Here’s more incentive to pay close attention to your compensation practices: Wage-and-hour lawsuits can easily morph into collective actions in which a few employees represent all similarly situated employees. Even if an employer manages to persuade the court that the claims aren’t suitable for a collective action, that doesn’t mean the case is over.

If you want your organization’s employees to work more productively, pay more attention to them. During the economic crisis of 2009, the most effective business strategy turned out to be increased supervision and management of employees. Research by RainmakerThinking shows that organizations that combined three effective strategies during the recession had better financial results than others:

If you’re thinking about switching to a production-based compensation system that pays more to the most productive employees, don’t worry too much about the plan’s possible disparate impact on some groups. As long as you don’t use the system to discriminate against a particular group—or favor another—courts are unlikely to conclude that any uneven results were caused by discrimination.

After two years of painful payroll reductions, there’s enough light at the end of the recessionary tunnel for some employers to begin considering pay raises. In many organizations, pay hikes will come in the form of variable compensation plans. Experts say two tactics can help HR pros create variable pay plans that strike a balance between risk, reward and fiscal stability.

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After two years of painful payroll reductions, there’s enough light at the end of the recessionary tunnel for some employers to begin considering pay raises. But in a volatile economy, implementing performance incentives and bonus plans is easier said than done. Experts say two tactics can help HR pros create variable pay plans that strike a balance between risk, reward and fiscal stability.

Q. Our company pays out bonuses in the year after the work is completed, sometimes late into the first quarter. If an employee resigns before the bonus payout date (say, in February), do we have to pay a bonus to that employee?

Q. May we include a provision in our bonus plan for North Carolina employees that they will forfeit any bonus that has not been paid at the time of termination?

By focusing sales compensation on what matters most, successful companies are offering up lessons on variable pay from which every compensation pro can learn. Struggling to make variable pay work for your organization? Pay attention to these sales compensation trends that just might apply in your organization:

The Texas Payday Act allows employees to sue for commissions earned but unpaid after termination. But that doesn’t mean that employees are always owed such commissions. If they violated their fiduciary duty to their employers by disclosing confidential information to a competitor, it’s legitimate to withhold pay.

The tax-exempt North Carolina High School Athletic Association apparently violated University of North Carolina policy when it paid bonuses to its managers. The association administers high school sports throughout the state. From 1999 to 2008, the association paid out $239,133 in bonuses to managers and $7,820 to nonmanagement staff. The employees won’t have to return the money.

The Supreme Court of California has ruled that employers are free to develop incentive payment plans that reward loyalty by requiring employees to stay for a period of time before earning the full benefit.