Out of hours IT support pay

Vauxmad

Vauxmad

Vauxmad

Associate
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
453
Location
Stoke
We are going through some changes at work and the OOH support system is being changed.

The current shift pattern is:-
Week 1 Monday - Friday 9am-5pm in the office
Week 2 Monday - Thursday 5pm-9am Friday 5pm through til 9am following Monday. work from home, dont work during the day time. calls average 3-4 a night 5-10mins each on a good week
Week 3 Tuesday - Friday 9am - 5pm in the office.
We get £2500 a year for this cover.

The offer on the table is:

Week 1 8am - 5pm monday - friday
Week 2 9am-5pm + 6pm-8am monday thurs 6pm fri thru til 8am mon OOH cover
Week 3 9am - 6pm monday to friday

We no longer get the day time or following monday off.
£170 per week standby (based on 3 in rota 52/3 = 17.333333x170 ~ £2890 per annum)
First 30 mins per call free
Then Mon-fri time and half
Sat, sun, and bank holidays double time
If we have a "bad" night there will be "flexibilty" on being in the office the next day - either start few hours later/work from home/


I'm not happy with the proposal as i will working an extra 48hrs every third week for an extra £390 per annum (+ the few occastions when a call lasts longer than 30 mins)

As an example a couple of weeks ago one night i had 8 calls totaling 75 minutes, not much sleep but no extra pay!

Can anyone suggest a more fare pay scale (ive got a couple of ideas already but want to see what others think)
 
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Splitting your time between days and nights will kill you. You couldn't pay me enough to do that.

Edit: Oh wait, I thought the current pattern was the proposed one. Both are terrible, jesus. A fair pay scale would be to pay you for every hour they were tieing you to a PC and telling you that you can't have a social life or get drunk.
 
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If you're called in the middle of the night and you have to work on an issue for a few hours - they still expect you in at 9am? Do you drive to work out of interest?

As for the pay - pay is dependent on lots of factors, and more related to the sort of company you work for
 
I don't think the general shift pattern matters too much, but as Dowie mentioned, if you're called in at the middle of the night, are you also expected to turn up to work at 9am?

Our weekend OOH rates i think are paid at what would be your hourly rate and then slightly extra if you're required to provide support. Thankfully we're a massive company so night time support isn't required as we also have a team in the US, India and Australia.
 
you get called out several times a night and have to be in next morning :eek: no chance

oh and £170 a week for on call is a joke
 
MissChief said:
Not to mention that is a long ass shift!
Click to expand...

And this, you're essentially covering two shifts on the overnight stint.

If I'm reading your new proposal right in week 2 you'd go into the office at 9am on Monday and not be able to ignore work until 5pm on the Monday after that, which is a 176 hour shift.

Edit: Got the times wrong
 
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Caged said:
If I'm reading your new proposal right in week 2 you'd go into the office at 9am on Monday and not be able to ignore work until 5pm on the Tuesday after that, which is a 200 hour shift.
Click to expand...

we do that but with guaranteed 11 hrs if we get called and much better rates
 
Well yeah, £170 would have to be a portion of a day for that to be worth doing. For you to essentially give up an entire week it's a joke.
 
Rotty said:
we do that but with guaranteed 11 hrs if we get called and much better rates
Click to expand...

I guess the main thing is - is the shift likely to just be an on-call thing where you're occasionally called... in which case fine - makes sense to just have it covered by people who are otherwise working during the day and have arrangements like yours to have a break after being woken up at 3am and working for several hours.

If its expected that there will however be calls every night (which is indicated in the OP) then it really doesn't seem reasonable at all to assume 9-5 + out of hours cover.... they should break it down into shifts.
 
I don't do much on call these days, but for dev, dba, sys admin on call we get

£40 an evening
£70 a full day
£150 bank holiday

So a standard week is £340. Most people do a week on, week off.

Then £40 for every hour you actually work if called, min one hour. The first hour used to be free, but people used to call the DBAs at 1 in the morning for stupid stuff so it was changed.

This is fair IMO.

As a dev, I used to get called 2-3 times a year.
 
I get £50 per evening (weekday) when on call. Any less than that and it's not worth giving up my time. I still go to the pub and other places - I just take my phone with me and make sure I'm not too far from my laptop. I get about 1 call per month and I don't charge if it's a quick one.

I would not be giving up any weekend time unless they paid at least double.
 
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The £170/week for standby seems a bit low to me, I know when I was oncall a good few years ago now we got £256 a week (before any callouts) and I think that has gone up by 25% since then. For callouts though we'd only get 1.5x on Saturdays rather than the 2x the OP indicates. I did 4 weeks in 4 for a couple of years like that ... but my rota was very quiet so not many callouts in that time.

The questions I would have would be about recovery time if you are called out and what is being done to reduce calls. I have known some rota where the people on them didn't want to reduce calls as it was a nice extra income for them but personally if you are being called 3-4/night then there is some root cause analysis needed and things need to be nailed down so you are not called so much. Also what is the response time for being on call? This can severely affect the quality of life you can have whilst being oncall if it is to short as you are, in affect, stuck at home.
 
Op that seems similar to what I do but there are a few things they have missed out of yours. How mine works:
(this is 5PM-8.30AM with doing full office hours and 24 hour cover over the weekend - rota is about 1 in 4-5 weeks)
£1.50 an hour standby
£15 per callout which includes the first half hour of work.
If call goes on longer than 30 mins you get time and a half, or double time after midnight.
For every half hour worked after midnight you claim back as recovery time that day - so either come in late or leave early.
Sundays automatically double time

response time: 30 mins to respond to call if call is missed, then 30 mins to be logged on and working
 
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Forgot to add the new shift pattern

Week 1 8am - 5pm monday - friday
Week 2 9am-5pm mon - friday + 6pm-8am monday-thurs 6pm fri thru til 8am mon OOH cover
Week 3 9am - 6pm monday to friday

We have been told there will be some "flexibilty" if we have a bad night - either start later/work from home/day off depending on severity. I can see this being a bit subjective as if i get a 10 minute call at 3am theres good chance it will take me a couple of hours to be able to get back to sleep (if it at all some nights :() but boss will just see it as a 10 minute call!

We provide support to multiple manufacturing plants and distribution centers across uk and ireland.

Response time is within 30 minutes.

Unfortunately not doing the OOH is not an option :(
 
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