On-Call Compensation?

[Anonymous]

Hello To All

Our CIO is looking into compensation for off hours support and as asked everyone here for their comments.

So I through I would ask all of you weather your shops have some kind of compensation for off hour support and what it is. I have included his original email below.

“Hi friends,

As you know, we are revamping the on-call process, including the compensation model.  Currently, compensation is calculated at $2 per hour when on-call, whether called upon to respond or not.  At present, 1st and 2nd tier receive this flat $2/hour rate and 3rd tier receives the same when called upon to respond.  We settled upon this model as an interim fix, knowing that we needed a better compensation model.  The question is:  What is a better model?  What does it look like?

Fundamentally, the compensation model must balance the financial needs of the company with fairness to the employee.  I wish I could say that there were existing Best Practices models in the IS profession for this situation, but I have yet to find one.  Literally every IS organization and company have their own peculiar cultural practices around on-call compensation.  For example, NMH and NU offer no additional compensation for on-call support; there is an expectation that on-call duties are a normal expectation of being an IS professional.  Several other companies in the local Chicago area follow this model, too.  In my most recent past position, on-call compensation was provided only when called upon; i.e., you did not receive compensation unless required to respond.

I am not sure what my final decision will be on this matter, but I would appreciate your feedback and input.  Please tell me:  What is fair to the company and fair to the employee on the topic of on-call compensation?”

Please let me know by sending me an email.

Thanks

Russell W Bucholz

rbucholz@nmff.org

Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation

Topic

[Kevin Scantlan]

After hour compensation?  What’s that??   LOL….  Actually, we used to get $20/day which calculates out to about 83 1/3 cents/hour, but when the budget got the slightest bit tight, this extravagant amount went out the window.

[Rich Durkee]

Two of our three Interface Programmers participate in on-call. I do not. They receive $3.00/hour. They do not get on-call pay from midnight to 4:00am. Operations is not supposed to call between these hours, but of course they ocassionally do. I suppose Management was trying to cut back on on-call pay, so they implemented the midnight-4:00am policy. To summarize on-call is paid for Mon-Fri from 4:00am – 7:00am and 5:00pm – midnight (10 hours per day) Sat-Sun – from 4:00am – midnight (20 hours per day).

Personally it is not worth the $3.00/hour to me to have to be bothered at any time of the day or night, so I don’t participate.

Rich

[Vince Angulo]

Here at Children’s, no one on the integration team is on-call after hours.  We’ve done some cross training with our Systems staff and they cover that as part of their on-call responsibities.

For IS/IT overall, we have, in addtion to System on-call, there are also on-call pagers for each of the Network, Business Applications, Clinical Applications, Telecomm, and Practice Management teams.  Each receives $2/hour outside the normal 8-hour workday (yeah, I know, I can’t define normal either), or 128 hours for their 1 week in 4 rotation.

We’ve been doing that since 1998.  When we initially implemented call pay, there was also “call back” pay, which translated to an on-call person’s regular hourly rate (1/2080th of annual salary), for call responses over 1 hour.  But that only lasted a couple of years.

[Dave Zibble]

“Da Management” is of the opinion that we povide 24/7 and 365 coverage for the enterprise integration platform (in consideration for current compensation).

So “we” don’t go on vacation at the same time, or fly in the same plane.

In addition, we rotate through an on-call for our “application team” and we are not compensated for this.

I like the dream shop in Michigan that won’t call me between 12:00 and 4:00!!

I think your CIO thinks your on call pay “looks like” it going bye bye.

[Chris Brossette]

We do not get on-call pay and are subject to being called at any time when on call, and even when not on call (if the on-call person can not fix the problem).  Before I came here, there was an on-call policy but it was replaced by a general raise in pay (not that much from what I heard).  

As a 24×7 shop, we can be expected to get calls on Sat & Sun, middle of the night but we have solved part of the problem of being called by having documentation for the Computer Operators to review and try to fix the problem.  Also, we have an application database, that contains a list of apps, responsible team, etc, and if the app is Critical or Non-critical – we are not called on non-critical – e-mail is sent and analyst on-call checks for problems.

[Craig Weldy]

No on call pay here either.  For over 2 years I was 24/7 by myself, but within the last year, they brought a programmer over to learn cloverleaf and take a rotating schedue with me.  

This has prompted me to look at every support call and try to develop a procedure for fixing or an automated process that will keep me from being paged.  

We have gotten the pages to below 4 per week on off hours.  This does put a smile on my face.   😀

Craig Weldy
Senior Interface Analyst
Beacon Health System
South Bend, In, 46615

[Donald Wood]

At my hospital, we receive $125 for being on-call 128 hours in a week.

Some weeks we get no calls and some weeks we get a few.  Generally, our problems are with systems that connect with the interface engine.  The engine itself has goes down and requires intervention about once every six months or so.

[Anonymous]

We used to have some compensation but out CIO found that the “standard” practice was not to pay for it …so, he stopped it and raised our salaries to compensate for it.

We don’t get too many calls at night because the Help Desk takes care of many things, but if we do get a call we can take the spent time later and leave earlier (or arrive late) some other day.

[Sandy McQuay]

I’m interested in how your IS department is staffed:  1st, 2nd, 3rd shifts and weekends.

I’ve followed this discussion with interest, primarily because I am participating in a team to review implementing 24 hour staffing, but also because I am in the 2nd tier oncall rotation.

When I first started here (15 years ago), oncall staff was paid $10 per shift (2nd and 3rd only), regardless of any calls, plus OT for whatever calls were responded to (ohhh the good old days!)  About 6 or 7 years ago, all IS staff, with the exception of Night Operators, were made salaried and oncall compensation went away (as well as OT).  A small raise ($2.00 per hour) was included when the staff was made salaried.  So now, when we’re oncall, there is no compensation whatsoever.  We do have an unwritten “comp time” rule that we use if there is an extreme situation during oncall hours (4:30 pm – 8:00 am M-F, all day Sat, Sun)

We have 2 “frontline” oncall:  a Technician for hardware issues and an Analyst for Applications (mainly Siemens).  Second tier support includes Server, Network, Interfaces, and Physician Services.  First shift we have approximately 35 people, no one is 2nd shift and 1 Night Operator on 3rd shift.

Again, I would appreciate any responses on your IS department 24 hour staffing.

[Kathy Young]

We have a 24/7 Help Desk staff to “observe and report.” Over the years, we have expanded their role somewhat to do simple troubleshooting – stop/start threads/processes. We have also done extensive documentation to help them triage actual interface problems vs. application problems in other systems that cause threads to queue messages or go to “opening” states. Doing that has dropped our after hours calls from >15 per week when I started to <5.

There are three of us in the interface group. We rotate on call, take vacation one at a time, etc. Our administration’s attitude is that – this is a 24/7 organization, and we will be available 24/7 to support our systems. Like others, if the on call person cannot resolve the problem, the senior interface person may get called on their “off” weeks.

There is no additional compensation for being on call. That’s been “calculated” into our base salary. However, our manager is very flexible. If we’ve spent considerable time over the weekend or during the night to troubleshoot a problem, we can get the time back by coming in later, leaving earlier, etc. Although we’re salaried, we do use a time tracker to log our work hours – our regular hours and our “after hours” calls.

To those of you who are still compensated for on call – I would not advise relying on that income to fund your retirement!

Kathy Young

Heritage Valley Health System

[Tria Zitterkopf]

I read the different “on call” scenarios with interest.

[Author]

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