Like Elizabeth, I have never been payed for time off due to snow. This includes all the jobs in my work history, from various historic sites to a number of retail and part-time academic positions. I think that it's great that you want to consider paying them because they have arranged their time in order to work during that time frame, but I don't know how feasible it would be. Unless they could arrange to do some sort of "work from home" activity such as David suggested, then they would simply be paid to not work. Obviously, this isn't something that would work long term in most institutions. My thought is that you can make the hours that they miss available at another time at your institution. Whoever missed work would have an opportunity to come in later in the week or month and work on a project in order to make up the hours. This way they have the opportunity to make up the time if they need the money, and since they wouldn't necessarily be completing their regular duties (front desk, answering phones, etc), they could work on any special projects that need some extra work.