How much extra ££s to offer third line engineers

Hi all,

How much extra should one expect for adding the following to their list of duties

4 x 1 Week stints per year to support a medium sized company in Saudi (flights, hotel, meals are inc).

The month that they travel will include UK based support (ie, if they go for a week in jan then throughout that month they will be on-call for any support issues).

Line Management for the above month of the on-site support team

Projects for on-going and future IT improvements

Current Salary £40,000 so how much extra to add the above

Thanks

What type of projects are they supporting? And where is the role based?

That seems a pretty generous salary, and for a 1 week visit every 3 months (all paid for) i wouldn't have thought would demand much more.

It's the entire IT infrastructure inc architectural design and inc full responsibility throughout project lifecycle

Network, Wireless, Firewall, PBX, HyperV, SAN, Blades, Client machines

Basically everything excl. the financials. The figures being discussed are an £8,000 salary increase

Semple said:

What type of projects are they supporting? And where is the role based?

That seems a pretty generous salary, and for a 1 week visit every 3 months (all paid for) i wouldn't have thought would demand much more.

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From the way I've read the OP it's not just the trip though, they're then for the next 4 weeks after that going to be on call and in a managerial position above their current normal duties.

tom_e said:

From the way I've read the OP it's not just the trip though, they're then for the next 4 weeks after that going to be on call and in a managerial position above their current normal duties.

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Yes, that's correct

8k seems a good starting point, maybe with an increase to 10k after the first year of doing so.

If the engineer is male, an £8-10k pay rise could be about right, although that does depend on the scale of things of course.

If the employee is female then I don't think there's enough money in the world that I would offer to get them to go.

I've spent some time in Saudi, it is not a place for Western women. Western men aren't exactly made to feel welcome either, and it is a risky place at the best of times.

glen8 said:

Yes, that's correct

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ah - your 4 * 1 weeks is a bit confusing then... you seem to mean 1 month or '1 * 4 weeks' per year.

The answer might depend on the individual - for example if this is a young person then they might not need much persuasion at all... some generous per diem allowances (like £100 a day) when over there could swing it for them.

If they've got a family however and you really need them specifically then you're probably going to have to offer some sort of extra payment of a few thousand. On top of the expenses/per diems you'll be paying them.

Presumably you're going to pay this as a bonus rather than a pay rise...

personally I would want about 1k a week net plus reasonable expenses (more if you fly out of working week )

might have misread that

so they go for 1 month non stop?

1 month booze free and stay weekends?

still similar but 5k net would be fair

others at 8-10k so I assume if they mean gross we are on same lines

Semple said:

What type of projects are they supporting? And where is the role based?

That seems a pretty generous salary, and for a 1 week visit every 3 months (all paid for) i wouldn't have thought would demand much more.

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I am out of touch but 40k for L3 is generous?

This is me genuinely not knowing what the market pays

Rotty said:

I am out of touch but 40k for L3 is generous?

This is me genuinely not knowing what the market pays

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I was going to say the same thing.... if they are also doing design work that is much higher than a 3rd line support engineer, 40k is very average. Is this up north?

To answer OP question... I would personally do it for 1000 a week NET + 5 * hotel and flying business class at a minimum If it's going to be a regular thing. If it's just a one off then I wouldn't expect any additional money.

sorry for any confusion

The requirements are:

Technician 1

January - 1 week stay in Saudi + 3 Weeks UK Based support

Technician 2

February - 1 week stay in Saudi + 3 Weeks UK Based support

Technician 3

March - 1 week stay in Saudi + 3 Weeks UK Based support

^ Then back round for the additional months of the year

They will be working on all existing infrastructure support and design as well as planning and implementing new stuff

£40k for 3rd line is very average. Remember, gone are the days of old when your typical 3rd liner just built servers and developed a wsus plan. That's 2nd line these days. The 3rd line guys here develop SQL multi-site clusters, SOFS, SAN groups, RDS farms and the like. Current projects may include migrating on-site PBX to sip trunking with a cloud package or perhaps moving to a new MIS system.

What does the 3 weeks uk support have to do with anything? Are they on call 24 hours?

So were back to it being 4 * 1 week periods and it is 3 techies not one. In that case I'd look to offer less than if it were 1 techie, with family and a whole month taken as a single block.

Though if multiple people are doing this you're probably going to have to make it a standard payment.

dowie said:

What does the 3 weeks uk support have to do with anything? Are they on call 24 hours?

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Yes, because of the time difference and various company rules and regs they would be required to offer remote support, line management and the like for the rest of that month in addition to their regular list of duties.

Devils advocate here - what will you do if one or all of them refuse the extra duties/contract change?

Your answer to that question influences my answer to your original question.

glen8 said:

Yes, because of the time difference and various company rules and regs they would be required to offer remote support, line management and the like for the rest of that month in addition to their regular list of duties.

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ah OK - and that would be any potentially on call at any time? I think £50 a day when on call plus another £50 if they're called.... and they get to take time off the next day if it is something like getting called at 1am and resolving the issue at 4am...

I guess it depends how frequently these calls are - if they're sorting something out for a few hours each night then it probably needs higher payments and perhaps isn't feasible to dump on one person for a whole 3 week block.

Who are they responsible for line managing for a third of a year on top of their existing workload?

I think you need to re-think the line management part of this, you're going to burn people out.

Well I think the agreement is going to be

No UK support
No line management
4 x 1 week trips to Saudi (travel days given back in lieu)

£3,000 payrise

Seems odd to offer a pay rise for this, say you lose the contract next year or one of them moves internally to a new role do you give a pay cut? Perhaps one of them has a wife who falls pregnant and can only make 2 trips and someone else in the team agrees to make 6 - do you not want the flexibility to pay the 6 trip guy more?

I'd have thought this sort of thing would be an additional variable part of the pay packet - say additional 'shift payments' each time they make a trip out there - totaling to 3k for 4 trips or whatever you agree with them.