3 ms·

Incentives are important -- unlike other commentators, I agree with my management that paying extra for time spent actually working when on-call is not a great

Incentives are important -- unlike other commentators, I agree with my management that paying extra for time spent actually working when on-call is not a great idea: it sets up a perverse incentive. We have a base hourly rate for on-call (with a half-hour response time) and time off in lieu for actual call-outs. Teams differ, but my team has separate rotas for in-hours and out-of-hours. This means that if you're up all night, you get time to sleep without needing someone to take on-call from you during the day. An average week of out-of-hours involves precicely zero pages. This is also important: when we get paged for something, we take steps to avoid being paged for the same thing again. Not just because we value our sleep, but because management values our services being up and running so we're encouraged to fix stuff that's broken. We did have a team saying that their services were noisier than other teams', and asking if they could be paid more as a consequence. The answer was to fix their service reliability, not to incentivise people to wait until out-of-hours to declare an incident so they trigger the bonus payment. So long as I've got mobile coverage, I'm free to get on with my life. I carry my laptop if I'm more than 30 minutes from home, but I don't expect to need to use it.

anotherhue 3y ago
> So long as I've got mobile coverage, I'm free to get on with my life. I don't doubt this, but surely you can agree many people lead lives which they would not be free to live in this arrangement? Putting children to bed. Driving somewhere. Cooking. Going to a bar...
- andrewaylett 3y ago
  I do all of those things. And yes, I know it's frustrating not to be able to enjoy a drink but that's one of the things we're being paid to compensate for. The others are all possible while on-call, especially when I'm justified in not expecting to be called out. I've also dropped off the on-call rota, and encouraged others to do the same, to care for very young children or family who need care that would be compromised by responding to a page. Or vice-versa, of course: if I've already been up half the night looking after a newborn then I'm not going to be much help. My contract doesn't oblige me to be on-call, I wouldn't do it if the compensation didn't make it worthwhile.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>it sets up a perverse incentive. how so. It's already the incentive to work. If you require more work and more of a employee's time, you pay more money. It's not that complicated. In the same vein, there's expected business hours, so requiring a business to operate outside of those require more money. If they need that sort of timely response off hours, they pay more money too. So the incentive should be "try to call us during business hours or wait for a response".
- andrewaylett 3y ago
  I'm all in favour of paying someone to work! And every minute spent on-call should be compensated. What I don't like is "if my service is flaky then I get more money", because I don't want my service to be flaky but I like getting money. If you're paying me to be available, but giving them time in lieu for any time worked, then you're not getting more of my time for free. Conversely, if you pay me only when I'm called out (which I recognise isn't something you've suggested) then I get the hassle of being on call but I'm only paid if my service breaks.

anotherhue 3y ago

> So long as I've got mobile coverage, I'm free to get on with my life. I don't doubt this, but surely you can agree many people lead lives which they would not be free to live in this arrangement? Putting children to bed. Driving somewhere. Cooking. Going to a bar...

andrewaylett 3y ago
I do all of those things. And yes, I know it's frustrating not to be able to enjoy a drink but that's one of the things we're being paid to compensate for. The others are all possible while on-call, especially when I'm justified in not expecting to be called out. I've also dropped off the on-call rota, and encouraged others to do the same, to care for very young children or family who need care that would be compromised by responding to a page. Or vice-versa, of course: if I've already been up half the night looking after a newborn then I'm not going to be much help. My contract doesn't oblige me to be on-call, I wouldn't do it if the compensation didn't make it worthwhile.

johnnyanmac 3y ago

>it sets up a perverse incentive. how so. It's already the incentive to work. If you require more work and more of a employee's time, you pay more money. It's not that complicated. In the same vein, there's expected business hours, so requiring a business to operate outside of those require more money. If they need that sort of timely response off hours, they pay more money too. So the incentive should be "try to call us during business hours or wait for a response".

andrewaylett 3y ago
I'm all in favour of paying someone to work! And every minute spent on-call should be compensated. What I don't like is "if my service is flaky then I get more money", because I don't want my service to be flaky but I like getting money. If you're paying me to be available, but giving them time in lieu for any time worked, then you're not getting more of my time for free. Conversely, if you pay me only when I'm called out (which I recognise isn't something you've suggested) then I get the hassle of being on call but I'm only paid if my service breaks.