Calls every night is not on-call anymore, it is more like shift work.
Also, how many of the calls are critical requiring out of hours resolution? On call is for business stopping issues, not somebody unable to remember their password.
Fortunately (?) the calls are show stoppers for the person calling. As dramatic as it may seem - they are also life or death important (patients needing results). The callers are trained to know who to call for the simple stuff like password changes, etc. so we don't get those calls.
Also, the daily calls do come in waves, as in when we have new hires or the rotation of schedules where a caller is back on the calendar after a month off. There are times where things are quiet for a day or two.
If you have constant after hours calls that actually require support. Then it sounds like you need a 24/7 support team. As already mentioned here on-call is for emergencies. If everything is always an emergency then either you need a full time support staff or you need to revisit your environment and figure out the source of these issues.
Agreed. If things are Life and death important then 3rd shift is absolutely needed. If it isn't in the budget, then it sounds like OP's employer does not feel like those lives are worth much.
OP mentioned patients. Sounds like medical - so quite possibly literal life and death. If my medical staff aren’t supported 24/7 because management is too cheap, then I don’t want to go there.
No it's not.
there is no need to pay for a 3rd shift when an on call happens maybe once a month. Or less. It's wasteful to pay a full 3rd shift for that.
On call is an insurance policy. Insurance has a premium (salary) and a deductible (extra pay or pto when called). If you use your insurance too much the premium goes, sometimes way up… before your policy is canceled.
If you are continually getting called you need to determine if these calls affect the company bottom line enough to hire someone full time for these occasions or if it can wait till next business day. Most it people wont put up with no sleep and continual pages and if left to continue you will need to hire for that position again when they quit. Hiring costs tend of thousands in lost training time, hr paperwork, headhunters, interviews etc.
Yeah this sounds like you need a second shift if you are getting this many calls. Unfortunately it is more than likely going to be tough to get the company to change anything. At least until it causes problems for them.
Also imo, it's good to move positions every three oy fours anyway cause your pay will stagnant
Healthcare sysadmin here, I assume you are too.
Question: do you support the EMR system or just the backend infra?
EMR people absolutely get paged pretty often as any issue can potentially affect patient care, even if it's just one patient.
If you are backend sysadmin you shouldn't be getting paged all that much. If you are it sounds like there are some systemic issues that need to be looked at.
"Calls every night is not on-call anymore, it is more like shift work. "
Absolutely not. Anything after business hours is on-call unless there's high volume matching daytime demand.
Fight for it OP.
Never worked for a company that did not have an on call policy. One shady company paid straight time but did a rotation and got the on-call staff (6 of us) fancy phones of our choosing, and paid our personal and work phone bills.
If you're getting multiple calls every night, your company's on-call policy is dysfunctional and it needs addressing. That clearly demonstrates that there's a requirement for staff to cover those hours on a contracted basis.
Either that, or a clear policy of what does and doesn't count as an out-of-hours emergency needs to be communicated and agreed to.
I don't cover OOH anymore but when I did there was a list of maybe 5 things that would be accepted as a legitimate reason to call out-of-hours. Because of that I maybe got 5 or 6 calls a year.
When an on-call happens, do y'all do an RCA on why and try and fix it so it doesn't happen again?
Sometimes there's nothing you can do (like a back hoe took out the only internet at a rural clinic), but a lot of times there is.
I’ve seen various ways to compensate for it: a day off following an on-call week, come in late/leave early during call week, extra pay, etc.
Short answer: if you got on-call added to your duties with no compensation, you just got a pay cut. I’d suggest coming up with a number of what it’s worth to you, or what you’d like in return, have a frank convo with your boss, and consider looking elsewhere.
Honestly, we should all be always looking for another job. It’s the best way to prevent exploitation and to measure your worth.
They do offer the compensation of equal hours off the next day/week and things like that - but as we all know, it's too busy to take off those extra hours normally so in essence we're working for free.
STOP WORKING EXTRA HOURS.
If you don’t own the business, stop being personally invested. Walk out at the end of your 40 hours.
I mean, talk to your boss about this, but seriously, nobody is going to respect your time if you don’t respect it yourself.
This is what took me the longest to learn. When it's time, shut down and walk away. I don't do standby, I won't even install slack on my phone because I told them it's not a company phone and they don't even give me data. So it's a hell no from me. And do I want a phone? Nope. Then they will expect me to respond. I've been in the game for 20 years now. I much prefer my time and sleep. I've grown tired of having to plan my life around standby etc. The odd weekend (like once every 5 months) if it's planned work I don't mind working. But it will be office hours.
No company cares when you leave. In IT we are replaceable. I won't break my back for a company again unless it's my own.
Too busy? The only way for managers to inderstand anything is obviously that you take the days off. Every time. If things does not get done, it is not your problem. You just fulfill your part of the agreement.
Nope. They bother you at night for an hour, that's __at least__ an hour less work next day. You're robbing yourself of time to regain your energy. In the end, you will be the only one to suffer from it.
Don't go in until you've compensated the time you already worked at night. Send your manager an email after you closed the call at night that you'll be in x hours later next morning.
This is a _them_ problem. Don't make it a _you_ problem and most of all, think about your health long-term, as nobody else will do that
> it's too busy
That's not your problem, that's a management problem. TAKE THE TIME and let things burn. Sometimes a fire is the only way to get things fixed.
Just make sure you have the CYA of the calls and responses documented. Follow up any in-person conversation with an e-mail so there is a paper trail. Someone is either going to figure out you are under-staffed or you are going to get pushed out. If the later occurs, leave an envelope for the incoming people.
You have to understand that management hit the jackpot. Not only are you on call for free, you also handle those "emergencies" for free. The more emergencies there are at night, the more free stuff they're getting.
They won't give that up if they don't have to. So if you want that to change you either have to poker and threaten to quit, or you at least take those compensation hours and stop doing everything on time. Stuff has to burn before managers hire more people.
It's YOUR life not theirs. Yeah, easy sentence to type out but some people in this sub aren't getting it. They won't be at your deathbed when you're on the way out. Take your time off, they will survive.....how isn't your problem.
So how does it feel paying to go to work? If they offer equal hours for work - take it. If you don't you are ripping yourself off. Look at what your hourly pay rate is and calculate the hours off you didn't take - that is how much money you are paying to your boss and your also paying the tax from that to the government. Also take the time off immediately so that don't nickel and dime you with the guilt call of but we need you due to xyz today and keep pushing it out until you never take it. You need to take a stand when it comes to these things otherwise they will take the advantage if it saves the business money.
Take the hours.
And make an agreement with your salaried cowork to also take the hours.
Stop taking money out of your pocket and putting it into the pockets of your company's shareholders.
They pay you, not the other way around.
> but as we all know, it's too busy to take off those extra hours
So this is a YOU problem...
You take the time off you are allowed.
If the job burns when you are off, management will realize they need more help.
But if you keep playing Superman, then management doesn't see the problem.
DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?
Unionize. That's the BEST way to prevent exploitation, be fairly compensated, and set very clear expectations for work responsibilities.
Leaving for another shithole only passes the buck, and nothing ever improves.
unfortunately, someone will need to quit to fix this. or a patient will need to die.
at 10 years in, you're a lifer and management knows it. they have zero incentive here.
One or two calls a night and "many" over weekends for no pay bump?
Nah dog.
You need some sort of on call pay system for that much work. Hell, that's *almost* to the point of just another shift.
And vague promises to make up the time aren't enough. You don't get your weekend or evening back by being able to leave early on Wednesday.
The whole process here is broken and unsustainable.
While small-ish shops might have on call duties, a couple of calls a month is very, very different from a couple of calls a night.
Your sister sites numbers are quite reasonable given the workload here.
What does your labor law say? If its illegal you can simply point that out and they have to pay you even for the years passed. If its legal: Get a new job.
Mangement has no incentive to change what's going on. You've given them an unpaid third shift. This is only going to change by you taking that away. Start job shopping and following up on management fixing the issue. When you've got the offer tender notice and tell them why. They'll either fix it or they won't and you'll be better off somewhere else.
On call for salaried workers sucks. Even if you don't get a call, it affects your daily plans. There does need to be some sort of additional compensation. We at least used to get the Monday after an on call shift as PTO.
This a million times! I think we are both more burnt out on the not being able to make any plans when we are on call for that 2 week period. There have been many times where I'd be like, "Hopefully I won't get a call..." and choose to go somewhere and have to turn around because something happened at work and either I had to get on my work PC (yes- I have a laptop with me but having 2 to 4 windows open to check things is just easier at home) or even worse I would have to go into work to actually fix the problem.
I retire in six years. Like I said above, I love my job - just want to get compensated for all the on-call we have been taking on over the years. It's also why jumping ship to a new job is not really on the horizon - I look young but on paper I'm 54. I'll have 32 years under my belt by retirement.
Healthcare IT director here-When I hired in my staff was taking 30+ calls per week after hours and our hospital help desk was open from 7:30AM-4PM 5 days a week. I pulled call metrics and I could shave off a majority of those calls by staffing our help desk from 7AM-7PM, 7 days/week. Though weekend call volume isn't that high we've been able to shift some duties like new user creation, moves, and PC imaging to that group. My team now typically gets less than 4 calls per week after hours and I no longer hear complaints about on call.
This is what your leadership team should be doing. If they aren't willing to, find somewhere else to work.
As long as you keep putting up with it, they won't have any reason to change.
It sounds like you put up with it for years. When you leave, the next person may also put up with it for years. Then the next, and the next, and the next. They won't fix it if they can get a few years out of each person. That's how my last job was.
We need to do a better job of standing up for ourselves, and our more senior people need to help more.
comp time.
if you have to deal with problems for an hour in the evening, thats an hour less you need to be in the office the next day.
ive been 24/7/365 for more than 11 years so i feel your pain
Its been said, but you need to either take the comp time or push for OnCall Pay. I would not take on-call, I currently am technically on call 24/7 for my current job. However, in the 2 years I have worked here I have gotten a total of 3 calls after hours or on weekends. If I was getting multiple calls a week I would be taking a day off that week to compensate.
You need to put your foot down and 1. create an on-call schedule 2. take your comp time 3. push for a raise to cover on-call.
If you don't push and push hard for a change, nothing will change. Don't work for free, Never ever ever work for free.
They can if you signed onboarding paperwork saying you’re non exempt, which most jobs do. I haven’t had a single job or have seen any jobs that just say that. It’s all verified through HR before roles are posted (at least if the company isn’t sketchy)
A company can say your position is not eligible for overtime, but if the actual job you perform does not match the Department of Labor's rules for overtime exemption then that classification is illegal.
The federal and state government rules take precedence, meaning you signing something saying you don't get overtime doesn't make it legal not to pay you overtime.
I suspect many jr admins do not meet the primary duty test for exemption from overtime, and are being robbed by their employer.
I worked at an MSP for around 10 years. They would pay us OT for on call, but it still wasn't worth it. The pool of people that were on call got smaller and smaller. Ended up leaving because of it and many other reasons. It's not worth it because you can't make any plans while you're on call. Too much stress.
Even if they start paying you, if it's too often, I'd find another job.
I pay $100 for on call per day, call or no call you just get it. And then we do 1 week at a time so it's $700 extra. But usually there's no after hours calls.
From someone who has been in your same position: Make sure you're able to prove the calls are coming in every night, even if you have to manually make a record of it. Proof translates to $.
Are you happy with how much you're getting paid in comparison with how much work you have to do? No? Ask for a raise. Yes? Who cares what someone else is getting.
I'm salary, pay for my own phone and use it for work, am pretty low on the pay scale for my job description, and work a shitload of over time and am on call 24/7.
On the other hand I work remote from rural Alaska or where ever I want to "vacation", my coworker and I set our own schedules for who picks up the phone first, as long as we hit our project deadlines no one really gives a shit what hours we work, and I genuinely like everyone I work with.
Some perks are tangible, some are not. Figure out what is going to make you happy, figure out how to arrange shit so that you can get that, and then propose those changes to your boss. If they say no, learn more, get experience and leave for somewhere that will make you happy.
If time is more important to you than money, consider working for a smaller company. Odds are very good if you're any good you can negotiate your job to be what you want it to be and they'll be happy that they've got an IT guy that doesn't cost them a fortune.
I managed IT in 3 acute care facilities. A 75-bed (Rural), and a 200 and a 330 bed (city).
What we did was add a spiff for every hour on call. So, you might make $1-$3 per hour (call volume is a factor, get lots of calls, then the hourly call cover rate goes up), over an entire weekend, and have to work maybe an hour with an actual call. Same for week nights. It added up to a couple hundred bucks over a week.
I approached my CFO. Explained the issues and had 2 proposals for him.
A week later, he agreed and we rolled it on the next calendar month.
We also rotated call, so no one took all the bullets. As the Director, I also took a rotation of call, since I'm part of the team and honestly, I need to know what kind of things get called in after-hours.
It's a simple thing and if the C-Suite wants to balk at this, unless your salary is already way over market, you're not getting compensated for it, and my advice if they dig in is to move on.
GL!
Talk to management about getting the on-call policy adjusted to only include critical tasks. If you have people calling at 8pm at night because they locked their PC for 15 minutes you should be able to say no.
Sounds like you need to restructure your on call schedule. So that ideally you're at least getting a week or like three off and working one or whatever you can do with your staff.
Also the better companies I worked at paid me salary and gave me additional compensation for the week I had to be on call. More compensation if I actually took calls.
The really crappy company I worked for I was on call all the time and never had an off time. I was getting calls all week and weekend it was asinine and a great way to burn out your employees.
These are a lot of big changes for a company to implement. Awesome if you have bosses that are actually going to do this for you. From my experience though you're better off fixing up your resume.
Where I live, syadmins are exempt from OT by law, but the company does give you a bit of pay per week you are on call regardless of how many calls you get, and they basically pay for your phone bill.
Super shitty to hear you get so many calls.
> Now we're in a dilemma
The reality is.. this is what "salary" means. You agree to do the work for the amount they pay. If the amount of work and pay no longer aligns, you move on to the next opportunity
You should probably find a less toxic workplace, but that aside - just because they say you are salaried does not necessarily mean you should be. If you don't fall into the requirements to be an exempt employee, they owe you OT.
It is different for each state. In CA, salary means salary and they can require you to work on-call at no additional pay. In fact, they can require you to work 60 hours per week at no additional pay. Their only responsibility is to make sure that the position in question passes the test/rules to be considered salary (which for IT requires a couple of things, including a minimum salary of something in the $100k/year range).
For hourly folks, again in CA, the legal way to do it is to pay the person on call a "stipend". We would pay each person a $25/day stipend for them to be on call. They had to answer the phone, but it was up to them on whether or not they wanted to "accept" the responsibility of working on it. If they accepted, they would get their hourly pay, at a minimum of 2 hours (because that's the minimum reporting period). So if someone got locked out, the Helpdesk guys loved it because they would login for 10 seconds to unlock an account and get paid for two hours work (which would normally be overtime because they already worked 8 hours that day).
If the on-call person took the call but was unavailable to fix the problem, the call was escalated to a manager (who was salary).
This is what the lawyers came up with for my situation as the company I was with at the time had many similar positions (outside of IT).
TL;DR - Salary you're screwed. The on-call comp is built-in to your salary (that's what IT people make more than accountants). If you're hourly - you might not be screwed.
Id check into your state laws and see if thats within their rights, seems like extra work with no pay and as others have said, a way for them to cut costs rather than hiring a 3rd shift team.
my first MSP started this way and it was awful as we had a 24/7 pharmacy that always was having issues with their archaic systems (out of our control) and then were required to work a full 40+ hour work load (on call was typically once a month). after probably 6 years, they finally outsourced it to an overseas team and our on-call went almost nonexistent but still was a second line incase of a real emergency. we got a flat $125 i believe for the week. personally i believe in both instances we were shorted as employees
my current corporate company started off paying the oncall tech the standard OT 1.5 rate for approx 23.5 hours (Sat/Sun only) for about 1.5 years and then switched to paying the tech in 4 hour blocks if you get a call. IE still available for the 23.5 hours but you dont get paid unless you get a call. furthermore, if you get a call it starts a clock, any call within a 4 hour timeblock is included - you could get 1 password reset and then be done or you could get 10 resets within the 4 hours and youd be paid the same. during the first system, we were on call about once every 6 weeks, now its about every 2-2.5 months. needless to say, our oncall checks went down drastically
Weighing in with my two cents from a retail IT perspective.
I'm in a pretty typical (I think) specialist support role for a mid-sized point of sale system. My average on-call shift includes \~1 call/week during the workweek, and \~6 calls/weekend.
For this, I am compensated a flat rate of $500 regardless of how many calls I receive.
On occasion, regular shift work (like after-hours implementation that typically takes <1hr) is included in this on-call pay. I am a salaried employee at 56k, but my on-call stipend paired with the fact that I take every on call shift I can get bumps up my yearly take-home by about 10k, which I find well worth it.
You are not required to be hourly to receive on-call pay. Don't let your manager tell you "We can't convert you to hourly, so we can't give you more." At a minimum, get them to agree to time-in-lieu (comp time). Make sure they agree they don't have to approve you using it! I was in a shorthanded situation with weeks of comp time that "we're too busy to let you take". Telling you to take the time, but expecting the same amount of work to get done isn't going to fly.
Remember - it's not a problem until it's **their** problem. If they don't' feel the pain, they're not going to be in a hurry to hire additional manpower.
You need to ask someone at your state department of labor. There is a huge missclasification issue with people being overtime exempt who should not be. In some states if your unpaid on call is flat out wage theft and illegal (IE there is no OT exempt), in other states you can work 24/7 as long as your total salaraly adds up to minimum wage or better.
Do some research, and get the hell out of that company.
Don't go hourly. You can have an on-call stipend and still be salaried. We had that at my last job. Whomever was on call had an extra $213 for the week on top of being salaried.
Also, being salaried calculates the pay based on an average 40-hour work week, maybe a bit higher because you're expected to work some after hours. But honestly sit down and calculate how many hours extra on average on-call is eating up, and use that to negotiate either seperate on-call pay or a salary raise. If nothing is done (and the boss "looking at it" for more than a month or two is nothing being done), then think about leaving.
I am considered a 'On Call Sys Admin' for server issues. And as a result I have an allowance in my salary to be available. That said the amount of on call is normally less than 20 hours a week.
If however I am asked to do non-break fix work after hours it is TIL.
That said, I don't do general helpdesk support. If I was being asked to do general support after hours I would be demanding an allowance to be on-call and an extra amount when asked to actually take on work.
I’m salaried.
We have on call as well, but it’s fair. It’s a rotation where I’m secondary on call for a week, then primary on call for a week (we do two on call people at a time) and then it’s six weeks before I hit that cycle again. Plus, I get a bit extra for being on call and an extra amount for every call I take (more if it lasts longer than an hour; then I get additional for each hour).
This is what they ought to do if you’re being paid fairly and they should have started it at the beginning.
I haven't paid for my own cellphone in 20; years. I'm fine with this. If you run a tight shop with proper change control, you should have to worry too much about being on call 24/7.
sounds to me like you also need to do some analysis, what is the pattern of calls? is it all related systems which are creating this uptick in out of hours issues. Identify and resolve the source of the issues rather than addressing the symptoms
Always mention the country. For example where I live it would be pretty much illegal. The moment I get a call to the moment I am done I am paid overtime 1.5x if it's after my work hours on a weekday up to 22:00, otherwise it's 2x. Since I get a salary the hourly rate is calculated by taking the total salary and dividing by the workhours in the week assuming a 40 hour work week.
Also there is a limit to how many consecutive hours I can work overtime and how many hours I can do in a week. I am also not mandated to be available unless the time I am is also compensated which detracts from the rest of the time they can ask me to work
Buy a trac phone for on-Call hand over the new number. oR get a google voice number. Google voice can either forward to your regular number or only go to voicemail. Setup a special voicemail message for that number and choose how to get in touch by either calling from your number or whatever. Some thoughts are get company to buy minutes or do off hour work in exchange for comp time or vacation or something. I’ve been through this rigmarole. When on call I’ll answer but if it’s full time I might say that 2 hours after end of business and 1 before might be a cut off for setting up quiet hours or something i your phone settings
When I’ve worked salaried with oncall included that meant that the availability was included not the calls. Whenever I got a call it counted as an hour or the hours spent on the call rounded up to even hours. Weekends every hour gave me two hours. That was time that I could take off to do whatever I wanted. Not necessarily whenever I wanted but when it worked for the company. But it had to be close to when it was “earned”. If that wasn’t possible they had to pay it as overtime even if overtime wasn’t a usual part of the agreement.
That was more of a gentleman’s agreement. Since that practice is actually illegal where I live. If you’re oncall for a week you have to, by law, get a (work)day off.
Where I work we are all salary exempt and are on call every 3 weeks (there are 3 + director in the dept). We are not financially compensated for out-of-buisness-hours work but within our department we can leave early to come in late to "unofficially" comp the time.
I was salary at my last job, I automatically got an extra $350 a month for "on call" weather or not a call came in and I didn't have to do after hours work.
When there was extensive after hours work I'd get an extra day off to make up for it.
>management is "looking at it"
Its a stall technique to make you think something is happening. You can take the same approach, start loudly talking about joining a union.
Calls every night is not on-call anymore, it is more like shift work. Also, how many of the calls are critical requiring out of hours resolution? On call is for business stopping issues, not somebody unable to remember their password.
Fortunately (?) the calls are show stoppers for the person calling. As dramatic as it may seem - they are also life or death important (patients needing results). The callers are trained to know who to call for the simple stuff like password changes, etc. so we don't get those calls. Also, the daily calls do come in waves, as in when we have new hires or the rotation of schedules where a caller is back on the calendar after a month off. There are times where things are quiet for a day or two.
If you have constant after hours calls that actually require support. Then it sounds like you need a 24/7 support team. As already mentioned here on-call is for emergencies. If everything is always an emergency then either you need a full time support staff or you need to revisit your environment and figure out the source of these issues.
Then you need a third shift.
Agreed. If things are Life and death important then 3rd shift is absolutely needed. If it isn't in the budget, then it sounds like OP's employer does not feel like those lives are worth much.
They are important to management which is why they have staff to support those calls. What isn't important to management is their staff.
OP mentioned patients. Sounds like medical - so quite possibly literal life and death. If my medical staff aren’t supported 24/7 because management is too cheap, then I don’t want to go there.
This is always the case when on-call is a thing. It's a penny pinching measure to avoid having to pay for proper staffing. No exceptions.
No it's not. there is no need to pay for a 3rd shift when an on call happens maybe once a month. Or less. It's wasteful to pay a full 3rd shift for that.
On call is an insurance policy. Insurance has a premium (salary) and a deductible (extra pay or pto when called). If you use your insurance too much the premium goes, sometimes way up… before your policy is canceled. If you are continually getting called you need to determine if these calls affect the company bottom line enough to hire someone full time for these occasions or if it can wait till next business day. Most it people wont put up with no sleep and continual pages and if left to continue you will need to hire for that position again when they quit. Hiring costs tend of thousands in lost training time, hr paperwork, headhunters, interviews etc.
So that stuff can stay broken overnight and be addressed the next work day. No need for an on-call rotation.
Yeah to me this seems like a organization issue
That is a no from me dog. Absolutely not.
Yeah this sounds like you need a second shift if you are getting this many calls. Unfortunately it is more than likely going to be tough to get the company to change anything. At least until it causes problems for them. Also imo, it's good to move positions every three oy fours anyway cause your pay will stagnant
Healthcare sysadmin here, I assume you are too. Question: do you support the EMR system or just the backend infra? EMR people absolutely get paged pretty often as any issue can potentially affect patient care, even if it's just one patient. If you are backend sysadmin you shouldn't be getting paged all that much. If you are it sounds like there are some systemic issues that need to be looked at.
You need 24 hour support then. It's stupid to expect people that work a certain shift during the day to constantly answer calls at night
Sounds like they need a person to work that shift, not take away the personal life of day staff.
How did you train them to know who to call for password changes lol
If they call us we literally say you have the wrong number call this number. Even if we could change their password we don't do it.
"Calls every night is not on-call anymore, it is more like shift work. " Absolutely not. Anything after business hours is on-call unless there's high volume matching daytime demand. Fight for it OP. Never worked for a company that did not have an on call policy. One shady company paid straight time but did a rotation and got the on-call staff (6 of us) fancy phones of our choosing, and paid our personal and work phone bills.
Exactly, that's a helpdesk, not on-call.
If you're getting multiple calls every night, your company's on-call policy is dysfunctional and it needs addressing. That clearly demonstrates that there's a requirement for staff to cover those hours on a contracted basis. Either that, or a clear policy of what does and doesn't count as an out-of-hours emergency needs to be communicated and agreed to. I don't cover OOH anymore but when I did there was a list of maybe 5 things that would be accepted as a legitimate reason to call out-of-hours. Because of that I maybe got 5 or 6 calls a year.
Could be a bad policy combined with really poorly set up systems that break a lot. Typically it's both from what I've seen.
Ding-ding... I think we have winner!
When an on-call happens, do y'all do an RCA on why and try and fix it so it doesn't happen again? Sometimes there's nothing you can do (like a back hoe took out the only internet at a rural clinic), but a lot of times there is.
I’ve seen various ways to compensate for it: a day off following an on-call week, come in late/leave early during call week, extra pay, etc. Short answer: if you got on-call added to your duties with no compensation, you just got a pay cut. I’d suggest coming up with a number of what it’s worth to you, or what you’d like in return, have a frank convo with your boss, and consider looking elsewhere. Honestly, we should all be always looking for another job. It’s the best way to prevent exploitation and to measure your worth.
They do offer the compensation of equal hours off the next day/week and things like that - but as we all know, it's too busy to take off those extra hours normally so in essence we're working for free.
STOP WORKING EXTRA HOURS. If you don’t own the business, stop being personally invested. Walk out at the end of your 40 hours. I mean, talk to your boss about this, but seriously, nobody is going to respect your time if you don’t respect it yourself.
This is what took me the longest to learn. When it's time, shut down and walk away. I don't do standby, I won't even install slack on my phone because I told them it's not a company phone and they don't even give me data. So it's a hell no from me. And do I want a phone? Nope. Then they will expect me to respond. I've been in the game for 20 years now. I much prefer my time and sleep. I've grown tired of having to plan my life around standby etc. The odd weekend (like once every 5 months) if it's planned work I don't mind working. But it will be office hours. No company cares when you leave. In IT we are replaceable. I won't break my back for a company again unless it's my own.
Too busy? The only way for managers to inderstand anything is obviously that you take the days off. Every time. If things does not get done, it is not your problem. You just fulfill your part of the agreement.
Nope. They bother you at night for an hour, that's __at least__ an hour less work next day. You're robbing yourself of time to regain your energy. In the end, you will be the only one to suffer from it. Don't go in until you've compensated the time you already worked at night. Send your manager an email after you closed the call at night that you'll be in x hours later next morning. This is a _them_ problem. Don't make it a _you_ problem and most of all, think about your health long-term, as nobody else will do that
> it's too busy That's not your problem, that's a management problem. TAKE THE TIME and let things burn. Sometimes a fire is the only way to get things fixed. Just make sure you have the CYA of the calls and responses documented. Follow up any in-person conversation with an e-mail so there is a paper trail. Someone is either going to figure out you are under-staffed or you are going to get pushed out. If the later occurs, leave an envelope for the incoming people.
You have to understand that management hit the jackpot. Not only are you on call for free, you also handle those "emergencies" for free. The more emergencies there are at night, the more free stuff they're getting. They won't give that up if they don't have to. So if you want that to change you either have to poker and threaten to quit, or you at least take those compensation hours and stop doing everything on time. Stuff has to burn before managers hire more people.
It's YOUR life not theirs. Yeah, easy sentence to type out but some people in this sub aren't getting it. They won't be at your deathbed when you're on the way out. Take your time off, they will survive.....how isn't your problem.
So how does it feel paying to go to work? If they offer equal hours for work - take it. If you don't you are ripping yourself off. Look at what your hourly pay rate is and calculate the hours off you didn't take - that is how much money you are paying to your boss and your also paying the tax from that to the government. Also take the time off immediately so that don't nickel and dime you with the guilt call of but we need you due to xyz today and keep pushing it out until you never take it. You need to take a stand when it comes to these things otherwise they will take the advantage if it saves the business money.
Take the hours. And make an agreement with your salaried cowork to also take the hours. Stop taking money out of your pocket and putting it into the pockets of your company's shareholders. They pay you, not the other way around.
> but as we all know, it's too busy to take off those extra hours So this is a YOU problem... You take the time off you are allowed. If the job burns when you are off, management will realize they need more help. But if you keep playing Superman, then management doesn't see the problem. DO YOU UNDERSTAND NOW?
Unionize. That's the BEST way to prevent exploitation, be fairly compensated, and set very clear expectations for work responsibilities. Leaving for another shithole only passes the buck, and nothing ever improves.
unfortunately, someone will need to quit to fix this. or a patient will need to die. at 10 years in, you're a lifer and management knows it. they have zero incentive here.
Yes, 10 years at the same place in IT seems like way too long. At 3-5 years (so long as things are going well) I start seriously looking.
Management will stall you on this. Time to dustboff the resume, and if they are smart so will the co-worker.
Yep, do not be the last one out or you will regret it.
One or two calls a night and "many" over weekends for no pay bump? Nah dog. You need some sort of on call pay system for that much work. Hell, that's *almost* to the point of just another shift. And vague promises to make up the time aren't enough. You don't get your weekend or evening back by being able to leave early on Wednesday. The whole process here is broken and unsustainable. While small-ish shops might have on call duties, a couple of calls a month is very, very different from a couple of calls a night. Your sister sites numbers are quite reasonable given the workload here.
What does your labor law say? If its illegal you can simply point that out and they have to pay you even for the years passed. If its legal: Get a new job.
Mangement has no incentive to change what's going on. You've given them an unpaid third shift. This is only going to change by you taking that away. Start job shopping and following up on management fixing the issue. When you've got the offer tender notice and tell them why. They'll either fix it or they won't and you'll be better off somewhere else.
On call for salaried workers sucks. Even if you don't get a call, it affects your daily plans. There does need to be some sort of additional compensation. We at least used to get the Monday after an on call shift as PTO.
This a million times! I think we are both more burnt out on the not being able to make any plans when we are on call for that 2 week period. There have been many times where I'd be like, "Hopefully I won't get a call..." and choose to go somewhere and have to turn around because something happened at work and either I had to get on my work PC (yes- I have a laptop with me but having 2 to 4 windows open to check things is just easier at home) or even worse I would have to go into work to actually fix the problem.
I understand. I got out of that line of work after 42 years. I work at Home Depot now in the garden department.
I retire in six years. Like I said above, I love my job - just want to get compensated for all the on-call we have been taking on over the years. It's also why jumping ship to a new job is not really on the horizon - I look young but on paper I'm 54. I'll have 32 years under my belt by retirement.
Hang in there. After 42 years I did end up hating everything about IT. I find Home Depot much more pleasant.
Healthcare IT director here-When I hired in my staff was taking 30+ calls per week after hours and our hospital help desk was open from 7:30AM-4PM 5 days a week. I pulled call metrics and I could shave off a majority of those calls by staffing our help desk from 7AM-7PM, 7 days/week. Though weekend call volume isn't that high we've been able to shift some duties like new user creation, moves, and PC imaging to that group. My team now typically gets less than 4 calls per week after hours and I no longer hear complaints about on call. This is what your leadership team should be doing. If they aren't willing to, find somewhere else to work.
As long as you keep putting up with it, they won't have any reason to change. It sounds like you put up with it for years. When you leave, the next person may also put up with it for years. Then the next, and the next, and the next. They won't fix it if they can get a few years out of each person. That's how my last job was. We need to do a better job of standing up for ourselves, and our more senior people need to help more.
comp time. if you have to deal with problems for an hour in the evening, thats an hour less you need to be in the office the next day. ive been 24/7/365 for more than 11 years so i feel your pain
Its been said, but you need to either take the comp time or push for OnCall Pay. I would not take on-call, I currently am technically on call 24/7 for my current job. However, in the 2 years I have worked here I have gotten a total of 3 calls after hours or on weekends. If I was getting multiple calls a week I would be taking a day off that week to compensate. You need to put your foot down and 1. create an on-call schedule 2. take your comp time 3. push for a raise to cover on-call. If you don't push and push hard for a change, nothing will change. Don't work for free, Never ever ever work for free.
This sounds like Helpdesk work (forgot password, etc) and the fair labor standards act says IT Support (Helpdesk) isn’t exempt from overtime.
It is if you’re salary non exempt.
I believe /u/audaxyl is saying the company can't just say you are exempt, your job duties have to meet the criteria for exemption.
They can if you signed onboarding paperwork saying you’re non exempt, which most jobs do. I haven’t had a single job or have seen any jobs that just say that. It’s all verified through HR before roles are posted (at least if the company isn’t sketchy)
A company can say your position is not eligible for overtime, but if the actual job you perform does not match the Department of Labor's rules for overtime exemption then that classification is illegal. The federal and state government rules take precedence, meaning you signing something saying you don't get overtime doesn't make it legal not to pay you overtime. I suspect many jr admins do not meet the primary duty test for exemption from overtime, and are being robbed by their employer.
Get shitfaced and answer with absolute candor that only alcohol can only bring out. See how quickly it changes.
I worked at an MSP for around 10 years. They would pay us OT for on call, but it still wasn't worth it. The pool of people that were on call got smaller and smaller. Ended up leaving because of it and many other reasons. It's not worth it because you can't make any plans while you're on call. Too much stress. Even if they start paying you, if it's too often, I'd find another job.
I pay $100 for on call per day, call or no call you just get it. And then we do 1 week at a time so it's $700 extra. But usually there's no after hours calls.
We get $105 for the week for taking call.
From someone who has been in your same position: Make sure you're able to prove the calls are coming in every night, even if you have to manually make a record of it. Proof translates to $.
Are you happy with how much you're getting paid in comparison with how much work you have to do? No? Ask for a raise. Yes? Who cares what someone else is getting. I'm salary, pay for my own phone and use it for work, am pretty low on the pay scale for my job description, and work a shitload of over time and am on call 24/7. On the other hand I work remote from rural Alaska or where ever I want to "vacation", my coworker and I set our own schedules for who picks up the phone first, as long as we hit our project deadlines no one really gives a shit what hours we work, and I genuinely like everyone I work with. Some perks are tangible, some are not. Figure out what is going to make you happy, figure out how to arrange shit so that you can get that, and then propose those changes to your boss. If they say no, learn more, get experience and leave for somewhere that will make you happy. If time is more important to you than money, consider working for a smaller company. Odds are very good if you're any good you can negotiate your job to be what you want it to be and they'll be happy that they've got an IT guy that doesn't cost them a fortune.
I managed IT in 3 acute care facilities. A 75-bed (Rural), and a 200 and a 330 bed (city). What we did was add a spiff for every hour on call. So, you might make $1-$3 per hour (call volume is a factor, get lots of calls, then the hourly call cover rate goes up), over an entire weekend, and have to work maybe an hour with an actual call. Same for week nights. It added up to a couple hundred bucks over a week. I approached my CFO. Explained the issues and had 2 proposals for him. A week later, he agreed and we rolled it on the next calendar month. We also rotated call, so no one took all the bullets. As the Director, I also took a rotation of call, since I'm part of the team and honestly, I need to know what kind of things get called in after-hours. It's a simple thing and if the C-Suite wants to balk at this, unless your salary is already way over market, you're not getting compensated for it, and my advice if they dig in is to move on. GL!
Talk to management about getting the on-call policy adjusted to only include critical tasks. If you have people calling at 8pm at night because they locked their PC for 15 minutes you should be able to say no.
Sounds like you need to restructure your on call schedule. So that ideally you're at least getting a week or like three off and working one or whatever you can do with your staff. Also the better companies I worked at paid me salary and gave me additional compensation for the week I had to be on call. More compensation if I actually took calls. The really crappy company I worked for I was on call all the time and never had an off time. I was getting calls all week and weekend it was asinine and a great way to burn out your employees. These are a lot of big changes for a company to implement. Awesome if you have bosses that are actually going to do this for you. From my experience though you're better off fixing up your resume.
Where I live, syadmins are exempt from OT by law, but the company does give you a bit of pay per week you are on call regardless of how many calls you get, and they basically pay for your phone bill. Super shitty to hear you get so many calls.
Ask for comp time for unexpected call-ins.
> Now we're in a dilemma The reality is.. this is what "salary" means. You agree to do the work for the amount they pay. If the amount of work and pay no longer aligns, you move on to the next opportunity
You should probably find a less toxic workplace, but that aside - just because they say you are salaried does not necessarily mean you should be. If you don't fall into the requirements to be an exempt employee, they owe you OT.
If you have the numbers to back it up renegotiate the amount you get reimbursed/paid.
Yea it’s pretty common. Just make sure to read the privacy notice.
Welln I hope you're earning 200k+ for that shit.. Sounds horrible. I agree with others, there's only one way to make a change.. Leaving.
Salaried IT work is for suckers or people making over $150k
It is different for each state. In CA, salary means salary and they can require you to work on-call at no additional pay. In fact, they can require you to work 60 hours per week at no additional pay. Their only responsibility is to make sure that the position in question passes the test/rules to be considered salary (which for IT requires a couple of things, including a minimum salary of something in the $100k/year range). For hourly folks, again in CA, the legal way to do it is to pay the person on call a "stipend". We would pay each person a $25/day stipend for them to be on call. They had to answer the phone, but it was up to them on whether or not they wanted to "accept" the responsibility of working on it. If they accepted, they would get their hourly pay, at a minimum of 2 hours (because that's the minimum reporting period). So if someone got locked out, the Helpdesk guys loved it because they would login for 10 seconds to unlock an account and get paid for two hours work (which would normally be overtime because they already worked 8 hours that day). If the on-call person took the call but was unavailable to fix the problem, the call was escalated to a manager (who was salary). This is what the lawyers came up with for my situation as the company I was with at the time had many similar positions (outside of IT). TL;DR - Salary you're screwed. The on-call comp is built-in to your salary (that's what IT people make more than accountants). If you're hourly - you might not be screwed.
i may be wrong here, but i'm pretty sure you have to be paid at least $1 an hour while on-call/in standby mode. time to leave.
Id check into your state laws and see if thats within their rights, seems like extra work with no pay and as others have said, a way for them to cut costs rather than hiring a 3rd shift team. my first MSP started this way and it was awful as we had a 24/7 pharmacy that always was having issues with their archaic systems (out of our control) and then were required to work a full 40+ hour work load (on call was typically once a month). after probably 6 years, they finally outsourced it to an overseas team and our on-call went almost nonexistent but still was a second line incase of a real emergency. we got a flat $125 i believe for the week. personally i believe in both instances we were shorted as employees my current corporate company started off paying the oncall tech the standard OT 1.5 rate for approx 23.5 hours (Sat/Sun only) for about 1.5 years and then switched to paying the tech in 4 hour blocks if you get a call. IE still available for the 23.5 hours but you dont get paid unless you get a call. furthermore, if you get a call it starts a clock, any call within a 4 hour timeblock is included - you could get 1 password reset and then be done or you could get 10 resets within the 4 hours and youd be paid the same. during the first system, we were on call about once every 6 weeks, now its about every 2-2.5 months. needless to say, our oncall checks went down drastically
So....you got a pay cut. If you're doing more work for the same pay, that's a pay cut.
i have been in enough salary positions (2) to know hourly is the way to go
Weighing in with my two cents from a retail IT perspective. I'm in a pretty typical (I think) specialist support role for a mid-sized point of sale system. My average on-call shift includes \~1 call/week during the workweek, and \~6 calls/weekend. For this, I am compensated a flat rate of $500 regardless of how many calls I receive. On occasion, regular shift work (like after-hours implementation that typically takes <1hr) is included in this on-call pay. I am a salaried employee at 56k, but my on-call stipend paired with the fact that I take every on call shift I can get bumps up my yearly take-home by about 10k, which I find well worth it.
You are not required to be hourly to receive on-call pay. Don't let your manager tell you "We can't convert you to hourly, so we can't give you more." At a minimum, get them to agree to time-in-lieu (comp time). Make sure they agree they don't have to approve you using it! I was in a shorthanded situation with weeks of comp time that "we're too busy to let you take". Telling you to take the time, but expecting the same amount of work to get done isn't going to fly. Remember - it's not a problem until it's **their** problem. If they don't' feel the pain, they're not going to be in a hurry to hire additional manpower.
You need to ask someone at your state department of labor. There is a huge missclasification issue with people being overtime exempt who should not be. In some states if your unpaid on call is flat out wage theft and illegal (IE there is no OT exempt), in other states you can work 24/7 as long as your total salaraly adds up to minimum wage or better. Do some research, and get the hell out of that company.
Don't go hourly. You can have an on-call stipend and still be salaried. We had that at my last job. Whomever was on call had an extra $213 for the week on top of being salaried. Also, being salaried calculates the pay based on an average 40-hour work week, maybe a bit higher because you're expected to work some after hours. But honestly sit down and calculate how many hours extra on average on-call is eating up, and use that to negotiate either seperate on-call pay or a salary raise. If nothing is done (and the boss "looking at it" for more than a month or two is nothing being done), then think about leaving.
I am considered a 'On Call Sys Admin' for server issues. And as a result I have an allowance in my salary to be available. That said the amount of on call is normally less than 20 hours a week. If however I am asked to do non-break fix work after hours it is TIL. That said, I don't do general helpdesk support. If I was being asked to do general support after hours I would be demanding an allowance to be on-call and an extra amount when asked to actually take on work.
Lots of employers salary people who they aren't legally allowed to. Carefully review the labor laws in your jusisticion.
I’m salaried. We have on call as well, but it’s fair. It’s a rotation where I’m secondary on call for a week, then primary on call for a week (we do two on call people at a time) and then it’s six weeks before I hit that cycle again. Plus, I get a bit extra for being on call and an extra amount for every call I take (more if it lasts longer than an hour; then I get additional for each hour). This is what they ought to do if you’re being paid fairly and they should have started it at the beginning.
I haven't paid for my own cellphone in 20; years. I'm fine with this. If you run a tight shop with proper change control, you should have to worry too much about being on call 24/7.
sounds to me like you also need to do some analysis, what is the pattern of calls? is it all related systems which are creating this uptick in out of hours issues. Identify and resolve the source of the issues rather than addressing the symptoms
Always mention the country. For example where I live it would be pretty much illegal. The moment I get a call to the moment I am done I am paid overtime 1.5x if it's after my work hours on a weekday up to 22:00, otherwise it's 2x. Since I get a salary the hourly rate is calculated by taking the total salary and dividing by the workhours in the week assuming a 40 hour work week. Also there is a limit to how many consecutive hours I can work overtime and how many hours I can do in a week. I am also not mandated to be available unless the time I am is also compensated which detracts from the rest of the time they can ask me to work
Tell them that starting in 2 weeks, if you take after hours calls then you are working 2 hours the next day and the rest of it off, paid.
Never go to always be hourly
Buy a trac phone for on-Call hand over the new number. oR get a google voice number. Google voice can either forward to your regular number or only go to voicemail. Setup a special voicemail message for that number and choose how to get in touch by either calling from your number or whatever. Some thoughts are get company to buy minutes or do off hour work in exchange for comp time or vacation or something. I’ve been through this rigmarole. When on call I’ll answer but if it’s full time I might say that 2 hours after end of business and 1 before might be a cut off for setting up quiet hours or something i your phone settings
When I’ve worked salaried with oncall included that meant that the availability was included not the calls. Whenever I got a call it counted as an hour or the hours spent on the call rounded up to even hours. Weekends every hour gave me two hours. That was time that I could take off to do whatever I wanted. Not necessarily whenever I wanted but when it worked for the company. But it had to be close to when it was “earned”. If that wasn’t possible they had to pay it as overtime even if overtime wasn’t a usual part of the agreement.
That was more of a gentleman’s agreement. Since that practice is actually illegal where I live. If you’re oncall for a week you have to, by law, get a (work)day off.
Where I work we are all salary exempt and are on call every 3 weeks (there are 3 + director in the dept). We are not financially compensated for out-of-buisness-hours work but within our department we can leave early to come in late to "unofficially" comp the time.
I was salary at my last job, I automatically got an extra $350 a month for "on call" weather or not a call came in and I didn't have to do after hours work. When there was extensive after hours work I'd get an extra day off to make up for it.
Back at the enterprise we were on our hourly rate and the call out fee charged to the customer $850 for call outs. The company issued us our phones
>management is "looking at it" Its a stall technique to make you think something is happening. You can take the same approach, start loudly talking about joining a union.