How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
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How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
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Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#2Reward them for issues fixed in off hours while on call. Make a game with rewards out of it.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#3Submitter but not OP. Just to be clear the only answer to this is a daily stipend for being on call PLUS a payout per incident (min. 1hr billing). And of course, it's opt-in.
Anything else is devaluing yourself to the poor decisions of others. "I will work harder!".
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#4Pay more.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#5Oh, I remember this. It made my eyes twitch a bit when I read that the manager wanted to put the dev on PIP, after changing the employment terms for fun, even though the dev asked about being on-call very specifically during interviews, according to the manager...
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#6In many jurisdictions suddenly "mandating" that an employee be on call every week/month would be a proposed change of employment contract. I.e. the employee would be fully within their right to refuse until the employer makes an acceptable offer, if at all.
Also, this "manager" sounds totally clueless...
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#7Pay more or let them go. That’s it. If the job suddenly requires on call, and someone refuses to comply then show them the door and hire someone else with the explicit expectation that there will be on-call.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#8opt-in.
Pay them for it.
And have a culture of fixing stuff and spending enough before shit happens, so that on-call is rare and problems don't repeat too often
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#9The whole, "How can I get people to do X when they don't want to do it for $Y?" is just a funny question. It is like asking, "How do I buy a sandwich when no one wants to sell me one for $1?"
Of course if everyone except a single employee IS willing to do X for $Y then the company many choose to replace them.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#10Easy. Pay them a decent salary for every hour they are on call. Simple as that.