How should the HR professional respond to this?

A HR manager of Terrain Inc., a personal goods retail company has to go on FMLA leave to care for her mother who suffered a fall. The HR manager asks a HR professional in the department to collaborate on her behalf with a consultancy firm to provide recommendations to management on employee engagement. The consultancy firm has conducted a focus group with 15% of support employees and 5% of line employees. The HR professional upon reviewing the firm’s work believes the firm’s method is insufficient to gather the full information needed to create an effective solution. The HR professional determines that a different data collection method is necessary.

The HR professional chooses to carry out a survey of all employees, proceeds to obtain the support of the CEO, CFO, and COO and makes a presentation to the senior executive team. The senior executive team approves the HR professional’s initiative, the survey is carried out, and 85% of the employees respond to the survey. Impressed with the survey exercise, the CEO shares the survey results with the consultancy firm and requests that the firm works closely with the HR professional in the implementation phase.

The consultancy firm’s associate who worked on the focus group received the news of the survey results with dismay and is unhappy about the firm’s work being pushed aside and the survey being done without communicating with or involving the firm. The associate requires clarification from the HR professional.

How should the HR professional respond to this?
A . Advise the associate that the survey was approved by company executives and clarification can be provided by the senior executive team.
B . Communicate to the associate the areas that the survey helped provide pertinent data and work with the firm to complete the project.
C . Communicate to the associate senior management’s approval of the survey and offer to utilize data from the focus group to increase employee engagement levels.
D . Explain to the associate that the focus group was not inclusive of a significant portion of the
employee population which had further worsened employee engagement levels.

View Answer

Answer: B

Explanation:

The HR professional’s best response is to point out the effectiveness of the survey results and work with the associate of the firm through the remaining stages to ensure the project is a success. Note that there is no information in the SJT that indicates employee engagement levels got worsened.