I love how the manager’s immediate reaction is to go for constructive dismissal.
How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
31–40 of 104 posts
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#32Would be an easy problem to solve with a carrot instead of a stick. Just create a bonus for being the first person to respond to an out of hours group text, another bonus for being the person to respond to the most out of hours problems, and a year-end bonus for the whole team if no out of hours problem goes more than thirty minutes without a response from one of them. They'll organize the on call system themselves with no whining and you'll only spend money on actual problems since you're not paying anyone hourly to be on call. Everybody wins.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#33I've done a fair bit of on-call during my career, but I wouldn't do it anymore (at least not for any dollar amount a company would likely pay). I value my time outside work -- and my sleep -- too much. The standard in SV seems to be that on-call is required and uncompensated (some companies will dishonestly try to suggest that your salary is higher than it would be otherwise). This is gross, and we shouldn't stand fo…
On-call X% (0<X<100), and if you're called: The full 100% and then all the applicable bonuses for night shift and weekend etc.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#34opt-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
My #1 answer is make sure they don't get called very often.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#35[deleted]
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#36Submitter 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!".
No, the only solution in this case is full pay for each minute one is on-call. A (professional) firefighter is mostly on-call on his shift and is paid the same amount whether he's waiting or at an incident. Sure, he does stuff while waiting (like maintenance). But nobody said your It stuff couldn't do maintenance too. If you really need on-call with 15min response time, design your business around it (and your financ…
> pay for each minute one is on-call
Isn't that just overtime? I'd much prefer to bring a laptop with me a few weekends a year than be expected to fill a full workday with my family around the house on a weekend.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#37I've done a fair bit of on-call during my career, but I wouldn't do it anymore (at least not for any dollar amount a company would likely pay). I value my time outside work -- and my sleep -- too much. The standard in SV seems to be that on-call is required and uncompensated (some companies will dishonestly try to suggest that your salary is higher than it would be otherwise). This is gross, and we shouldn't stand fo…
I agree if on call is being triggered regularly.
I strongly disagree if events that would trigger on call happen rarely (e.g. once per year).
Many companies have stable infrastructure but just need the extremely occasional coverage for things that rarely, if ever, happen.
I’ve seen people overreact when on call has been introduced, probably from negative experiences at prior jobs. As long as the on call events happen once in a blue moon, I don’t see why anyone would have a major problem with it.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#38Easy. Pay them a decent salary for every hour they are on call. Simple as that.
You can't pay me a decent* salary for on-call. This is true of many people. One developer I worked with took medication at night which rendered him completely useless, and skipping the medication resulted in several very bad days. For me, it's simply a work/life balance thing, and I can find work that doesn't need it. The "easy" answer is to put it in the job ad, and hire people who agree to it. Because forcing that…
Years ago when I worked second-level support, I was the on-call guy for Thanksgiving. Our customers were specialty retailers, so I thought nothing of it. I figured they'd be closed. Turns out, we had an "Urban Clothing Store" as a customer, and on that day — what?! — someone couldn't ring up an 8-ball jacket? I was with my family, enjoying a cocktail when I got the call. I have seldom been more pissed off. In the end, from what I could remember, after wasting almost an hour, we tabled the whole incident.
I'm with you. On-call is never worth it. If a company needs 24/7 coverage, they should hire round the clock.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#39In 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...
In many jurisdictions, requiring uncompensated oncall would, by itself, possibly be "constructive dismissal". PIPing without an actual performance problem is also constructive dismissal, and doing it because the employee is refusing a change is possibly retaliation. Realistically, in the U.S. at least, there's very little risk that the employer will get sued, but it's still shitty and will eventually bite the employe…
The people you have will quit and the people you hire want to be compensated just as the others. So firing really isn't an option, unless you think you're overpaying your current staff and can get the same quality cheaper.
Re: How can I get my engineers to accept being on call?
#40I've done a fair bit of on-call during my career, but I wouldn't do it anymore (at least not for any dollar amount a company would likely pay). I value my time outside work -- and my sleep -- too much. The standard in SV seems to be that on-call is required and uncompensated (some companies will dishonestly try to suggest that your salary is higher than it would be otherwise). This is gross, and we shouldn't stand fo…
On-call X% (0<X<100), and if you're called: The full 100% and then all the applicable bonuses for night shift and weekend etc.
It needs to be be 150% minimum, otherwise they're just paying the same for >40h.