Q. We do not believe that one of our employees is keeping accurate time records of her work. Can we pay her what we believe she worked instead of what her time records show?

Now is a good time to review the eligibility requirements for your health and welfare benefits plans. If you word them correctly, you can exclude people who work for the company under third-party contracts ...

Remember those surveys last summer forecasting steady 3.6% salary increases for 2009? Forget about it. U.S. workers, on average, are now projected to receive annual merit increases of between 2.3% and 3.0% ...

Under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, employees can sue their employers if they believe they are owed money, including promised commissions and the like. The law doesn’t require that the money owed be promised in a binding, written contract.

Star One Staffing, based in Coral Gables, has agreed to pay $113,000 in back wages and damages to 70 Filipino workers to settle charges brought by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

Employee absences are costing your business more than twice as much as health care, two recent surveys reveal. Cutting even a fraction of absences can have a potent impact on your organization’s bottom line—an attractive possibility in a tight economy when employers need workers to be as productive as possible.

Once resistant to the money-saving practice of getting paid through direct deposit, employees now say they favor electronic payments over traditional paychecks.

Station Casino executives want to know what their employees dream about. A 20-question “dream survey” asks workers at the Las Vegas-based organization questions like, “Do you dream of owning your own house?” and “Do you dream of owning your own computer?”

When a TD Industries employee gets into a financial bind because of an emergency, colleagues pitch in to help out via payroll deductions. The Dallas-based construction firm allows employees to donate paid leave and money on a regular basis or in response to an isolated situation.

President-elect Barack Obama has put forth a significant employment and labor agenda. If he and the Democratic-controlled Congress succeed in passing proposed legislation, the next several years will see the creation of new protected classes, more family leave rights and the re-emergence of labor unions.

Q. How often do I have to pay my employees? Are there any rules that require payment upon termination within a specific time period?

Maybe Craig Whirlow, a temp agency employee from Connellsville, is a con man. Maybe he’s just a world-class slacker. Or maybe he’s a fan of comedian and director Woody Allen, who once famously observed, “Eighty percent of success is showing up.”

Judge Otis Wright II of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California recently approved a $2.8 million settlement between retailer Kmart and workers who claimed they were not compensated for meal and rest breaks.

Q. We recently had a power outage and called employees who weren’t in yet to tell them to come in when the power was back up. We then gave these people a chance to make up the lost time by working late or using paid time off. Do we have to pay them for the hours they missed?

Plummeting unemployment insurance funds and rising state debt will likely trigger a “solvency tax” on many Michigan employers beginning in January, the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) said.