Out of hours pager cover

[DrBongo]

Hello there, I've not posted to this forum before so firstly
I would like to apologise in advance if I'm posting in the wrong place.

I was wondering if anyone out there works in IT and
has to provide out of house cover for urgent issues.

My main issue is, is that I don't think the on-call rate
is hight enough. I just wondered if other people could give me some feedback so it will be become clear what
an average might be.

On-call rates are:
£22 Mon-Thur (covering 18:00 - 08:00)
£55 Fri-Sun (covering 18:00 Fri - 08:00 Mon)

£55 is not a daily rate, so total for one week
is £143. If we get called out, its £50 per call out and that covers the first hour, anything after that is chargable
as overtime at 1.5 times hourly rate.

I would really appreciate some feedback and even other examples.

thanks in advance.





DrBongo

 

[JCreamerII]

DrBongo,

There are some existing threads that have discussed this issue previously. The other individuals are all over the board as to if and how much they are compensated for the extra work.

I get infrequent calls at night on weekends and on vacation & sick days. I'm a one man band at present and so the calls all come to me. But it isn't a mayor chore, just an inconvenience. They just have my home phone and not my cell phone. I just took three days vacation and didn't answer the phone!

Based on the prior threads it seems that you aren't in too bad of shape, depending on the frequency of the calls. Keep a stiff upper lip and count yourself lucky, you'll get a few horror stories that will come your way on this thread.

Jim C.

 

[TweakMYbox]

Hello,

I am an IT manager, and currently pay our On-Call Help Desk as follows:

For every hour that they are on call = $ 1.00
For every call they take = 1 1/2 times their hourly wage.

Mike Fegan
tweakmybox.com

Get a free iPod at tweakmybox.com!

 

[DrBongo]

Thanks for the response Mike, much appreciated.

DrBongo

 

[aarenot]

Management should be taking the calls, gathering info, doing "no brainer" troubleshooting, and only calling the technical person once they admit they are over their head, and have all the info gathered on the issue/s. They should at least be able to complete a work order, gather symptoms, create scope, confirm billing details/rates with customer.

 

[NickFerrar]

Our on-call rate is pretty good (almost minimum wage for weekend on-call) and we also get 1 hour O/T the moment we're actually called after that it's 1.5x normal rate for first 7.5 hours O/T a week and 2x for every hour after that (on-call doesn't get counted in the O/T hours).

Personally I think they should reduce our on-call rate (by like 50%) and pay 2x O/T from the start so the people actually working O/T get a nice rate and the people who just have a phone switched on still get essentially free money, it would save the company money to but they don't seem interested.

 

[aarenot]

If you have maint contracts to support 24/7/365 they should have customer service reps working 24/7/365 who can proccess calls, determine the level of severity, and the response time it requires contractually. Answering services can do this, contacting management level personel to determine escalation levels prior to contacting technical staff. The technical person should not be taking calls from the customer ever, nor should they be responding to the CSR/answering service, but management should be handling that, and compiling a work order, and then the manager dispatching a technical person to do only the technical work.
You do not become a CSR, operations manager, service response level decision maker, dispatcher, just because it is after hours. By the time you are involved there should be a work order, scope of work, billing rate established/communicated to the customer, and fully documented as would any in hours services required. After hours you do not simply by default do everyone elses job within your organization. After all, since it hardly ever happens that there is a call out for emergency service, these other people who normally have duties to do prior to you going out to a site should not mind having to remain available as well.

In an in house situation, that call should also go to managament first, then they respond as needed contacting technical persons if justified. Never simply having technical persons contacted directly at home by people who are not in personel, or management. There are legal issues to posting employees personal information in unsecured areas anyway, like putting peoples home phone numbers on company phone lists, etc. This is not proffessional, and can cause you legal issues, since it is the companies responsibility to keep this data confidential. There is no need for your co-workers to have your personal phone numbers, ever!
Proper business etiquette provides for HR to have your personal phone number, in some cases your direct supervisor, but these are to be kept secure, and never given out to other persons. If the company provides a cell phone, or a business line at home, then that is their business to distribute as they desire, otherwise management only.
Managers may not like this, but hey guys, step up to the plate, make the decisions, and consider the techinical person who gets no life. They already have to remain close at hand to respond for legitimate techincal issues, the least you can do is not leave your job, or anyone elses to them as well. They are not your 24/7/365 telephone receptionist, service manager, CSR, dispatcher, operations manager, service order proccessor, help desk supervisor, etc.

Try getting a bid for this support via a third party company of the quality you expect from your people. Then consider those bids, and the actual services you would farm out if you had to actually pay for them. You would probably only contract out the technician services, and handle the dispatch, etc. in house having your managers take all the emergency calls then call the third party tech with all the data compiled to communicate their scope of work. When you get that $ figure, you have an reasonable number to work from. In house you can expect to pay a little less since the third parties profit is not in there, say a % of that bid is what you should be paying your people.
Or just screw them over, whatever.

 

[JCreamerII]

aarenot,

But that's only if you want to do it the right way.

Jim C.

 

[aarenot]

JCreamerII,
I forgot we are talking about people who as a rule are trying to get everything for nothing, or less with no regard for anything, or anyone, or less. Whos only concern for workers lives, families, children, marriages, is that families that stay together cause higher benefit costs, and interference rates with work related priorities.

I was going to get really direct here, and talk straight, but I just didn't want to sound extreme, so I kind of candy coated it.
Seriously though folks, I know there are some managers, owners, etc. that actually care about workers lives, families, children, marriages, and I am sure they will respond to this post if they read it. So to you five managers, owners, etc. whos actions show that they care in this world, I apologise for disparaging your lot, and I am sure you take your turn being on call like everyone else, and pay a real wage for having to tell their wives/kids "NO I AM ON CALL THIS YEAR, WE CAN'T PLAN ANYTHING TOGETHER WHEN I AM DONE WITH WORK"

 

[aarenot]

DRBongo,
Seriously, it is not enough, and it never will be because the guys that get paid enough to actually have this level of commitment are the ones making the decisions on what you will get paid for having this level of commitment. If they actually paid you for the commitment level they do not have, they would have to cut their own pay, and let me think about when that will happen. Never!

Here is what you should do though, you mentioned $50 for the first hour if you get called out. Since you get paid to remain available such a small amount, make sure that the only thing you give for that is availability. Do not actually do anywork over the phone, walking anyone through anything, or remote since you do not get paid to do that.
Go out for every call, and get your $50, for the first hour getting your stuff loaded up, and driving out to the site, etc. In fact what I would do is head out as soon as the pager goes off, and get on the clock before you even call back. If it turns out you do not need to go on site, you still responded so you still get paid, and you can always turn around, and head for home if you fix the problem over the phone. If they do not want to pay you unless you have to go on site, get on site before you actually call back.
If you can, and you are a single site business, when it goes off, just drive in, you can talk to them when you get there, and you will make more $ that way. Rememeber money to be on call is just that, for being on call, until they are paying you by the hour, you do not have to do anything productive in any way shape or form.
They figure you will not want to come in, and would like to fix it over the phone, so they structure the pay so you dont get any unless you go out to site. Just go to site everytime, and get your $!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[lespaul]

Funny, I'm actually on call this week. I was called last night at 2:30 am for network issues and the night before at 1:30 am for internet outage. I ended up having to call someone else to actually deal with the problems because I'm a developer...so now TWO of us are up!

We get no additional money or time for being on call. No minimum time accrual, NOTHING.

Consider yourself lucky that you get SOME compensation.

Leslie

 

[NickFerrar]

I wouldn't answer a pager/phone under those circumstances and just say you were asleep and didn't hear it or something...

 

[flapeyre]

Fortunately, I'm not in a 24/7/365 business. I am on call an average of one week out of every seven or eight; the system will page me if a job goes awry. Other than that, users cannot call us directly (they don't have our home or cell numbers, and were they to look it up and call us on the side, it would be reported to my supervisor, and thence to the user's supervisor). Anything after 8 PM has to wait until the next day (unless it's a system-generated page). All help desk calls go through a central number (or e-mail address), and from there they are routed to second-level support, if the HD can't fix it themselves.

I get an extra $75.00 (less taxes) for the week that I'm on call. Nothing more than that if I get paged, though.

Solum potestis prohibere ignes silvarum.

 

[aarenot]

So far, I do nto see anyone who seems to get compensated properly for on call.

 

[DrBongo]

I'm (all of a sudden) counting myself very lucky!
Thanks to everyone for the input.



DrBongo

 

[brand5880]

We give our on-call team members $50 a week, plus a hours pay a day if they get any calls. If the total time goes over an hour for the calls they get there hourly rate for the exceeding time.

If you are a manager or team lead you are on call 24x7 but there is no compensation.