Executive Officer Test

You ask your boss to approve a raise for Jake, a member of the team you supervise. He is great at handling necessary clerical work, such as resolving clients' scheduling conflicts and proofreading to ensure clients receive error free communications. Your boss knows Jake's performance is excellent but denies your request because she feels it sets a bad example to reward low-level work.

What should you do to persuade your boss to approve Jake’s raise?

You are assigned to a team where each member is reporting their regional office’s performance data. Your role is to make sure the data is accurately reported so that executives can use it to allocate bonuses to each office.

You notice that one teammate, Ronan, rounded up the numbers for his office so they look better than other offices' numbers. For example, he reported $19.1 million in sales as $20 million, which is higher than Sue’s report of $19.3 million in sales as $19 million.

What do you do to make sure your teammates accurately report the data?

Before you are promoted from cafe manager to district supervisor next month, you need to recommend that one of your two assistant managers fill your position. They both started at the same time and one supervises the opening shift while the other supervises the closing shift.

What metrics will help you assess which assistant manager has performed better?

Germany's economy avoided falling into recession during the final three months of last year. This means that it avoided two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, which is the definition of a recession. This was a small, but positive, surprise for all analysts who, after the July-to-September period that featured a 0.3% decline, predicted the continuation of this negative trend.

Reasons for slower growth last year include a slowdown in the global economy and a weaker car sector, with some German consumers less willing to buy new cars amid confusion over new emission standards.

Joe Johnson, senior financial analyst, told the BBC that US tariffs on EU car exports, which US President Donald Trump has threatened, could have a major impact on Germany. He thinks that, if this happens, Germany might fall into recession.

What can be concluded from the text above?

Your assistant attended several meetings on your behalf while you were out on sick leave. You need to include a summary of each meeting in your next team newsletter. For each meeting below, choose the clearest and most concise way to restate the key points your assistant compiled.

In an upcoming referendum, voters will be asked whether the minimum wage should be increased. Telephone polls of likely voters were conducted to predict what the result might be. All respondents were put into at least one of six categories based on profession and age: scientist, lawyer, hourly wage earner, small business owner, younger voter, older voter.

The opinion polls showed:

• A majority of voters are in favor of keeping the current minimum wage.
• A majority of scientists and lawyers supported a rise in the minimum wage.
• Younger voters are more inclined to support a rise in the minimum wage.
• Older voters tend to support no change.
• Hourly wage earners overwhelmingly supported a rise in the minimum wage.
• Small business owners were evenly split on the subject.

Select all the statements that can be concluded from the above text:

Your team doesn’t have anyone skilled in data analytics, so your boss asks you to do your best to analyze visitor behavior on the company’s website. A week later, you ask a colleague on a different team for feedback on your work so that you can improve it before presenting to your boss.

After reviewing your analysis, he says, “This makes no sense. Have you ever worked with data before?”

How do you reply?

Cats are common pets throughout the world, and their worldwide population exceeds 500 million.

Cats are the second most popular pet in the U.S. by number of pets owned, behind freshwater fish. Although cat ownership has commonly been associated with women, research has shown that men and women in the U.S. are equally likely to own a cat.

They are ranked as the third most popular pet in the U.K. by number of pets owned, after fish and dogs, with 8 million being owned.

What can be concluded from the text above?

You forgot to review a budget proposal by the Monday deadline set by your boss until it was too late to finish it that day. Now, Tuesday morning, your boss asks if you finished all your work yesterday.

What do you say to your boss?

You drafted an email on your phone in poor lighting while in transit. Now back in the office, you need to proofread what you wrote before sending it out. Read the email draft below.

The agenda for next week’s meeting includes presentations from both the marketing and sales teams. Marisol, you will need to has completed the analysis of the most recent campaign by then. You guys need to present slides of those outcomes at the meeting, OK? Meanwhile, Lucas should do something similar for the sales team. Rather than presenting individual case studies, tries to analyze the quarter as a whole this time. Let's nail these presentations and show the executives how much improvement we have made?

Which sentences have errors in grammar or punctuation?

As part of a global team, you work in an online, shared document. Your teammates are in a different time zone and typically start editing the document while you are sleeping. One morning, you discover that some of your teammates updated your work in the document with incorrect information.

After correcting the updates, what do you do to help keep this from happening again?

Your unproductive teammate has been going home early each day before he finishes his work on your shared project. You have been staying late to do his work every day so the project stays on schedule. You have to pick up your kids after school next week, though, so you can't stay late.

Which actions do you take to increase the chances that the project will stay on schedule?

As their manager, Tom emails you that Maria is using her work computer in the office for her personal business, which violates company policy and can be grounds for firing. Both of them are excellent workers who are key to the team's success but they do not like each other.

Your company’s leadership team has developed Return to Office rules to improve productivity and collaboration. As a member of the leadership team, you are in charge of communicating the rules in a company-wide email.

What email subject line should you use to inspire remote employees about the new rules?

Li Jie has joined your team after working in another department for a hostile manager. He rarely says anything in meetings and seems nervous whenever you ask for his opinion. He follows instructions and his work is great but you sense that he can contribute more.

As his manager, what do you say to Lie Jie to help him achieve his full potential?

The company's sick leave policy says:

This company’s sick leave policy applies to all our employees who have been with our company for more than six months. Our employees can take sick leave only when they want to recover from a sudden illness, accident, or injury. They can use up to 10 days of sick leave for these purposes per calendar year.

Upon completion of each 12 month period of employment, employees will receive 3 additional days of sick leave for every completed 12 month period of working for the company. Unspent additional sick leave days cannot be transferred to the next 12 month period. For example, an employee who has worked for the company for 10 years would receive 30 additional days of sick leave, or 40 in total.

Keep in mind that employees who become sick should either use their sick days or work from home to avoid spreading illnesses.

Fill in the blanks, with numbers, for the cases below. Enter the number 0 for cases when an employee doesn't have the right to sick leave, according to the policy.

• Emily, who has worked for us for almost half a year and still hasn't used any sick leave days, has the right to use up to __ sick leave days this year.
• Faith, who just started her 3rd year of working for us and has not taken sick leave until now, had a car accident. She has the right to use up to __ days of sick leave to recover from her injuries.
• Vanessa, who started to work for us a little over a year ago, took 2 days of sick leave last year. She was Faith's passenger in the car accident. Vanessa has the right to use up to __ days of sick leave to recover from her injuries.
• Edith, who began working for us 8 months ago, has the right to use up to __ sick leave days for a volunteer adult care program at a local hospital that lasts the whole day.
• If Gabrielle, who has worked for us for 20 months, and who took a 10-day sick leave immediately after her 6-month trial period had finished, gets ill tomorrow, she will have the right to use up to __  days of sick leave.

Your supervisor tells you that one of your coworkers, Dan, does not want to team up with you on the next project because something you said hurt his feelings.

How do you address the situation?

You have identified a new budgeting software package that can save the company over $1 million annually. Your boss agrees with your findings but informs you that the CEO, who chose the current software, and the budgeting team that uses it, are both satisfied with the existing system. She asks you to come up with strategies to get the company to adopt the new software.

Which of the below strategies should you present to your boss?

Carefully read the following excerpt from an article on paper production:

With the recovery rate of used paper for recycling approaching 70 percent in the United States and Europe, and approaching 80 percent in Japan, to keep up with our demand for paper we need to continue using fresh fiber as well as recycled, according to the premise set forward in a new report by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD).

Detailing the reasons why fresh fiber combined with recycled is important for a single integrated wood fiber system, the report examines the “complementarity” of using both and discusses the functions of different types of fibers and the issues related to both recycling old fiber and sourcing fresh fiber. In 2012, 400 million tons of paper and paperboard were produced and consumed globally, which is double that in 1985, notes the report. As the population continues to expand and standards of living increase, this number is expected to climb by another 40 percent by 2028. While many would advocate for cutting down on paper use in the first place, in the face of global demand the most sustainable fiber may have to be the next best thing. But therein lies the rub: finding adequate quantities of said fiber will be the challenge of the global pulp and paper industry.

Which statement most effectively summarizes the text?

An author writes an argumentative essay to persuade readers to agree with a claim about a topic. When writing an argumentative essay, it's important to establish credibility with readers to convince them that the author is trustworthy. True statements, accurate evidence, and clear logic increase an author's credibility. However, false statements, inaccurate evidence, and unclear logic make an author less credible. With lower credibility, an author is less likely to persuade readers to agree with a claim--even when it is trustworthy.

Select the statement that most effectively summarizes the above text:

You have been tasked with giving a presentation at work. Due to the level of detail required, the presentation is scheduled for a total of three hours. About an hour into the presentation, you notice that the audience is getting distracted and starting to pay more attention to their phones than to you.

Which methods would be effective at re-engaging your audience?