SHRM EXAM PREP - Employee Engagement & Retention Questions With Correct Answers

Influence of culture on organizational outcomes - Answer organizational performance, organizational learning, innovation Employee Engagement & Retention - Answer Refers to the activities aimed at retaining high-performing talent, solidifying and improving the relationship between employees and the organization, creating a thriving and energized workforce, and developing effective strategies to address appropriate performance expectations from employees at all levels. Job attitude interventions - Answer Create a positive work environment. Align benefits with employees' needs. (Total Rewards) Job attitude theories and basic principles - Answer engagement, satisfaction, commitment Methods for assessing employee attitudes, opinions, engagement - Answer focus groups, stay interviews, surveys Principles of effective performance appraisal - Answer goal setting, giving feedback Retention and turnover metrics - Answer voluntary turnover rate Types of organizational cultures - Answer authoritarian, mechanistic, participative, learning, high performance Workplace flexibility programs - Answer telecommuting, alternative work schedules Margaret is an employee who has been with the company for nearly 20 years. She is a high performer who has near perfect attendance and high productivity, and the customers love her! When asked what she loves about the job, she replies that she is "just happy," and that she gets a sense of achievement from her efforts that is very satisfying. Margaret most likely has which of the following job attitudes? A. Organizational commitment B. Job satisfaction C. Work engagement D. A positive attitude - Answer B. Job satisfaction Job satisfaction is defined as how happy an employee is at work, and it is highly driven across cultures by a sense of achievement, making (B) the best answer. This question is tricky because it includes examples of all of the job attitudes. Loyalty is represented in that Margaret has been with the company for 20 years; however, factors of organizational commitment (A) are less about achievement and more about the organizational culture and leadership. Work engagement (C) is represented in the question with Margaret's near perfect attendance record, yet the question does not talk about the work tasks themselves, making that answer incorrect. A positive attitude (D) is not one of the job attitudes related to employee engagement. An employee came to the HR department upset that a coworker got a higher pay increase than she did. Her belief was that the supervisor favored her peer, thus giving him better opportunities to perform, justifying the difference. Which of the following is the best explanation for her complaint? A. Unlawful discrimination B. Compensation unfairness C. Pay equity D. Organizational justice - Answer D. Organizational justice D. The correct answer is (D). Organizational justice refers to the degree to which an employee believes that the process and outcomes of compensation practices are fair. The question does not give enough information for (A), unlawful discrimination, to be true. (B) is an answer distractor, and (C) refers to offering equal pay for equal work, again with the question not providing enough information for this choice to be correct. counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) - Answer any behaviors that bring, or are intended to bring, harm to an organization, its employees, or its stakeholders organizational commitment - Answer the job attitude that reflects loyalty to the organization and is most correlated with the term retention or influencing employees to stay with the company. Stay interviews - Answer Structured conversations with employees for the purpose of determining which aspects of a job (e.g., satisfaction, engagement, culture, organization, leadership, etc.) encourage employee retention, or may be improved to do so. Job Satisfaction - Answer how happy an employee is with their job or job experience. Which of the following is most positively correlated with increased levels of employee engagement across cultures? A. Meaningful work B. Pay C. Achievement D. Job structure - Answer C. Achievement Work Engagement/Job Involvement - Answer A job attitude which is the level of engagement a team member has with the work itself—the actual tasks, duties, and responsibilities of their role. In many cases, the work itself has been found to be more strongly correlated than wages to job satisfaction and, thus, engagement. Job involvement is significantly related to employee withdrawal behaviors such as absenteeism and turnover. Job Characteristic Model (JCM) - Answer benchmark for many theories of motivation related to job structure, with the following variables based on five factors: 1. Task Identity 2. Task Significance 3. Skill Variety 4. Autonomy 5. Feedback