Your FREE SPHR Flashcards 2026 – 150+ Cards

Senior Professional in Human Resources — HRCI's senior, strategy-focused HR credential for those who lead the HR function.

The HR Certification Institute — the body that creates and administers the SPHR, PHR, aPHR, and related HR credentials.

SPHR is senior/strategic (leads the function, shapes strategy and policy); PHR is operational/tactical (implements programs, day-to-day HR).

Different bodies: SPHR is HRCI's five-functional-area exam; SHRM-SCP is SHRM's competency-based exam (the BASK). Not interchangeable.

140 total — 115 scored plus 25 unscored pretest items placed throughout. Answer every question.

About 2 hours 15 minutes of testing within a roughly 2.5-hour appointment that includes a tutorial and survey.

A scaled score of 500 or higher on a 100–700 scale; raw score is converted using the modified-Angoff method.

01 Leadership & Strategy, 02 Workforce Planning & Talent Acquisition, 03 Talent Management, 04 Total Rewards, 05 HR Information Management, Safety & Security.

Leadership & Strategy 33%, Talent Management 23%, Workforce Planning 17%, Total Rewards 17%, HR Information/Safety/Security 10%.

Leadership & Strategy at 33% (about 46 of 115 scored items).

Experience-based: master's + 4 yrs, bachelor's + 5 yrs, or < bachelor's + 7 yrs of professional-level HR experience.

Valid 3 years; recertify with 60 credit hours (at least 15 Business credits) or retake the exam.

Through Pearson VUE — at a test center or online with live remote proctoring.

Traditional multiple choice plus multiple response, fill-in-the-blank, drag-and-drop, and scenario items.

A standard-setting method where subject-matter experts set the cut score based on question difficulty, then raw scores are scaled.

When two answers are both 'correct HR,' choose the more strategic one — aligned to business strategy and leading the function.

Aligning HR strategy and practices with business strategy so people decisions create competitive advantage; HR as a business partner.

HR anticipates workforce implications and co-creates plans with executives rather than reacting to requests.

Mission = why the org exists now; vision = the desired future; values = the principles guiding behavior.

Maps internal Strengths/Weaknesses against external Opportunities/Threats to inform strategy.

An internal, favorable factor (e.g., a hard-to-copy internal capability).

An internal, unfavorable factor the organization controls.

An external, favorable factor the organization could exploit.

An external, unfavorable factor that could harm the organization.

Pairing strengths to opportunities and weaknesses to threats turns the inventory into actionable strategy.

Scans external Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal, and Environmental forces affecting the organization.

Legal — statutes and regulations such as immigration and employment law.

Technological — advances such as automation and AI that reshape jobs.

Industry competition via rivalry, threat of new entrants, threat of substitutes, buyer power, and supplier power.

Alternatives that satisfy the same customer need through a different product.

Kaplan & Norton's tool measuring performance across financial, customer, internal-process, and learning-and-growth perspectives.

Learning and growth — tracks human, information, and organizational capital that enables future performance.

Measures how the people served perceive the org — e.g., customer satisfaction and retention rates.

The collective knowledge, skills, and abilities of the workforce, treated as a strategic asset.

Risk to the organization from talent issues — loss of key people, skill gaps, succession failure.

Preparing the organization to keep critical operations running through disruptions.

The structured approach to moving people and the org from a current to a desired future state while minimizing resistance.

Three stages: unfreeze (create readiness), change/move (implement), refreeze (anchor the new norm).

Reduces resistance and builds readiness and motivation to change.

Create urgency, build a coalition, form a vision, communicate it, empower action, get short-term wins, consolidate, anchor in culture.

Remove barriers — outdated systems or unsupportive structures — that block people from acting on the change.

An individual change model: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement.

Leading people through change — building urgency, removing barriers, and anchoring change in culture.

Diversity, equity & inclusion — a varied workforce (diversity), fair access/treatment (equity), and a culture where all contribute (inclusion).

Corporate social responsibility — operating ethically and contributing to social, environmental, and economic well-being.

Key performance indicator — a quantifiable measure used to track progress toward a strategic objective.

Total internal + external recruiting costs divided by the number of hires in a period.

Tracked separately: voluntary signals retention/engagement issues; involuntary reflects performance-driven exits — different actions.

Return on investment of an HR program — net value divided by cost — used to justify HR spending.

Reviewing compensation to identify and address unjustified pay differences across protected groups.

Using historical HR data and models to forecast outcomes like turnover or future hiring needs.

Tools and processes that turn data into insight for strategic HR and business decisions.

Building effective relationships with key stakeholders to influence organizational behavior and outcomes.

Ensuring HR strategy is consistent across geographic sites and business units.

Employees acting together to improve wages or conditions — protected under the National Labor Relations Act even without a union.

Bans employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin (Civil Rights Act of 1964).

Americans with Disabilities Act — prohibits disability discrimination and requires reasonable accommodation.

Age Discrimination in Employment Act — protects workers age 40 and older from age discrimination.

Family and Medical Leave Act — up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for covered family/medical reasons.

Requires 60 days' notice of mass layoffs or plant closings for covered employers.

Strategic sets HR strategy and shapes org strategy; operational runs programs and processes day to day.

Systematically monitoring external trends (often via PESTLE) to anticipate forces affecting the organization.

Building workplace practices that reinforce ethical conduct and prevent corruption as part of culture.

Forecasting future talent demand and supply, identifying gaps, and building strategies to meet organizational needs.

Projecting the roles and skills the business strategy will require.

Estimating how many current employees remain available after promotions, transfers, retirements, and turnover.

Comparing forecasted demand to projected supply to find talent surpluses or shortages.

Strategies to close a talent gap: develop internally (build), hire (buy), or use contingent workers (borrow).

Lists candidates ready or developing to fill specific key positions if they become vacant.

The distinctive bundle of value, rewards, and experience an employer offers in return for joining and contributing.

Different roles and generations value different rewards, so a segmented EVP resonates more strongly.

Shaping the organization's reputation as a place to work to attract and retain the right talent.

Authentically showcase genuine improvements and real current employee experiences — not spin.

Studying availability, supply, and salary expectations of talent in the relevant market.

Systematically documenting a role's duties, responsibilities, and competencies to drive job descriptions and selection criteria.

Description = the duties and responsibilities of the role; specification = the qualifications a person needs to do it.

Proactively identifying and attracting potential candidates through channels such as referrals, networks, and partnerships.

Partnering with associations, schools, and community organizations that reach underrepresented talent to broaden the pool.

Job-related evidence of ability that improves prediction of performance over résumés alone.

Software that manages requisitions, candidate data, and workflow to improve efficiency, consistency, and reporting.

The degree to which a selection method actually predicts job performance.

Engaging a new hire between offer acceptance and the start date to keep them prepared and committed.

Integrating a new employee starting on day one and continuing through orientation and ramp-up.

Combining organizations; HR retains key talent and integrates cultures, structures, rewards, and policies.

Retain the key talent whose knowledge drove the deal — announcement uncertainty raises flight risk.

Poor cultural integration is a leading cause; aligning cultures is a strategic HR focus.

Two organizations forming a shared enterprise; HR aligns people practices across both partners.

Giving candidates an honest picture of the role to improve fit and reduce early turnover.

Days from a requisition opening to an accepted offer — a measure of talent-acquisition speed.

A measure of how well new hires perform and stay, gauging the effectiveness of recruiting.

A pool of potential candidates cultivated over time to fill future roles quickly.

Designing programs that develop, engage, and retain a high-performing workforce across the employee lifecycle.

Building a ready and developing pipeline of qualified internal talent for critical roles to ensure continuity.

All business-critical roles, not just the C-suite, since continuity risk lives in any hard-to-fill position.

A predefined plan naming interim coverage and an accelerated process when a key leader departs unexpectedly.

Plots employees by performance (horizontal) and potential (vertical) to guide development and succession.

Someone with both strong current performance and high potential, prioritized for development and succession.

The emotional commitment and discretionary effort employees invest in the organization and its goals.

A satisfied employee is content; an engaged one is committed and energized toward the goals.

Match the intervention to the diagnosed driver — e.g., if growth drives exits, build internal mobility and career paths.

Aligning individual and team goals to organizational success and managing them through feedback, coaching, and evaluation.

Multi-rater feedback from manager, peers, direct reports, and self — richer and used mainly for development.

A rating error where one strong trait inflates the ratings of all other dimensions.

A rating error where a rater scores everyone near the middle, avoiding high and low ratings.

A rating error where recent events dominate, overshadowing the full review period.

Coaching is performance/goal-focused over a defined period; mentoring is broader and longer-term, sharing experience.

Building the leadership bench via coaching, mentoring, performance discussions, and communication skills.

Mapping potential advancement and movement so employees see a future and stay engaged.

Capturing, sharing, and retaining organizational knowledge so it isn't lost when people leave.

Joint negotiation between employees (through their union) and the employer over wages, hours, and conditions.

A collaborative approach focusing on underlying interests to create mutual-gains solutions.

A win-lose approach over a fixed pie, where one side's gain is the other's loss.

The negotiated contract governing the employment relationship for represented employees.

A formal complaint alleging the employer breached a specific provision of the CBA.

Strikers generally cannot be permanently replaced and are typically entitled to reinstatement.

A strike over wages/conditions; economic strikers may be permanently replaced (but keep reinstatement preference).

A structured conversation when an employee leaves, to surface why and improve retention.

Managing departures via exit interviews, layoff strategy, and alumni programs.

Keeps former employees connected as a future talent and referral pipeline (boomerang hires).

Policies for parental leave, expatriate return, and returning from sabbaticals or layoffs.

Relationships that develop talent; a sponsor actively advocates for the protégé's advancement.

Options like remote, hybrid, or flexible hours used to boost engagement, satisfaction, and retention.

Identifying gaps between required and current capabilities to design effective development programs.

Everything of value an employer offers — compensation, benefits, work-life effectiveness, recognition, and development.

Development and career opportunities are a standalone reward category alongside compensation, benefits, and recognition.

The stated approach to pay, including the market posture of leading, matching, or lagging competitors.

Pay above the market to attract and retain top talent (a competitive posture choice).

Pay at the market median to stay competitive while controlling cost.

Pay below market, often offset by other rewards like equity, growth, or culture.

A band grouping jobs of similar value with a defined pay range (minimum to maximum).

The width between a grade's minimum and maximum that allows pay to progress within the grade.

Direct = cash pay (base, incentives, bonuses); indirect = benefits and non-cash rewards.

Tying pay to results; for executives, link incentive payouts to measurable threshold/target/maximum metrics.

When strategy needs collaboration, use team-based or shared goals so rewards reinforce the desired behavior.

Pay packages for senior leaders (base, bonus, long-term equity), often overseen by a board compensation committee.

Sets minimum wage, overtime, and the exempt/non-exempt classification of employees.

Meets a duties test and salary basis/level, so is not entitled to overtime under the FLSA.

Entitled to at least minimum wage and overtime pay (1.5× over 40 hours per week).

The role's actual duties plus a salary basis/level — not the job title.

Obligations attach through enterprise coverage (business volume/interstate commerce) or individual coverage.

If a role loses its qualifying duties, reassess and reclassify as non-exempt, then track hours and pay overtime.

May qualify when paid either on a salary basis or at or above a specified hourly rate (unusual among exemptions).

Waiting time controlled by and for the employer's benefit is compensable under the FLSA.

Sets minimum standards and fiduciary duties for private retirement and health benefit plans.

Act solely in the interest of participants and beneficiaries; avoid prohibited self-dealing transactions.

A fiduciary using plan assets to benefit a party in interest, such as the employer.

Lets eligible employees continue group health coverage for a time after a qualifying event, at their own cost.

Missing the required election notice can mean statutory penalties and liability for claims that would have been covered.

The employer pays claims from its own funds and assumes the claims risk.

The carrier assumes the claims risk in exchange for a premium.

DB promises a set retirement benefit (pension); DC (e.g., 401(k)) depends on contributions and investment returns.

Monetary and non-monetary rewards, amenities, and service awards that reinforce contribution.

Ownership-based pay (stock options, RSUs) that ties rewards to long-term company value.

A total-rewards category covering flexibility, well-being, leave, and work-life balance.

Evaluating workforce demographics and preferences to design a benefit strategy that attracts and retains.

Human resource information system — software that stores employee data and automates HR processes.

Human capital management suite — an integrated platform unifying recruiting through learning in one system.

HRIS functionality letting employees view and update their own appropriate data.

Lets a manager see only their direct reports' data based on the reporting structure.

Grant each role only the minimum system access needed to do its job, reducing risk.

Disabling system access promptly as part of offboarding so departing employees can't retain it.

Keep records per legal requirement, then securely purge once obligations expire to limit risk.

Moving EU personal data abroad needs a lawful mechanism — standard contractual clauses or an adequacy decision.

A social-engineering attack using deceptive messages to steal credentials or data; a key HR data-security threat.

Modernizing HR with information systems, workflows, and emerging tech — ESS, gamification, social networking.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration — sets and enforces workplace-safety standards.

Within 8 hours of a work-related death.

Within 24 hours of a work-related in-patient hospitalization, amputation, or loss of an eye.

OSHA standard requiring exposure control plans, vaccinations, and protections for workers exposed to blood/infectious materials.

Employees have a limited right to refuse work posing imminent danger, without retaliation, when conditions are met.

OSHA requires employers to provide a workplace free from recognized hazards likely to cause death or serious harm.

The record employers keep of work-related injuries and illnesses.

Defines a predefined chain of command and decision authority for emergencies like cyberattacks or disasters.

Continuity keeps critical operations running; crisis management coordinates the immediate emergency response.

Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — sets privacy and security rules for protected health information.

To health information held by or for the employer's group health plan — not ordinary employment records.

Protected health information — individually identifiable health data HIPAA protects from improper use or disclosure.

Limit the use, disclosure, and request of PHI to the least amount needed for the intended purpose.

Restricting who can read, edit, or delete records based on role and need.

Preparing alternative actions for foreseeable disruptions to people, data, and operations.

Policies and controls ensuring employee data is accurate, secure, and used appropriately.

Documented procedures for responding to workplace emergencies to protect employee safety.