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Part II CP SJI Practice video (Completed 08/23/22) Transcript by Rev.com

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Nancy Volpe:

Welcome to part two of our video series to support your success with a certified professional situational judgment item questions. Part one of the series presented an understanding of the source of the exam questions, namely the SHRM BASK, and test-taking strategies and tips to apply when answering questions. In this lesson, you will have the opportunity to apply that learning and experience actual situational judgment item questions.

Keep in mind that all questions on your CP exam are written to represent experiences that a certified professional examinee would encounter. CP examinees represent HR professionals who are early to mid-career level. They're primarily engaged in operational roles. They implement HR action plans. Also, they are the first point of contacts with employees, and often spend time regularly advising supervisors on policy and procedures.

Let's see a demonstration of a situational judgment item.

So a senior manager has been with a mid-sized technology company for 18 years and leads a sales office of 30 employees. The senior manager, whose team has led the company in sales for the past five years, is considered one of the company's best managers. However, the senior manager is constantly late at arriving at the office in the morning, and frequently takes two-hour lunch breaks. In performance reviews, the senior manager's supervisor has discussed the problem and given verbal warnings, but little has changed. Recently, sales in the senior manager's office decreased by 50%. Consequently, the CEO asked the HR manager to address the senior manager's punctuality and performance problems immediately.

Now, when I reviewed this scenario, key information that I believe I should keep in mind includes: The senior manager leads a sales office of 30 employees. The team has led the company in sales for the past five years. The senior manager is considered one of the company's best managers. The senior manager is constantly late and frequently takes two-hour lunch breaks. Sales in the senior manager's office has decreased by 50%. The CEO wants HR to address the punctuality and performance problems immediately. So as I'm looking to extract out key information, that's a lot, but that's what I would want to think about.

Now let's look at an actual multiple choice question with that scenario in mind.

When confronted about the issue, the senior manager becomes defensive and claims that there is not a problem, and that the CEO just wants a new senior manager. How should the HR manager respond?

A. Provide evidence of the continued punctuality problems.

B. Share the CEO's praise for the senior manager to show the company's appreciation.

C. Recommend counseling for the senior manager's personal defensiveness.

D-Delta. Share another employee's time and attendance issue with the sales manager and how it was solved.

So how should the HR manager respond to the senior manager's claims is the focus of this question, right? The CEO has asked HR to improve performance. And so, how should the HR manager respond?

If I were going to eliminate distracter responses, something that we covered in part one of the series, I would eliminate B-Bravo; share the CEO's praise for the senior manager to show the company's appreciation. Or basically, of course, when we do that, setting the sales manager up for a false perspective on what we need to accomplish.

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Part II CP SJI Practice video (Completed 08/23/22) Transcript by Rev.com

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C is another distracter; recommend counseling for the senior manager's personal defensiveness. While that could be an issue and may further develop into a need for future counseling, that's not what this question is really asking us to focus on.

D-Delta; share another employee's time and attendance issue with the sales manager and how it was solved. Again, we shouldn't be sharing that kind of information with other employees. It may or may not have relevance to our situation in front of us.

So the keyed response here is A; provide evidence of the continued punctuality problems.

So situational judgment test questions require the examinee to think about what is occurring in the scenario and decide which response option identifies the most effective course of action. Other response options may be something you could do to respond in the situation, but situational judgment items require thinking and acting based on the best of the available options.

This question aligns with the SHRM BASK relationship management behavioral competence. And represents the proficiency indicator, builds engaged relationships with team members through trust, task-related support, decision-making, and direct communication. Data-driven, evidence-based decisions. When we can show the data that represents a situation, then that is considered best practice HR. That supports the SHRM BASK.

Okay, let's look at another question for the same scenario.

The CEO notifies the HR manager that the senior manager must be terminated if punctuality does not improve. Based on this information, what should the HR manager do next to help the senior manager improve punctuality?

Again, our focus of the question here is what should HR do next to help the senior manager improve punctuality?

We have option A. Send an email informing the senior manager of the consequences if punctuality does not improve.

B. Advise the CEO to perform a time and attendance review with the senior manager.

C. Meet with the senior manager and explain that productivity has been an issue and has lost the company money.

D. Hold a meeting with the senior manager to share the company policy and inform that continued tardiness will lead to termination.

So if I were looking to eliminate distracter responses here, I would eliminate B-Bravo and C- Charlie. B-Bravo specifically, in the sense that we are not going to delegate up, right? We're not going to advise the CEO to perform a time and attendance review with the senior manager. And then C; meet with the senior manager, explain that productivity has been an issue and has lost the company money. Well, where's our reference data that says that money has been lost?

So our keyed response to this question would be either A or D. And remember, the focus of the question is what can the HR manager do next to help the senior manager improve punctuality. A is more of a threat. If you don't improve it, then you will be, of course, terminated likely, right?

All right. The keyed response here is D-Delta; hold a meeting with the senior manager to share the company policy and inform that continued tardiness will lead to termination.

So do not base your answer on your organization's approach to handling the situation, but rather answer based on what you know should be done according to best practice. Panels of SHRM certified subject matter experts rate the effectiveness of each response option, and the best answer is derived by statistical analysis of those expert opinions. This question represents the SHRM BASK

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Part II CP SJI Practice video (Completed 08/23/22) Transcript by Rev.com

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communication competency, specifically the proficiency indicator of presents needed information to stakeholders on a regular basis and refrains from presenting unneeded information. Something of this nature we would want to do face-to-face.

Another question relative to this scenario: Which action should the HR manager have taken to prevent punctuality problems like this from continuing so long.

The focus of this question stem; we're looking to prevent punctuality problems from continuing so long.

A. Require all employees to record time worked and lunch breaks taken on the job.

B. Schedule mandatory meetings at the start of the workday.

C. Provide monthly communication on the importance of adhering to the organization's tardiness policy to all employees.

D-Delta. Routinely monitor tardiness and immediately address the matter upon initial violation.

If I were eliminating distracter responses, those for me would be A and B. And mainly because SHRM BASK is not in favor of us, shall we say, penalizing all employees, causing all employees to take on additional actions because of one or two employees. So requiring all employees to record time worked and lunch breaks taken on the job is added administrative actions that are not necessary if we deal with the employee directly who is the core of the problem.

Same with scheduling mandatory meetings at the start of the workday. Standup meetings at the start of the workday are done by many companies and they are great, but not to handle a punitive situation here again, from the actions of one individual. Let's not cause all of the employees to have to attend a mandatory meeting, simply because we want to hold all of them accountable to the start of their work schedule.

Now, remember the focus of our question here is what can we do to prevent punctuality problems like this from continuing so long? So if our options are between C-Charlie and D-Delta, the most effective response here is going to be D-Delta; routinely monitor the tardiness and immediately address the matter upon initial violation. And that can be as simple as, on a monthly basis or a weekly basis, maybe in the beginning, you're just looking to see what type of problem is tardiness in the workplace and which employees and/or which areas of the business might this be problematic?

So D-Delta correct answer. And this response represents the best consultation competency, or the question itself does, specifically advises stakeholders on existing HR programs, practices, and policies that impede or support business success.

All right, let's look at another scenario. Scenario two.

After a consulting company gets a new demanding project, an employee struggles to meet the increased expectations of his position. Following a discussion about expectations with the employee, his performance improves. A rumor spreads that the employee is paying a coworker to help complete his work. While this is not explicitly against company policy, the division manager wants to immediately terminate both the employees involved if the rumor is true.

Now, when I reviewed this scenario, information that I like to keep in mind is one, an employee struggles to meet expectations. Two, employee discussion occurred about those expectations. Three, rumor that the employee is paying another employee to perform work. We don't want to act on hearsay. We need to pursue that, investigate that to determine whether that is a factual statement. And then four, the division manager wants to terminate both employees.

Let's look at the questions.

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Part II CP SJI Practice video (Completed 08/23/22) Transcript by Rev.com

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Which actions should HR take first to investigate the rumors? So a lot of times in your questions, you will be asked, what should HR do first?

We can A. Collect more specific information from the individual who complained.

B. Inform the department director of the issue.

C. Review the policy to see if additions are needed based on the results of the investigation.

D. Ask the manager which employees need to be included in the investigation.

So the keyed response for this one is D-Delta; ask the manager which employees need to be included in the investigation. If we look at A; collect more specific information from the individual who complained. That's just one source of information. So as we look to investigate a workplace situation, we want to identify as many sources of information or data that would be helpful for us to truly understand the scope of the issue.

B-Bravo; informed the department director of the issue. Again, that's not necessarily an investigative step.

And then C; review the policy to see if additions are needed based on the results of the investigation. This might be something we do, but it's not going to be the first action we pursue to investigate the rumor.

So stay focused on keywords in your question stem, like first, and then investigate is the focus of that question. And so, that particular question really aligns with the SHRM BASK analytical aptitude. We're looking, of course, to better understand what's going on in the situation so that we can make an evidence-based decision.

Question two for the same scenario.

An investigation confirms the rumor including the fact that neither employee has violated company policy. How should the HR manager advise the division manager regarding the best course of action in this situation?

A. Immediately terminate both employees for inappropriate behavior based on the evidence.

B. Write a new policy requiring all collaborative projects to be approved by management.

C. Put both employees on a performance improvement plan based on any work rule violations discovered during the investigation.

D-Delta. Present a proposal to leadership to create a policy addressing the harassment issues revealed in the investigation.

So again, all of these options may be somewhat plausible, things that we would do to address this workplace situation, but we need to stay focused on what is the question wanting us to answer right now? And the focus of the question is, how should the HR manager advise the division manager as to the best course of action for this situation?

We've already learned that there was no violation of work rules and such. So A would not be the acceptable response.

We may need a new policy. To prevent this from happening in the future, we, of course, may need to address this through policy.

Put both employees on a performance improvement plan based on work rule violations. And again, we already determined there were no violations of work rules as of today with regards to what is documented and/or on record as far as policy.

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Part II CP SJI Practice video (Completed 08/23/22) Transcript by Rev.com

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And D; present a proposal to leadership to create a policy addressing the harassment issues revealed in the investigation. Harassment isn't necessarily the main focus of the scenario, or, of course, of this question.

So the best response here, I would eliminate, for example, the distracters of A and C because there were no grounds for termination or performance improvement plans. So we're between B; write a new policy, or D, present a proposal to leadership to create a policy. And the focus of D, of course, again, is harassment, but we wouldn't necessarily propose the leadership to do the creation of the policy. That would be HR's responsibility.

So the correct answer here, the keyed response, most effective response, is write a new policy requiring all collaborative projects to be approved by management. This, of course, will educate and train all of our employees about the expectations when they are going to work together on a particular project, especially in a way when management may not be involved.

Thank you for attending this SHRM learning opportunity.