ problem occurs when supervisors tend to rate all their subordinates consistently high. A) leniency B) strictness C) bias D) halo effect

Q: The best way of reducing the problem of central tendency in performance appraisals is to ________. A) rank employees B) be aware of the problem C) train supervisors to avoid it D) consider the purpose of the appraisal

Q: Some supervisors, when filling in rating scales, tend to avoid the highs and lows on the scale and rate most people in the middle. This ________ means that all employees may be rated average. A) stereotyping B) central tendency C) strictness D) leniency