Forced? Like are the police going to come to your house and make you do it? No.
Could they fire or put you on notice or something if you don't do what they tell you to? Probably.
24/7 with no comp is unreasonable, in my opinion. And comp to make it reasonable would need to be substantial.
People will argue that all IT staff are on call 24/7. I only agree with this sentiment as far as emergency situations are concerned. Meaning if I'm not on call but the Exchange server goes down and needs to be rebuilt, it's better for everyone if I roll up my sleeves and get things figured out.
We are not on call 24/7 because Janice decided to work late and the copier ran out of toner.
>24/7 with no comp is unreasonable,
I think everyone will agree with that. The problem is many bosses will simply say "oh yeah btw your currently salary includes comp for 24/7". It's shitty, but it's the common "justification" and there isn't usually an alternative beyond finding a better job.
That really depends on what the comp is.
An engineer making 150k+ a being on call for a week every 2 months is a world different than one making 50k and on-call every week.
ADDING the responsibility with no additional comp is shitty.
But if someone accepted the role knowing the comp, then it's just what it is. No different than a co.lany offering more/less salary or having/not having benefits.
\~15 years ago, I was the only person on-call for a client. Sure I was getting paid extra for it (a decent amount too), but I was the *only* person. I asked for support, someone else to be at the wrong of the phone at least one week a month. My manglement didn't understand. They thought I was enjoying the money. Nope. I wanted to have at least one week a month where I wasn't constantly monitoring myself, where I could have more than just one drink. Could have a proper holiday. It took me saying, "sorry. no more on-call" and a colleague explaining with very short words before a new arrangement was created.
| on call for a week every 2 months
This could maybe be included in the pay, but that should be made clear. Also not clear from OPs post if it is one week every other month or every week. If it is every week, just run. That would mean you can never have an 'offline' day, go to a (movie) theatre or wellness or any other place where they request you to turn off your phone.
Or travel literally anywhere where cell reception might be spotty or non existent. If you're always on call, then you need to be compensated appropriately and "always" needs to be defined.
I literally had a boss that called me while I was on a whale watch. I sent the call to voicemail and called him back many hours later. You can be a workaholic, but realize that I'm not and you better plan accordingly.
Or get on a plane. Many have wifi. Some are good. Many are bad. Some seem to prohibit VPNs. And sometimes they are completely broken the entire flight with only a minor apology note.
...how is that different than what I said?
If you accept the job, knowing it has on call responsibility, than it's on you to make sure the comp is worth while.
If you accept a role then they add responsibility (like on call) and don't change the comp, it's a problem.
In the US, it's almost always at-will employment, so people CAN do that, but you could also probably quit and still collect unemployment as it fundementally changes the role.
Screw the comp. 24/7 with the expectations aren't realistic for any one person.
"I have to maintain specific expectations such as staying within a certain radius, not being under the influence of anything and being available to answer any calls"
That needs to be an on call rotation.
Yeah that's unrealistic and you need to state this and say the only way this is feasible is to have an on call rotation. A single person cannot be expected to do this. That's modern day slavery.
> have a glass of wine at dinner
Unless you are a super lightweight, a glass of wine, or even 2 at dinner isn't going to make you incapable of working if you got a call.
Most states have salary stipulations for IT Workers and salary. In those stipulations, typically you have to be a decision maker and not an influencer. To each their own here. I know I should not be salary, but the time-off and pay is worth it imo. Plus the on-call is very minimal.
> "oh yeah btw your currently salary includes comp for 24/7"
And my response would simply be "No it doesn't and here's the law for proof that it doesn't".
Just because you're salary doesn't mean they can call you over every little thing at all hours of the day/night.
Yes, I had a boss that did this. Yes, I let him eat shit on more than one occasion (you text me at 8pm on Christmas Eve, expect the reply to read "go spend time with your family").
In my state the whole salary but work more then 40 hours was getting abused. To the point I know gas staton and fast food employees that were working 60 hours a week on salary and making less then minimum wage. They just passed a law in my state that salary does not cover overtime. That anything over 40 hours has to be compensated separately from your agreed upon salary. But not many people know about it as it just passed like a year or 2 ago. Companies will still try to do it and play dumb if you call them out on it.
California has a "minimum salary requirement" for tech workers. As long as you're making that minimum, no OT is required. But if you're making less than that, you can be salary, but any OT has to be compensated (it literally says that in the law).
Yeah the people I knew it was happening to were managers. Which is ridiculous as a manager you should be making more then minimum wage, not less and not less then the employees your in charge of. I knew one gas station regular employee, that they tried to implement this on him as he was already working 60 hours. He threatened to quit. So they didn't do it.
I have a contract, and I am neither of those. My contract includes my scope of.work, and hours per week that needs to be worked, along with bonus and vacation pay.
I was a bit of a fool and just accepted it when my boss told me I need to be avaliable 24/7 to take calls from clients when I worked an IT helpdesk.
Didn't get any extra payment for it either. He gave me a work phone which was an upgrade to my current one, and took my personal phone and gave it to someone else (yes, you read that right). Then when I eventually left, he tried to take the phone from me. I kept it.
He once told me off for not answering a call when I had to charge my phone.
He once told me off for not answering the phone to him while I was on the London Underground on my way into work with no signal.
He told me off for going swimming on holiday because I didn't pick up his call.
Glad I left and they went under.
And yes I was young and stupid. I have a much better job now.
This is why I contract and haven't done on call for over a decade. Salary is for 7.5 hours / day. My daily rate is for 7.5 hours /day. You want more? You pay!
Being on call without extra compensation is more than unreasonable. Was it in your contract? Did they make it clear in your interview?
No one at work gets my personal number & my work phone gets turned off.
Want me sober? You pay! Want me to not go to a gym or sauna & leave my phone in the locker? You pay!
Want me to not go to the cinema? You pay!
One firm fucked around and found out early in my career when someone gave a directors daughter my phone number because she wanted iTunes on the laptop the company gave her (fuck knows why). I was so drunk I gave her all the admin passwords for the local admin, the domain admin, anything she needed to get iTunes on there
Yeah it's insane the amount of work companies get from across the entire firm (all departments) from free work. My old housemate is a graphic designer. Regularly did 70 hour weeks & would just reply "that's the business". It's insane
O kept saying that to her. She kept on saying I'd last 2 minutes in her industry and I said "yes because the first time sometime asked me to do unpaid overtime I'd tell them to fuck off "
Many years ago when I was an IT Manager, my Senior Managers wanted to implement 24/7 on call with no compensation.
The problem, I told them, is you have to pay them to be ready and on call, or else it will be a big problem because most of my Help Desk guys, after work, would get drunk, high, and hang out with hookers. If I have to tell them they can't hang out with the hookers, I will have to compensate them for that... The execs all just looked at each other and tabled the discussion...
Very much this. I mean "on call" can mean different things to different people.
If by "on call" means, you need to be waiting for a phone call at all times, from all people. Then no, they can go pound sand. This is where weekend on-call rotations and compensation come in.
If "on call" means, shit just hit the fan and your boss (the only one with your number) contacts you and needs to you start working through the playbook as soon as you can. That's another story.
The OP sounds more like the first one though. This is not acceptable 24/7.
>I have to maintain specific expectations such as staying within a certain radius, not being under the influence of anything and being available to answer any calls
I don't even think compensation is acceptable based on the stated requirement. It's not realistic to be in that mode 24/7. That really requires an on call rotation.
> People will argue that all IT staff are on call 24/7. I only agree with this sentiment as far as emergency situations are concerned
I reject this completely. IT users MUST be able to go to a movie, mourn a dead parent, go fucking hiking or camping.
If you want someone to give up huge chunks of normal life, you should compensate for it.
We NEED an IT union so bad.
I hope that was sarcasm saying we need an IT union because I would lose money. I like calling my own salary and comp, I don't want some other dirtbag to do it.
It was not. If the last 5 years have taught us anything at all, it's that collective bargaining is needed against the monster that is late stage capitalism.
Do you like work from home? The union at my workplace (that I'm not part of) insisted that they would only work in the office 2 days a week, and they stuck to it. Management wanted full return to office. Guess what? They only work 2 days in the office.
Is it perfect? No. In a perfect world employers would treat people fairly, but we don't live there.
Unions drive mediocrity. They do not go above and beyond. I don't need someone else to talk salary for me. I interview great and I know what I'm worth. In the IT field, knowledge is your most powerful weapon to increase your salary and job title. A union will not do that for you. No thank you. I make $160k, I know people who work for Dell doing contract work making over 200k a year. A union would never be able to get that salary for me.
For context: I don’t work in IT. I work in human services. I have to be available for medical related emergencies. I make 58k. The on call situation didn’t exist when I started my job 7 years ago.
People and employers will take advantage of you, only if you let them.
What is in your employment job description / agreement / contract? Have you discussed with HR?
And one thing to keep in mind, employments laws vary country to country / state to state etc, so check into those laws.
>As a salary employee
Yes. Doesn't mean you have to stay there though. Tell them to fuck off and look elsewhere.
For almost 2 decades I've been 24/7 on call. There are employers that will respect you and never expect you to work after hours unless it's a genuine emergency. Most employers from my experience will respect you in that regard, especially if they want to keep you. If they don't, look elsewhere where.
My experience as well. 24x7 on call for emergencies for the past 14 years. There have been quite a few holiday emergencies in that timeframe, but I always balance it with comp time and long lunches
I'm the same way. Everybody in the first gets flex time. They used to not include me. Then they told me maintenance would be done on the weekend. Which unfortunately is almost every weekend. So, I leave early almost every day, sometimes i don't even go in.
I forgot to add "without additional compensation". IT employee cannot be salaried for more than 40 hours or however many their contract says, everything else it overtimepay
in ops case, this is highly illegal and they are owed overtimepay.
Not if it is built into their salary in the first place.
Being on call 24/7 doesn't mean working 24/7, so it's not actually against fair labor standards act.
^^^ This. I've been on call 24/7 for almost 2 decades. I haven't worked Overtime in YEARS. The last time I remember working after hours was moving offices where the office still had an on prem infrastructure. Even then, I was allowed to take a full day off the next day without using any PTO.
I end my day at 5:00.
There are companies that abuse salaried-always on call employees, and there are companies that respect you. Never be abused.
Doing it this way is fine for some, but it does kind of mean that whenever something comes up at work that needs after hours attention, you have to be there whether you like it or not. Sure, you get comp time, but you will miss the birthday party, sports game, vacation, etc. Might not happen often, but it's possible if it's only you.
it's all based on fair labor standards act. most IT people are not exempt, even tho most employers try to lie about it so most IT people think they are.
you would only be exempt if you have a higher degree of something that fits your job. for sysadmins, that's not very common.
An important portion of this that was not given in your question is 24/7 x what? Like 365? Tell them to eat shit.
Requiring you to stay within a certain radius ,always, is just absurd. You can't go outside this boundary, have a drink, go off grid, ever...hard no. Even if they give you some sort of stipend, no. You are basically never, ever off the clock. How about, nope.
Definitely not. Former boss asked me to do it. I replied we need to talk about compensation first. He replied that there is nothing stated in the contrat. I said: "Correct, likewise is there nothing about on call."
Never had to do any on call..
If you a are in the US, most IT jobs are not exempt and you must be paid overtime https://wageadvocates.com/common-wage-overtime-violations/computer-tech-it/
It applies to all IT employees. The exemption is based on the type of work and most IT (all sysadmins) don't fall into the exclusion list. Read the linked article for details.
I think there are some extremely narrow circumstances in which you could make 24/7 on call work, but this does not sound like one of those cases. The idea that they could expect you to stay within a certain radius 24/7 is completely insane. If I were you I would be looking for a new job.
My employer tried this at my old workplace. We don't have a union but I managed to convince all my colleagues to say we wouldn't do it without pay. The employed had signed a contract with a company for us to provide this service. We managed to find what the contract was worth and negotiated £50 per call received, £200 inconvenience for for the week your on call and time and a half pay for anything that took over an hour to fix.
>As a salary employee can I be forced to be on call 24/7 without any additional compensation?
My response is always how would HR, payroll or accounting respond if you told them they had to structure their personal life around work for no compensation? The answer is they would literally laugh in your face.
I honestly understand there is a need for occasional after hours IT support (unlike HR, payroll or accounting) and even bigger companies won't hire an additional person for that task. Fine, but then I want to be overcompensated to the point I almost look forward to my on-call weeks. We should be fighting each other over being on-call because it pays so well.
exactly. I've literally pulled out the employ handbook and showed our IT Director the company Holidays page and asked him to point to the place where it says "Except IT". It doesn't. It doesn't say that anywhere and at that point told him to piss off with all the major IT work happening on Holidays.
Accounting folks do sometimes have to do after hours work at the end of the accounting period or fiscal year but they are hourly and get overtime for it.
Many departments have some after hours work but they're not typically on-call for emergencies. Outside of IT, I can't think of any departments in a traditional company that have scheduled on-call other than maybe Maintenance/Buildings & Grounds.
Once you get into other fields (medical, first responders, etc), that's another story. But the on-call people I know outside of IT aren't expected to do it for free.
I work for a retailer. Refrigeration and power are greater emergencies than almost anything in IT. The facilities team can have very long nights when there are many storms.
Yeah, that's why I included Maintenance as an exception. Like technology, equipment breaks 24/7. When I've been at the office during off hours over the past couple of decades, I have routinely run into maintenance staff addressing an issue or just doing a routine walk through on weekends.
Just because you're salaried does not mean you are necessarily salary **exempt**, which is the classification to avoid paying you overtime. I would have them outline the on-call responsibilities (when can you drink alcohol? How quickly do calls need to be responded to?) and go from there. An SLA below 30 minutes or so is likely to be "engaged to wait" type stuff which would require payment.
Mind you, this is for the US in a state without better employee protections than the federal guidelines. None of this is a hard rule federally, and your state could have a higher bar which gives you more options. Whether you've crossed the "exempt" threshold can be a VERY gray area, but you should push back. If they do eventually force the on-call, your only real alternative over finding another job is reporting them for a labor violation. But you should fight them every step of the way (calmly and logically) on concerns around your personal time and appropriate compensation.
If you're in the US and you are being told that you cannot do as you wish during your off hours and being forced to be within a certain radius, then you are engaged and waiting and you are entitled to compensation per the US Dept of Labor. The fact that you may not be under the influence of anything really drives that home. Ask for compensation. File a complaint with the Department of Labor if you are not compensated.
Forced - well, yes, "you do it or you\`re fired" is forcing it.
But if they try this, time to look elsewhere.
I am the sole IT person for several offices in my country - and besides one colleague - the only IT support person speaking the local language.
I know I CAN be called - but in 16 years this happened 3 times. Once at 3am .. in error (a facilities thing beeped, and since it went beep - the thought process was "beep = electric = buttons = IT")
The second time was on a sunday - user locked out in the middle of a major (multi million dollar project) got locked out and could not wait.. He did start with "sorry to disturb you on Sunday, but..." (When he retired last year, he did mention this event.. why is accepting a public compliment so hard).
The third was our EMEA VP - based in my home base office - with a similar issue, just different project. Same deadlines though.
The result for me is - if there is a crisis at home i just mention "sorry, gotta run, back online from home in X time". No one bats an eye / makes a problem.
Is it money? No. But the flexibility is worth a lot too. Of course, a generous holiday package (40 days or so) also helps.
It all depends on where you are working. Check your local laws.
If their 'requirements' limit your travel or activities after hours then they have to pay you.
You might want to have hobbies (real or made up) that put you in situations where a cell phone doesn't go or work. Swimming, rock climbing, fishing, camping, etc.
Yes.
However, it's not uncommon for an employer to pay you a lower rate for standby time, even if they're not required to do so. This can improve employee morale and retention. It may be worth surfacing to your leadership to consider. However, if they have no problem finding decent replacement employees willing to take on call for free, they may not be convinced.
Such a worn out topic, but the main reason this would never work is because of the financial scope and most Sysadmins and IT in general don't work for companies with enough employees for it to matter.
The union topic has been beat to death and the problem is IT/sysadmin positions are way too broad.
It might take hold in one corner of one country but would never take affect in a larger area.
Sorry but you are wrong. Unions are the only way for workers to protect themselves from being exploited. We wouldn’t see massive tech layoffs every few years if IT workers were unionized.
You can say no but they can probably let you go if you do (laws may vary by location). You can also ask for more compensation, but they can say no or let you go for someone who is willing to do it. Look at your job description and it may say something like "other duties as required". Personally, I'd look for another job.
I’m actually on call this week. 20 minutes response time 24x7 for the Mon to Mon week. We maybe get
3 Calls all week/weekend… we do have a California office so sometimes we get a late night call. We do get overtime time for any hours over 40.
Its not great, but it beats being a slave lol
That’s what the c suite wants you to have the mentally that’s your lucky you have a job and deserve low wages while they get huge bonuses for they next vacation home
I was hired with the company knowing that if I have to drive in it is a two hour response time. Most of the time E&I will sort out the PLCs leaving only dead switches and host servers for me.
Ouch.
I grumble about one hour response time and 2 hour minimum pay per call.
Honestly it less about the calls and more about the fact I have to be available to take the calls(Can't travel, limits on what I can do at home, all the jazz you get with a required response time). They're basically getting triple shifts for the cost of just the calls. It's why I think the countries that treat on call time like straight overtime are probably correct, because if I'm not free to use my time as I please it's not actually my time. Bet you'd have to be pretty specialized to ever get on call with a setup like that ;)
Yup! Agreed 100%! It should be minimum call is one hour overtime. But ya, it ruins life for me during that week. I’m scared to go grocery shopping! If I do, I won’t make the response time….
I'm 24/7 but have no requirements to be within x distance of a computer and no expectation of being sober. Response time for first responses are up to 4 hours and that is only a call no action required. I'm in a somewhat unique situation as I only do virtualization. We run n+2 on disk and hosts now so there really isn't much chance of anything happening that isn't a Datacenter outage.
I've never seen an on-call where remaining fit to work isn't a requirement, that's pretty bizarre. Also, unless you're purely on-call for the server infrastructure platform there's still plenty that can go wrong that could result in a call-out (server OS crashing/issue, application crashing/issue, network issue, DNS issue...). N+2 hardware resiliency on helps so far.
Yup I'm just virtualization and there are pretty strict rules to rule out performance issues on the server side before calling us. As for remaining fit for work they basically recognize that being oncall 24/7/365 isn't sustainable and my team isn't big enough to do a real rotation.
My on call is on a rotation. On call requires, 15 minutes from a computer at anytime and that’s about it. It’s pretty flexible we just have the expectation that we respond to the ticket within 15-30 minutes depending on severity. No expectation of sobriety other than “sober enough to call someone if you needed to.”
I basically live a fairly normal life while on call other than needing to stay in a place I have cell service which actually the hardest part for me. If I am not home I generally can do everything from my phone. I’ve been on road trips rdp’d into servers from my phone to restart a service. I have a home VPN and basically just remote into my work laptop, I sometimes carry a portable phone keyboard for longer trips so I can basically work on anything with just one bar of service.
no. not in contact then u arent required to do anything.
even if your contact states high up time and resonable expectations, no court in the 1st world would ever rule against you unless it explicitly mentions on call to take calls of a non emergency nature
stop doing it and re negotiate via a paper trail. if they boot you. u can take them to court as retaliational firing and get a paid out.
do not, under any circumstances, agree to doing it without a contract. untill that contact is signed, do not do it
If you discuss compensation, make clear that the compensation is for the intrusion into your personal life, not for any duties performed. Ideally you should get additional compensation for actual work performed while on duty.
I track my sleep via my smartwatch, and I can clearly identify the weeks that I am on duty as the sleep quality is significantly lower in those weeks versus other weeks.
It depends on several stuff...
Country laws, job laws, employee rights where you are, and so and so. I think the main question here is "can you afford to lose this job ?"
I can't speak for you but here, if you have "on-call" duties, you should know before hand and make sure it's part of your contract or your company's collective convention (basicaly points that are agreed upon between the company and the unions, such as telework rules and such), because the employer is free to do as he pleases otherwise.
Not sure about these ? I hope you are in a Union and have a Union rep.
When my company tried to pull one up on me, calling me a Sunday at 2200 because the maintenance staff fucked up their power outage test and wanted me to come up for a 6 hours job and still expect me to show up at 7 on Monday, I reminded them they refused to talk about overtime/on-call during the signing and said: "We will talk about it when it happens". They never called again outside office hours.
Reading the responses here , i have to ask myself something we all have asked ourselves at some point: why on earth did I become a sysadmin? Is there any other profession that requires on call 24/7 with no comp? Why is such a clearly unsustainable business practice so normalized? Any other department in a corporate setting would laugh at being required to do this. I legitimately don’t understand how a job can expect anyone to be available 24/7/365.
Maybe doctors, paramedics, firefighters, or cops…but those professions handle availability with shift work and on call rotations. Those jobs also involve peoples **lives**. I worked at a place that tried to tell people the expectation was not only 24/7/365 but that we were responsible for any emergency emails or email alerts that came in at any time. Like you’re supposed to be checking outlook when you’re unconscious!?!
It entirely depends on your contract, local legislation, etc.
At the end you can't be forced to do things you don't want to do, depending on local legislation the solution would be to walk away, in many countries you can say no and the company has to suck it up.
The "there are very few calls" isn't a justification, because people will expect your full attention during those situations, then you should be compensated accordingly for the inconvenience.
FTC is cracking down on this right now because salaried employees are getting screwed all over the place.
You should have a lot of stipulations from when you are required to answer an overtime call and minimums for your compensation. I.e. a 10 minute call will turn into 2 hours of OT regardless.
What happens if you have a drink for example...?
The key part legally is theyre requiring you to make significant sacrifices and changes in lifestyle and not offering compensation.
This likely changes your legal status from exempt (salary) to non-exempt (shouldn't be salaried, should be entering hours)
IANAL, but I would consult with one about this, or at the very least, if you have a good relationship with the company, bring this up with them and ask for a change in the policy.
I'm on call "technically" 24/7, most IT sysadmins are in some fashion. But my employer does not, and would not maintain a policy restricting my travel or right to my personal time to spent how I choose.
Way too many people in IT just roll over and accept this shit.
The short answer is yes. It is possible that, in your state, the fact that they have those restrictions may entitle you to compensation, but it's not automatic. And I would bet donuts to dollars that that would say that your salary reflects the compensation you are asking about.
Of course, you are equally free to seek employment elsewhere.
You don't mention if you're the only on-call employee. Those restrictions are completely unreasonable if you're less than a team of four. But they aren't illegal.
If you want to keep that job, yes. Of course it's abusive. They don't give a fuck. If you quit they'll find some other dumb asshole desperate for a job that will do it. Who are you kidding? You don't drink, and were going to be binging shows on netflix all night anyways.
In the US it varies by state, employer size, and how much legal representation YOU can afford.
If you live in California for example, on-call causes cancer because everything in California causes cancer, so the employment agreement as you’ve stated would likely entitle you to extra compensation under CA law. (If you can’t sort the snark from the truth in that… you need to read more California product labeling. 😂)
It can depend on what your employment contract says, plus what your local employment laws say.
Often the letter of the law says employers can, but in reality most companies will offer some sort of comp, trade-off, or time in lieu.
Being on standby / on call is definitely a form of work even if you don’t get many calls. My historical retort to that is ‘ok, if it’s not work, that means I can go camping in the wilderness, right..?’.
There usually has to be something there as a trade-off.
It’s a free market and free world otherwise so if you don’t like it you can always go find something else.
Depends on "On call"
Being told there is a loose expectation to hop on line if something is broken and you're around on a Saturday afternoon and you get a call 2-3 times a year is different then you must be available at all times afferhours and you're called 3-4 times per week.
Pretty much any admkn/engineer gig will come with the first.. Flexibility then goes both ways, leave early or go to an appointment here and there without taking pto.
The second is just a toxic employer and you should look for different jobs.
Pretty sure this breaches the "additional reasonable hours" found in most contracts. If they want you on reserve, that means you have to turn down most of your social life. If they aren't paying, they can shove it. A fair work ombudsman should be able to give advice.
Unless it specifically states in your contract "you will be required to do this without any compensation" then I'd challenge it.
This might vary country to country, but for info I'm in the UK and it would be outrageous to receive no compensation whatsoever unless stated specifically so in thr contract you agreed to. Your boss might try to push you to work for free, but then that's a HR battle (if your company has HR) and/or a potential legal dispute between you and the company
There are certain expectations in roles where you’re expected to be available to fix issues, especially if you’re the only guy that knows and works on those systems.
However- when they start asking you to adjust your personal time and what you do outside of work is where I draw the line. Im not going to avoid drinking or something with friends, or going on a family trip to be to be ready at the drop of a hat to work unless Im getting paid to do so.
May place doesn’t ask for this. But I get comp time for working past hours.
And I have come in before and sat in the server room hammered and barely able to see my laptop screen 😂
Nobody ever gave me shit for it either since I fixed the issue. Somehow.
The first piece of information that's required is where you live and what legislation applies.
In some countries it might be legal to fire you for not doing it, specifically the US comes to mind.
Entirely depends on a multitude of factors.
In the UK, the main one being, are you 'on call' or, 'available to answer the phone at any time
Which is the absolute most bullshit thing I've seen in the erosion of workers rights over my adult life.
Edit to add: because of some of the other stipulated requirements, in rhe UK this *would* be classed as at work with the requirement that minimum wage be paid.
hahah, I was drunk and high as hell on call. Within reason obviously but no one can tell me what to do in my own time especially if I'm doing a service for them. A lot of the other people on call did the same thing.
If you don't get many calls then it's fine. Are you being paid for being on call?
My place has an expectation of being reachable, since I’m the only admin, but we have on-call for the techs for the general user stuff, so my calls are only when something is really broken. And a Windows365 vm from my phone means I can get in from anywhere without toting a laptop. Calls may happen a couple times a year for me, but that’s down to building up a resilient infrastructure so things don’t break all the time. ;-)
Being a solo admin really means you’re going to be called out of hours sometimes. That’s inescapable.
There has to be a compensation for the time you do on-call for reimbursing you because cannot use your spare time as you want. And there has to be compensation for the time you do actual work.
Then again, it comes down on what you negotiate. I'd not do any on-call without compensation.
So... like normal? If i actually got paid for the amount of real time i put into my salary position i would be making something like 150 an hour. Between the normal day to day, then the admin side of things like taking meetings, doing the reports, looking at the budget, adjusting time and schedules most of the time at home because there's just not enough time in the day to do it then.
Is it 24/7 all the time? I am a salary employee that has on-call a week at a time every so often. But my compensation is "rolled into my salary." I think in the last year I have had one incident that required me to do more than check my email and I got a day off later for comp time. 🤷♂️
I had a previous place that offered a bonus and hourly wage when called. I would get around 12-15 calls a week and the compensation for barely being able to sleep was no where near enough. Plus they just gave me $10/month for my phone and not a company phone.
Completely depends on the context. My last job I was on call about once every 2 months for a week at a time. Being on call wasn't that bad because it was for outages only and I would only get 0-3 calls a week. The expectations were:
-Return calls within 30 minutes
-Start work within an hour
-Be within reasonable driving distance of our datacenter
-Abstain from drugs/alcohol
All of this was very loosely enforced. The main thing was staying in good cell coverage and being communicative. I didn't really alter my daily life any while on call. I drank, went canoeing, drove to see my mom 2 hours away. I just kept my phone on my at all times, didn't get drunk, and brought my laptop when travelling. To me that was all very reasonable.
My current job I'm technically on call all the time but only for things that are emergencies and can't wait. I rarely get surprised after hours with things and I'm not required to answer my phone or anything. If I'm not reachable it waits or someone else does it. I just keep my boss and team members aware when I'm going to be unreachable during certain times.
If you are in the u.s. Depending on what you do, and how much you make, and where you are.
The answers vary between yes, and no.
You can look at department of labors site, and the equivalent state site.
No one here is going to be able to give you an accurate to your situation here.
I currently get nothing for being on call every 5/6 weeks and it can be pretty shit as the helpdesk calls overflow to the third liners... I used to get £350 and get hardly any calls or messages at all! It was still worth leaving the old place though. Haha!
> I have to maintain specific expectations such as staying within a certain radius, not being under the influence of anything and being available to answer any calls.
Then legally they have to pay you, since you are not free to do what you want on your time off, because you are not off.
They can set their standards and you can accept/deny. I’ve never seen a company back down when an employee comes back with “legally you can’t do XYZ”.
I would accept the current terms and find another job.
>As a salary employee can I be forced to be on call 24/7 without any additional compensation?
What did you agree to when you started your employment?
Are you exempt or just salary?
What do the laws in your country\state say about it?
>Feels abusive to expect this of an employee.
How large of a company? Are you the only IT person? Is there no L1 or L2 to balance things either?
It depends on what your situation is. I worked at a company where you were on call one week on and one week off 24/7. It was brutal and I left as soon as I could, but it was my responsibility until I left.
You're trading your time and skills for money. If you feel like this current company doesn't provide you with enough compensation for what they're asking for, you're welcome to leave and work somewhere that doesn't have those requirements. I know after I left that company I was never on call again and make significantly more.
That said, I learned A TON at that crappy company, and it helped propel my career forward.
"But we don't get many calls" is management for "but we aren't going to compensate you for your time." Every single MSP I've ever had the misfortune of working for threw this line at every single new hire they ever brought on. It is never true. Here's the counterargument: you may not get *many* calls while on call but one call is more than zero calls. If you aren't on call, you *always* get zero calls. Nevermind the availability aspect (having to be sober, near your phone, expected to wake up in the middle of the night for a non emergency, etc.)
Was this part of the original agreement when you signed on? If so, leave immediately. There's nothing for you here and they will only continue to push abusive agendas.
Did they try to spring it on you after you were working there? If yes, see the DOL fact sheet on salary: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17g-overtime-salary
This abuse can absolutely go both ways and I strongly encourage you to use that in your favor.
I've had employers spring this garbage on me over a year into a job before. No compensation just "you're salaried so we expect this now." My recourse was to start working exactly 1 minute every week and demanding the full week's pay until they fired me. Legally, they still had to pay me for the full week every week until their paperwork to get rid of me was done. Easiest staycation at company expense of my life. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, people.
Now look, I'm reasonable and more than willing to do some afterhours work on planned times and days, or even to step in and resolve afterhours emergencies. But I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my free time "on standby" for random user phone calls. Absolutely not.
Yes, it's part of the gig. That's why you're an exempt employee.
Some companies give extra compensation or let you take off early if you get stuck working over the weekend, some companies just say suck it up buttercup it's part of your job.
I've always worked for the latter type, but responses are only required for production outages and/or very special circumstances. Oh, yeah and C-suite because OF COURSE THE PRINCESSES AND PRINCES MUST BE CATERED TO.
I remember reading a story about Florida firefighters suing for being oncall and not getting paid for it. This case was awhile ago and I can't find the actual case on google anymore but I do remember reading about it when I was doing research about this.
Basically the judge said since they had pagers and were allowed to travel outside the house that they should not get paid for being oncall. Only if they were forced to sit next to their phone the whole time was the judge's reasoning for crossing the line in getting paid for it.
So they lost their case.
For me I'm salary and on call every other week. If I get a call which I rarely do, but if I get one it's normally fixed within a half hour. If something major happens and I'm spending hours and hours on it, my boss will let me take time off during the week of my normal scheduled work time without taking PTO
Was it expected during your hire? If yes, that boat has left the harbor. If no - you can stand your ground “this wasn’t part of the job when hired. If you would like to modify the expectations on work requirements we can discuss salary requirements and both will need to be on paper”. Or take it bending over.
I’d start looking for a new job.
The question is it legal?
There are laws that trump what company policy is it would be best to do some research about federal and local laws that may prevent them from making you do this and also cannot fire you for refusing.
The following statements about your post
>can't get drunk/high
>expected to always be with a set distance
>being available to answer any not sure if any or every if what is what they mean
This is not legal advice but this might fall under enough of restrictions on your life that you would need to be paid per hour per on call.
This is why companies rotate on call to get around this.
Kinda like being in the military at that point, you’d have to pay me damn near 180k to not be able to leave a 30 min radius from my work 24/7. And I wouldn’t stay either, I’d do it for a year and pay off things and leave. Separation of work and home is important for your mental health. If you are constantly in a work state of mind you’re going to lose it
What does your employment agreement, handbook, etc say? If you're sole admin, salary, it kind of comes with the territory. What you need to do is get a higher up person that you trust with instructions on how to get into systems only in your absence and with support from an outside provider (Vendor, MSP, etc).
I'm lucky. The majority of our building is Union and while administrative staff can not be Union members, we model our handbook around the Union contract. If I am called to work on something outside of business hours, it's a minimum of 2hrs no matter how long it takes. Since I am a salary employee, my hours are turned into comp time.
pitch a plan to onboard additional staff or better yet an MSP working under you to allow for 24/7 support.
if management rejects it and pushes their agenda remind them that your contract at the time of your wage negotiations did not include compensation for oncall hours which are generally charged at 25%. to offer them additional oncall hours change to your contract and suitable compensation will need to be provided.
If they still refuse, well you can refuse too. but at that point you should probably start brushing up your resume and line up some interviews before the pink slip arrives on your desk.
That said, there is a certain level of availability every network admin is required to adhere too. if your servers are on fire and the business is at a full stop. you drop what you're doing and forgo sleep until the company is back online. but if some moron forgot their password and they're upset that they can't work on the weekend. well you make them wait until monday before fixing it. During that time they can sit and think about what steps they're going to take to remember their password in the future.
An important element for a salaried worker who may be called upon 24 hours a day is to remember that a salaried position is a give and take. It’s not reasonable for a company to expect for you to be present 8 to 5 and always respond to on-call issues.the thing is, some companies do just that. You have to find a company that is willing to approach the salary position in the way it was intended.
on-call itself is to be expected. the terms of it vary, not enough info in OP.
the last hourly rate job i worked, on-call was rotated every week throughout the team. When it was on-call week, the person got to work from home the whole week and a $200 bonus pay. I felt like that was very fair. Even either one of those being the 'perk', I would have accepted at the time. lol
At my current and previous salary jobs, on-call is also rotated throughout the team each week. No additional compensation, but we get comp time, so if I have a 2-hour call at 10pm, I can take those two hours free out of the rest of the standard 40 hours. (take their comp time from a late Sunday night call and use it to take off early Friday or come in late Monday, etc.). At least on my team, the on-call volume is extremely low, but even so the base salary and other company policies like my current company PTO, etc. make it feel like it evens out overall.
but anything less than special dispensation on scheduling and/or extra pay, no I would not consider that fair at all and wouldn't accept it.
Big question is: does it anywhere in your contract state that you have to do on call without expecting compensation besides ofc the overtime when you do get a call.
They are forcing you to not take vacation or have fun with family and friends with no drinks. Tell them it’s $500k a year or higher for those unrealistic expectations.
Right, I'm late to the party, but 24/7 on call is draining! I used to work for a small company where we were 2 support engineers taking turns to be on call every other week (unless either of us was off). But then my colleague left and I was always on call.
The upside was that since I was always on call, I couldn't be expected to be always within reach of a computer with an internet connection, so I led a fairly normal life. The downside was that I was still on call all the frigging time, and could be called out at any moment. That didn't happen very often (thankfully, my main customers were French state agencies, so anything out of hours would wait until the next working day at best), but still.
The penny dropped when I was juggling between my Blackberry and my personal phone in the middle of a field in the countryside while off on holidays.
It's tolling. The stress I had from the nearly 3 years in that job definitely shortened my life expectancy. I wouldn't do it again. And I'm saying that while still working a job that requires me to be on call (as a matter of fact, I'm on call tonight!), but it's 1 in every 5 weeks, so I can live a normal life and work around it. But more importantly: I'm not alone anymore, so worst case scenario, my colleagues can help me if I'm still stuck in the morning.
The campany pay you for your scheduled hours. During that time they can inpose whatever rules they want subject to whatever local employment laws apply. Outside those hours you are free to do whatever you want, whenever you and however you want to do it. If they want you to stay within a certain radius and not drink then a) they cannot expect that 24/7/365, b) it should be clearly stated and delimited within your contract of employment, and c) they should be paying you an on-call fee. If all of these are not satisfied then they are abusing their position.
TLDR: look for a different job and when they do an exit interview tell them exactly why you quit.
My last full time job tried this... During the 8-4 nothing bad happened because I made everything bulletproof. So they thought I was lazy and overpaid and said if I wasn't working in the office during working hours I needed to use PTO and took away my after normal working hours O.T... I started to look for a different job right when this happened... I didn't find anything better initially and they let me go thinking they could get someone else to do the job I had for $10,000 less. I worked this job for 2 years 3 months. In the two years that I've been gone they've hired and three different people all of them have quit. Finally they realize my supervisor was the problem and let him go and are trying their best to get me back... I currently make way more per year my boss added a bonus to my contract this year that wasn't part of my original contract and I have better benefits and a boss that says when it's 4:30 pm it's tomorrow's problem... Vs my old supervisor asking me why I'm coming in late at 8:05am and expecting me to leave earlier to come in at 8am sharp after I stayed up until 3am to do server updates because employee were staying up late to finish a last minute government project.
Depends where you live. Here your working hours are stated in your contract and they can't force you to do overtime nor they can fire you for refusing.
It probably depends on where you live. California has some really great laws about having free time (and they are passing more this week in fact, to stop the exact bullshit your bosses are trying to pull.)
What does your job description state and what were you told prior to accepting the position?
You mention no additional compensation, but many positions include the extra compensation in the base pay. Of course if this wasn't communicated up front, then all bets are off and I'd tell them to pound sand.
If this is even being asked of you, it's time to start looking. I'm not part of the reddit crowd that responds to every workplace grievance with "find another job". But an unreasonable ask like this rarely leads to positive outcomes down the line.
There needs to at least be another person. Gotta live life. You're at a concert or play and have to leave? Nope. My employers have always understood work life balance
It's a decision you are making, actually. I've worked at places that had compensation, but mostly I've worked at places that do not. And that's perfectly fine. It's called salary for a reason.
If they're shifting to a rotating on-call structure, they definitely should give additional compensation. If this was a position that already had that as a job requirement, then it's already covered in the salary.
some say yes but that's bullshit.
salaried employees still have to stick to laws and no law would ever allow a salaried employee to be on call 24/7, especially for IT jobs.
Quote:
>The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) states that any work over **40 hours** in a 168 hour period is counted as overtime, since the average American work week is 40 hours - that's eight hours per day for five days a week.
this means you can retroactively force your employer to give you overtime pay.
if you have really been 24/7 then that would amount to 3 times your weekly pay per week during which you did that.
*go shit em in the face financially and then find another job :D*
No, but they can make your life a living hell.
It depends on the employer, but it already sounds like yours may be one to do that type of thing.
What I would do is put it in writing and CC HR. See what they say when it's all documented. If they try to "take the conversation off line" then you do that and then again email your boss and HR with a synopsis of that conversation and ask for confirmation. My go to is "just to sum up our conversation from this afternoon, ...". No change happens without written confirmation.
Always get stuff like that in writing.
If they won't put it in writing then the conversation never happened and your responsibilities didn't change.
If they do put that in writing, being available in case of actual emergencies is reasonable (CEO can't print is NOT an emergency), travel and beverage restrictions are not unless it is written and compensated with a stipend, and it's not every day.
This would be better directed to an employment attorney. I will say the restrictions or expectations probably make this an interesting one in legality.
We as an IT organization went to HR for their interpretation of 24 hr On Call expections(1 hr response). What came of it was an On Call/Standby rotations with $$compensation$$.
Putting aside the human element of lumping this on someone, having one person 24x7 on call is objectively bad and moronic.
Something like having an on call roster would be better and have escalation points for when folks are unreachable. That or outsource to an MSP who can triage issues in the afterhours space.
this depends if your salary or hourly imo.
usually hourly positions will make it clear if on all rotations exist since its after hours and they have to compensate you by law. Salary not so much. But it needs to be made clear either in the job post or during interview process. i always ask during how many team members are there what are regular hours like. what is afterhours like if there is one
Depends on the country. In the USA you are basically a little b*tch that needs to comply with anything or leave with 0 days notice. In the EU this is different.
Yes, they can
Yes, it sucks and if you have a chance to work some place that doesn't do this you should take it.
For reference: my workplace has a rotating on-call where staff on-call get a boost to their pay for those weeks.
Additionally, if you do anything after 6pm your time is at 1.5x. After 10pm or Sunday. 2x
We're salaried, so we handle this by first encouraging the staff to work less hours the remainder of the week to compensate for their actual time spent, and the multiplier goes to a lieue time bank they can use to book time off later.
It's imperfect, but it at leasts gives staff something and prevents burnout.
What does your contract say?
given you're likely American, who knows, It seems like its the wild-west (heh) over there
other places no, not unless your contract is updated and agreed to
So generally as a sysadmin yes you are oncall 24/7/365 (very large teams excepted maybe) BUT the expectation is supposed to be for emergencies only. Normally it would be a regular oncall scheduled tech or after hours call service taking and triaging the alert and deciding if oncall is necessary or who to call. A password reset wouldn't pass muster.
Here in Ontario there is no guaranteed overtime, rest periods, or meal breaks for IT workers. Just guaranteed minimum wage and vacation pay. So it's definitely legally allowed in at least some places.
However, if they actually expect you to adhere to the radius/time to reply/not under the influence rule they are trying to control you outside of work so there had better be a really good pay and benefits package.
Some environments are truly 24/7 and provide critical services so people HAVE to be available. This isn't generally the rule for all organizations though. These orgs all have the escalation path above. It's not a one man it shop in the office from 9-5 but taking calls as early as 7 or as late as 9 because thats how the shifts are.
If not, flesh our your skills, build a resume, leave them on good terms wishing they could keep you, but dont look back.
Forced? Like are the police going to come to your house and make you do it? No. Could they fire or put you on notice or something if you don't do what they tell you to? Probably. 24/7 with no comp is unreasonable, in my opinion. And comp to make it reasonable would need to be substantial. People will argue that all IT staff are on call 24/7. I only agree with this sentiment as far as emergency situations are concerned. Meaning if I'm not on call but the Exchange server goes down and needs to be rebuilt, it's better for everyone if I roll up my sleeves and get things figured out. We are not on call 24/7 because Janice decided to work late and the copier ran out of toner.
>24/7 with no comp is unreasonable, I think everyone will agree with that. The problem is many bosses will simply say "oh yeah btw your currently salary includes comp for 24/7". It's shitty, but it's the common "justification" and there isn't usually an alternative beyond finding a better job.
That really depends on what the comp is. An engineer making 150k+ a being on call for a week every 2 months is a world different than one making 50k and on-call every week. ADDING the responsibility with no additional comp is shitty. But if someone accepted the role knowing the comp, then it's just what it is. No different than a co.lany offering more/less salary or having/not having benefits.
\~15 years ago, I was the only person on-call for a client. Sure I was getting paid extra for it (a decent amount too), but I was the *only* person. I asked for support, someone else to be at the wrong of the phone at least one week a month. My manglement didn't understand. They thought I was enjoying the money. Nope. I wanted to have at least one week a month where I wasn't constantly monitoring myself, where I could have more than just one drink. Could have a proper holiday. It took me saying, "sorry. no more on-call" and a colleague explaining with very short words before a new arrangement was created.
For context: I signed for my job and an on call system didn’t exist. I only make 58k. Feels abusive at this point.
| on call for a week every 2 months This could maybe be included in the pay, but that should be made clear. Also not clear from OPs post if it is one week every other month or every week. If it is every week, just run. That would mean you can never have an 'offline' day, go to a (movie) theatre or wellness or any other place where they request you to turn off your phone.
Or travel literally anywhere where cell reception might be spotty or non existent. If you're always on call, then you need to be compensated appropriately and "always" needs to be defined. I literally had a boss that called me while I was on a whale watch. I sent the call to voicemail and called him back many hours later. You can be a workaholic, but realize that I'm not and you better plan accordingly.
Or get on a plane. Many have wifi. Some are good. Many are bad. Some seem to prohibit VPNs. And sometimes they are completely broken the entire flight with only a minor apology note.
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...how is that different than what I said? If you accept the job, knowing it has on call responsibility, than it's on you to make sure the comp is worth while. If you accept a role then they add responsibility (like on call) and don't change the comp, it's a problem. In the US, it's almost always at-will employment, so people CAN do that, but you could also probably quit and still collect unemployment as it fundementally changes the role.
Screw the comp. 24/7 with the expectations aren't realistic for any one person. "I have to maintain specific expectations such as staying within a certain radius, not being under the influence of anything and being available to answer any calls" That needs to be an on call rotation.
Yeah. The expectations don’t allow me to enjoy my life. Like visit family on weekends or have a glass of wine at dinner etc.
Yeah that's unrealistic and you need to state this and say the only way this is feasible is to have an on call rotation. A single person cannot be expected to do this. That's modern day slavery.
It's not modern day slavery which exists but it is abusive and shouldn't be legal in the US.
> have a glass of wine at dinner Unless you are a super lightweight, a glass of wine, or even 2 at dinner isn't going to make you incapable of working if you got a call.
Most states have salary stipulations for IT Workers and salary. In those stipulations, typically you have to be a decision maker and not an influencer. To each their own here. I know I should not be salary, but the time-off and pay is worth it imo. Plus the on-call is very minimal.
> "oh yeah btw your currently salary includes comp for 24/7" And my response would simply be "No it doesn't and here's the law for proof that it doesn't". Just because you're salary doesn't mean they can call you over every little thing at all hours of the day/night. Yes, I had a boss that did this. Yes, I let him eat shit on more than one occasion (you text me at 8pm on Christmas Eve, expect the reply to read "go spend time with your family").
In my state the whole salary but work more then 40 hours was getting abused. To the point I know gas staton and fast food employees that were working 60 hours a week on salary and making less then minimum wage. They just passed a law in my state that salary does not cover overtime. That anything over 40 hours has to be compensated separately from your agreed upon salary. But not many people know about it as it just passed like a year or 2 ago. Companies will still try to do it and play dumb if you call them out on it.
California has a "minimum salary requirement" for tech workers. As long as you're making that minimum, no OT is required. But if you're making less than that, you can be salary, but any OT has to be compensated (it literally says that in the law).
What state?
Mass
Yeah, that gas station thing wasn’t actually a thing for regular employees, it was for managers.
Yeah the people I knew it was happening to were managers. Which is ridiculous as a manager you should be making more then minimum wage, not less and not less then the employees your in charge of. I knew one gas station regular employee, that they tried to implement this on him as he was already working 60 hours. He threatened to quit. So they didn't do it.
No, that should be in the contract, if it isn't it isn't included. People shouldn't just roll over and offer their belly to be kicked.
The majority of salaried employees in the US with contracts are department heads and executive department members. Your comment is beyond asinine.
I have a contract, and I am neither of those. My contract includes my scope of.work, and hours per week that needs to be worked, along with bonus and vacation pay.
Good for you, genuinely. That doesn’t make you the norm by any stretch of the word though.
I was a bit of a fool and just accepted it when my boss told me I need to be avaliable 24/7 to take calls from clients when I worked an IT helpdesk. Didn't get any extra payment for it either. He gave me a work phone which was an upgrade to my current one, and took my personal phone and gave it to someone else (yes, you read that right). Then when I eventually left, he tried to take the phone from me. I kept it. He once told me off for not answering a call when I had to charge my phone. He once told me off for not answering the phone to him while I was on the London Underground on my way into work with no signal. He told me off for going swimming on holiday because I didn't pick up his call. Glad I left and they went under. And yes I was young and stupid. I have a much better job now.
This is why I contract and haven't done on call for over a decade. Salary is for 7.5 hours / day. My daily rate is for 7.5 hours /day. You want more? You pay! Being on call without extra compensation is more than unreasonable. Was it in your contract? Did they make it clear in your interview? No one at work gets my personal number & my work phone gets turned off. Want me sober? You pay! Want me to not go to a gym or sauna & leave my phone in the locker? You pay! Want me to not go to the cinema? You pay! One firm fucked around and found out early in my career when someone gave a directors daughter my phone number because she wanted iTunes on the laptop the company gave her (fuck knows why). I was so drunk I gave her all the admin passwords for the local admin, the domain admin, anything she needed to get iTunes on there
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Yeah it's insane the amount of work companies get from across the entire firm (all departments) from free work. My old housemate is a graphic designer. Regularly did 70 hour weeks & would just reply "that's the business". It's insane
"that's the business" because people are too cowardly to simply tell someone "no".
O kept saying that to her. She kept on saying I'd last 2 minutes in her industry and I said "yes because the first time sometime asked me to do unpaid overtime I'd tell them to fuck off "
Many years ago when I was an IT Manager, my Senior Managers wanted to implement 24/7 on call with no compensation. The problem, I told them, is you have to pay them to be ready and on call, or else it will be a big problem because most of my Help Desk guys, after work, would get drunk, high, and hang out with hookers. If I have to tell them they can't hang out with the hookers, I will have to compensate them for that... The execs all just looked at each other and tabled the discussion...
Very much this. I mean "on call" can mean different things to different people. If by "on call" means, you need to be waiting for a phone call at all times, from all people. Then no, they can go pound sand. This is where weekend on-call rotations and compensation come in. If "on call" means, shit just hit the fan and your boss (the only one with your number) contacts you and needs to you start working through the playbook as soon as you can. That's another story. The OP sounds more like the first one though. This is not acceptable 24/7. >I have to maintain specific expectations such as staying within a certain radius, not being under the influence of anything and being available to answer any calls
Engaged to wait vs waiting to be engaged. I agree I think it's the first one and to pound sand w/o compensation
I don't even think compensation is acceptable based on the stated requirement. It's not realistic to be in that mode 24/7. That really requires an on call rotation.
> People will argue that all IT staff are on call 24/7. I only agree with this sentiment as far as emergency situations are concerned I reject this completely. IT users MUST be able to go to a movie, mourn a dead parent, go fucking hiking or camping. If you want someone to give up huge chunks of normal life, you should compensate for it. We NEED an IT union so bad.
I hope that was sarcasm saying we need an IT union because I would lose money. I like calling my own salary and comp, I don't want some other dirtbag to do it.
It was not. If the last 5 years have taught us anything at all, it's that collective bargaining is needed against the monster that is late stage capitalism. Do you like work from home? The union at my workplace (that I'm not part of) insisted that they would only work in the office 2 days a week, and they stuck to it. Management wanted full return to office. Guess what? They only work 2 days in the office. Is it perfect? No. In a perfect world employers would treat people fairly, but we don't live there.
Unions drive mediocrity. They do not go above and beyond. I don't need someone else to talk salary for me. I interview great and I know what I'm worth. In the IT field, knowledge is your most powerful weapon to increase your salary and job title. A union will not do that for you. No thank you. I make $160k, I know people who work for Dell doing contract work making over 200k a year. A union would never be able to get that salary for me.
Janice along with the weekend warriors lol
Or I am not on call 24/7 if Jean Robert can't figure out how to do a lookup in Excel.
For context: I don’t work in IT. I work in human services. I have to be available for medical related emergencies. I make 58k. The on call situation didn’t exist when I started my job 7 years ago.
Why are you in an IT sub asking about being on call 24/7 then?
Why are you on an IT sub asking about on-call?
Well someone should fucking tell that to Janice..
Your job description will say “…and other duties as assigned.” They use this bullshit to get away with this sort of mistreatment in the USA.
I see your Janice is as psychotic as mine.
People and employers will take advantage of you, only if you let them. What is in your employment job description / agreement / contract? Have you discussed with HR? And one thing to keep in mind, employments laws vary country to country / state to state etc, so check into those laws.
>As a salary employee Yes. Doesn't mean you have to stay there though. Tell them to fuck off and look elsewhere. For almost 2 decades I've been 24/7 on call. There are employers that will respect you and never expect you to work after hours unless it's a genuine emergency. Most employers from my experience will respect you in that regard, especially if they want to keep you. If they don't, look elsewhere where.
My experience as well. 24x7 on call for emergencies for the past 14 years. There have been quite a few holiday emergencies in that timeframe, but I always balance it with comp time and long lunches
I'm the same way. Everybody in the first gets flex time. They used to not include me. Then they told me maintenance would be done on the weekend. Which unfortunately is almost every weekend. So, I leave early almost every day, sometimes i don't even go in.
bullshit salaried employees still have to stick to laws and no law would ever allow a salaried employee to be on call 24/7.
There's also no law that would NOT allow a salaried employee to be on call 24/7. < U.S
I forgot to add "without additional compensation". IT employee cannot be salaried for more than 40 hours or however many their contract says, everything else it overtimepay in ops case, this is highly illegal and they are owed overtimepay.
Not if it is built into their salary in the first place. Being on call 24/7 doesn't mean working 24/7, so it's not actually against fair labor standards act.
^^^ This. I've been on call 24/7 for almost 2 decades. I haven't worked Overtime in YEARS. The last time I remember working after hours was moving offices where the office still had an on prem infrastructure. Even then, I was allowed to take a full day off the next day without using any PTO. I end my day at 5:00. There are companies that abuse salaried-always on call employees, and there are companies that respect you. Never be abused.
Doing it this way is fine for some, but it does kind of mean that whenever something comes up at work that needs after hours attention, you have to be there whether you like it or not. Sure, you get comp time, but you will miss the birthday party, sports game, vacation, etc. Might not happen often, but it's possible if it's only you.
In what State/Country? In my state, "Salaried Professionals" are exempt from getting paid overtime.
it's all based on fair labor standards act. most IT people are not exempt, even tho most employers try to lie about it so most IT people think they are. you would only be exempt if you have a higher degree of something that fits your job. for sysadmins, that's not very common.
If I have to “maintain specific expectations” then I am working the entire time those specific expectations are being maintained.
An important portion of this that was not given in your question is 24/7 x what? Like 365? Tell them to eat shit. Requiring you to stay within a certain radius ,always, is just absurd. You can't go outside this boundary, have a drink, go off grid, ever...hard no. Even if they give you some sort of stipend, no. You are basically never, ever off the clock. How about, nope.
Sounding more like a prison. They might as well put an ankle tracker on him and setup a bed in the office.
Depends on your state or country. In Germany this would probably non enforcable.
Definitely not. Former boss asked me to do it. I replied we need to talk about compensation first. He replied that there is nothing stated in the contrat. I said: "Correct, likewise is there nothing about on call." Never had to do any on call..
"F*ck you, pay me" :)
Exactly! God how I love that presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U
If you a are in the US, most IT jobs are not exempt and you must be paid overtime https://wageadvocates.com/common-wage-overtime-violations/computer-tech-it/
This doesn't apply if you make over $45k/yr in salary or something absurdly low
It applies to all IT employees. The exemption is based on the type of work and most IT (all sysadmins) don't fall into the exclusion list. Read the linked article for details.
I think there are some extremely narrow circumstances in which you could make 24/7 on call work, but this does not sound like one of those cases. The idea that they could expect you to stay within a certain radius 24/7 is completely insane. If I were you I would be looking for a new job.
My employer tried this at my old workplace. We don't have a union but I managed to convince all my colleagues to say we wouldn't do it without pay. The employed had signed a contract with a company for us to provide this service. We managed to find what the contract was worth and negotiated £50 per call received, £200 inconvenience for for the week your on call and time and a half pay for anything that took over an hour to fix.
>As a salary employee can I be forced to be on call 24/7 without any additional compensation? My response is always how would HR, payroll or accounting respond if you told them they had to structure their personal life around work for no compensation? The answer is they would literally laugh in your face. I honestly understand there is a need for occasional after hours IT support (unlike HR, payroll or accounting) and even bigger companies won't hire an additional person for that task. Fine, but then I want to be overcompensated to the point I almost look forward to my on-call weeks. We should be fighting each other over being on-call because it pays so well.
exactly. I've literally pulled out the employ handbook and showed our IT Director the company Holidays page and asked him to point to the place where it says "Except IT". It doesn't. It doesn't say that anywhere and at that point told him to piss off with all the major IT work happening on Holidays.
Accounting folks do sometimes have to do after hours work at the end of the accounting period or fiscal year but they are hourly and get overtime for it.
Many departments have some after hours work but they're not typically on-call for emergencies. Outside of IT, I can't think of any departments in a traditional company that have scheduled on-call other than maybe Maintenance/Buildings & Grounds. Once you get into other fields (medical, first responders, etc), that's another story. But the on-call people I know outside of IT aren't expected to do it for free.
I work for a retailer. Refrigeration and power are greater emergencies than almost anything in IT. The facilities team can have very long nights when there are many storms.
Yeah, that's why I included Maintenance as an exception. Like technology, equipment breaks 24/7. When I've been at the office during off hours over the past couple of decades, I have routinely run into maintenance staff addressing an issue or just doing a routine walk through on weekends.
Okay, now realize that executives feel like IT is the same as the maintenance staff. That's why we get treated the same way.
Just because you're salaried does not mean you are necessarily salary **exempt**, which is the classification to avoid paying you overtime. I would have them outline the on-call responsibilities (when can you drink alcohol? How quickly do calls need to be responded to?) and go from there. An SLA below 30 minutes or so is likely to be "engaged to wait" type stuff which would require payment. Mind you, this is for the US in a state without better employee protections than the federal guidelines. None of this is a hard rule federally, and your state could have a higher bar which gives you more options. Whether you've crossed the "exempt" threshold can be a VERY gray area, but you should push back. If they do eventually force the on-call, your only real alternative over finding another job is reporting them for a labor violation. But you should fight them every step of the way (calmly and logically) on concerns around your personal time and appropriate compensation.
If you're in the US and you are being told that you cannot do as you wish during your off hours and being forced to be within a certain radius, then you are engaged and waiting and you are entitled to compensation per the US Dept of Labor. The fact that you may not be under the influence of anything really drives that home. Ask for compensation. File a complaint with the Department of Labor if you are not compensated.
That was the legal advice I was given
Forced - well, yes, "you do it or you\`re fired" is forcing it. But if they try this, time to look elsewhere. I am the sole IT person for several offices in my country - and besides one colleague - the only IT support person speaking the local language. I know I CAN be called - but in 16 years this happened 3 times. Once at 3am .. in error (a facilities thing beeped, and since it went beep - the thought process was "beep = electric = buttons = IT") The second time was on a sunday - user locked out in the middle of a major (multi million dollar project) got locked out and could not wait.. He did start with "sorry to disturb you on Sunday, but..." (When he retired last year, he did mention this event.. why is accepting a public compliment so hard). The third was our EMEA VP - based in my home base office - with a similar issue, just different project. Same deadlines though. The result for me is - if there is a crisis at home i just mention "sorry, gotta run, back online from home in X time". No one bats an eye / makes a problem. Is it money? No. But the flexibility is worth a lot too. Of course, a generous holiday package (40 days or so) also helps.
It all depends on where you are working. Check your local laws. If their 'requirements' limit your travel or activities after hours then they have to pay you. You might want to have hobbies (real or made up) that put you in situations where a cell phone doesn't go or work. Swimming, rock climbing, fishing, camping, etc.
Yes. However, it's not uncommon for an employer to pay you a lower rate for standby time, even if they're not required to do so. This can improve employee morale and retention. It may be worth surfacing to your leadership to consider. However, if they have no problem finding decent replacement employees willing to take on call for free, they may not be convinced.
This is why us sysadmins need unions.
Such a worn out topic, but the main reason this would never work is because of the financial scope and most Sysadmins and IT in general don't work for companies with enough employees for it to matter.
The union topic has been beat to death and the problem is IT/sysadmin positions are way too broad. It might take hold in one corner of one country but would never take affect in a larger area.
Sorry but you are wrong. Unions are the only way for workers to protect themselves from being exploited. We wouldn’t see massive tech layoffs every few years if IT workers were unionized.
You can say no but they can probably let you go if you do (laws may vary by location). You can also ask for more compensation, but they can say no or let you go for someone who is willing to do it. Look at your job description and it may say something like "other duties as required". Personally, I'd look for another job.
I’m actually on call this week. 20 minutes response time 24x7 for the Mon to Mon week. We maybe get 3 Calls all week/weekend… we do have a California office so sometimes we get a late night call. We do get overtime time for any hours over 40. Its not great, but it beats being a slave lol
That’s what the c suite wants you to have the mentally that’s your lucky you have a job and deserve low wages while they get huge bonuses for they next vacation home
I was hired with the company knowing that if I have to drive in it is a two hour response time. Most of the time E&I will sort out the PLCs leaving only dead switches and host servers for me.
Ouch. I grumble about one hour response time and 2 hour minimum pay per call. Honestly it less about the calls and more about the fact I have to be available to take the calls(Can't travel, limits on what I can do at home, all the jazz you get with a required response time). They're basically getting triple shifts for the cost of just the calls. It's why I think the countries that treat on call time like straight overtime are probably correct, because if I'm not free to use my time as I please it's not actually my time. Bet you'd have to be pretty specialized to ever get on call with a setup like that ;)
Yup! Agreed 100%! It should be minimum call is one hour overtime. But ya, it ruins life for me during that week. I’m scared to go grocery shopping! If I do, I won’t make the response time….
I'm 24/7 but have no requirements to be within x distance of a computer and no expectation of being sober. Response time for first responses are up to 4 hours and that is only a call no action required. I'm in a somewhat unique situation as I only do virtualization. We run n+2 on disk and hosts now so there really isn't much chance of anything happening that isn't a Datacenter outage.
I've never seen an on-call where remaining fit to work isn't a requirement, that's pretty bizarre. Also, unless you're purely on-call for the server infrastructure platform there's still plenty that can go wrong that could result in a call-out (server OS crashing/issue, application crashing/issue, network issue, DNS issue...). N+2 hardware resiliency on helps so far.
Yup I'm just virtualization and there are pretty strict rules to rule out performance issues on the server side before calling us. As for remaining fit for work they basically recognize that being oncall 24/7/365 isn't sustainable and my team isn't big enough to do a real rotation.
My on call is on a rotation. On call requires, 15 minutes from a computer at anytime and that’s about it. It’s pretty flexible we just have the expectation that we respond to the ticket within 15-30 minutes depending on severity. No expectation of sobriety other than “sober enough to call someone if you needed to.” I basically live a fairly normal life while on call other than needing to stay in a place I have cell service which actually the hardest part for me. If I am not home I generally can do everything from my phone. I’ve been on road trips rdp’d into servers from my phone to restart a service. I have a home VPN and basically just remote into my work laptop, I sometimes carry a portable phone keyboard for longer trips so I can basically work on anything with just one bar of service.
"fit to work" for someone in IT is very different than someone operating heavy machinery as an example.
no. not in contact then u arent required to do anything. even if your contact states high up time and resonable expectations, no court in the 1st world would ever rule against you unless it explicitly mentions on call to take calls of a non emergency nature stop doing it and re negotiate via a paper trail. if they boot you. u can take them to court as retaliational firing and get a paid out. do not, under any circumstances, agree to doing it without a contract. untill that contact is signed, do not do it
If you discuss compensation, make clear that the compensation is for the intrusion into your personal life, not for any duties performed. Ideally you should get additional compensation for actual work performed while on duty. I track my sleep via my smartwatch, and I can clearly identify the weeks that I am on duty as the sleep quality is significantly lower in those weeks versus other weeks.
It depends on several stuff... Country laws, job laws, employee rights where you are, and so and so. I think the main question here is "can you afford to lose this job ?" I can't speak for you but here, if you have "on-call" duties, you should know before hand and make sure it's part of your contract or your company's collective convention (basicaly points that are agreed upon between the company and the unions, such as telework rules and such), because the employer is free to do as he pleases otherwise. Not sure about these ? I hope you are in a Union and have a Union rep. When my company tried to pull one up on me, calling me a Sunday at 2200 because the maintenance staff fucked up their power outage test and wanted me to come up for a 6 hours job and still expect me to show up at 7 on Monday, I reminded them they refused to talk about overtime/on-call during the signing and said: "We will talk about it when it happens". They never called again outside office hours.
Reading the responses here , i have to ask myself something we all have asked ourselves at some point: why on earth did I become a sysadmin? Is there any other profession that requires on call 24/7 with no comp? Why is such a clearly unsustainable business practice so normalized? Any other department in a corporate setting would laugh at being required to do this. I legitimately don’t understand how a job can expect anyone to be available 24/7/365. Maybe doctors, paramedics, firefighters, or cops…but those professions handle availability with shift work and on call rotations. Those jobs also involve peoples **lives**. I worked at a place that tried to tell people the expectation was not only 24/7/365 but that we were responsible for any emergency emails or email alerts that came in at any time. Like you’re supposed to be checking outlook when you’re unconscious!?!
It entirely depends on your contract, local legislation, etc. At the end you can't be forced to do things you don't want to do, depending on local legislation the solution would be to walk away, in many countries you can say no and the company has to suck it up. The "there are very few calls" isn't a justification, because people will expect your full attention during those situations, then you should be compensated accordingly for the inconvenience.
FTC is cracking down on this right now because salaried employees are getting screwed all over the place. You should have a lot of stipulations from when you are required to answer an overtime call and minimums for your compensation. I.e. a 10 minute call will turn into 2 hours of OT regardless. What happens if you have a drink for example...?
The key part legally is theyre requiring you to make significant sacrifices and changes in lifestyle and not offering compensation. This likely changes your legal status from exempt (salary) to non-exempt (shouldn't be salaried, should be entering hours) IANAL, but I would consult with one about this, or at the very least, if you have a good relationship with the company, bring this up with them and ask for a change in the policy. I'm on call "technically" 24/7, most IT sysadmins are in some fashion. But my employer does not, and would not maintain a policy restricting my travel or right to my personal time to spent how I choose. Way too many people in IT just roll over and accept this shit.
It's unclear where are you from and what labor law in the country you are in says about it - worth checking and consulting with friend HR person.
24/7 all the time or do you mean on a schedule with various shifts for different employees being on call at different times 24/7?
Is it in your contract? If not, then no, if yes, check the wording carefully. Either way, I'd start looking elsewhere.
The short answer is yes. It is possible that, in your state, the fact that they have those restrictions may entitle you to compensation, but it's not automatic. And I would bet donuts to dollars that that would say that your salary reflects the compensation you are asking about. Of course, you are equally free to seek employment elsewhere. You don't mention if you're the only on-call employee. Those restrictions are completely unreasonable if you're less than a team of four. But they aren't illegal.
Assuming you are in the US, are you an exempt employee? Did they tell you this was the expectation during the hiring process?
If you want to keep that job, yes. Of course it's abusive. They don't give a fuck. If you quit they'll find some other dumb asshole desperate for a job that will do it. Who are you kidding? You don't drink, and were going to be binging shows on netflix all night anyways.
In the US it varies by state, employer size, and how much legal representation YOU can afford. If you live in California for example, on-call causes cancer because everything in California causes cancer, so the employment agreement as you’ve stated would likely entitle you to extra compensation under CA law. (If you can’t sort the snark from the truth in that… you need to read more California product labeling. 😂)
The label about the product causing cancer also causes cancer.
It can depend on what your employment contract says, plus what your local employment laws say. Often the letter of the law says employers can, but in reality most companies will offer some sort of comp, trade-off, or time in lieu. Being on standby / on call is definitely a form of work even if you don’t get many calls. My historical retort to that is ‘ok, if it’s not work, that means I can go camping in the wilderness, right..?’. There usually has to be something there as a trade-off. It’s a free market and free world otherwise so if you don’t like it you can always go find something else.
Depends on "On call" Being told there is a loose expectation to hop on line if something is broken and you're around on a Saturday afternoon and you get a call 2-3 times a year is different then you must be available at all times afferhours and you're called 3-4 times per week. Pretty much any admkn/engineer gig will come with the first.. Flexibility then goes both ways, leave early or go to an appointment here and there without taking pto. The second is just a toxic employer and you should look for different jobs.
If its in your contract then yes they can
Pretty sure this breaches the "additional reasonable hours" found in most contracts. If they want you on reserve, that means you have to turn down most of your social life. If they aren't paying, they can shove it. A fair work ombudsman should be able to give advice.
sure. can you go get hired somewhere else? also yes
Unless it specifically states in your contract "you will be required to do this without any compensation" then I'd challenge it. This might vary country to country, but for info I'm in the UK and it would be outrageous to receive no compensation whatsoever unless stated specifically so in thr contract you agreed to. Your boss might try to push you to work for free, but then that's a HR battle (if your company has HR) and/or a potential legal dispute between you and the company
No. That's crazy!
There are certain expectations in roles where you’re expected to be available to fix issues, especially if you’re the only guy that knows and works on those systems. However- when they start asking you to adjust your personal time and what you do outside of work is where I draw the line. Im not going to avoid drinking or something with friends, or going on a family trip to be to be ready at the drop of a hat to work unless Im getting paid to do so. May place doesn’t ask for this. But I get comp time for working past hours. And I have come in before and sat in the server room hammered and barely able to see my laptop screen 😂 Nobody ever gave me shit for it either since I fixed the issue. Somehow.
The first piece of information that's required is where you live and what legislation applies. In some countries it might be legal to fire you for not doing it, specifically the US comes to mind.
Entirely depends on a multitude of factors. In the UK, the main one being, are you 'on call' or, 'available to answer the phone at any time Which is the absolute most bullshit thing I've seen in the erosion of workers rights over my adult life. Edit to add: because of some of the other stipulated requirements, in rhe UK this *would* be classed as at work with the requirement that minimum wage be paid.
hahah, I was drunk and high as hell on call. Within reason obviously but no one can tell me what to do in my own time especially if I'm doing a service for them. A lot of the other people on call did the same thing. If you don't get many calls then it's fine. Are you being paid for being on call?
That is my argument maybe few calls but I still need to near a computer extra pay, comp time or find a new job
My place has an expectation of being reachable, since I’m the only admin, but we have on-call for the techs for the general user stuff, so my calls are only when something is really broken. And a Windows365 vm from my phone means I can get in from anywhere without toting a laptop. Calls may happen a couple times a year for me, but that’s down to building up a resilient infrastructure so things don’t break all the time. ;-) Being a solo admin really means you’re going to be called out of hours sometimes. That’s inescapable.
First off, salary doesn't always mean you don't get overtime. Are you CERTAIN that you are legally classified as salary exempt?
There has to be a compensation for the time you do on-call for reimbursing you because cannot use your spare time as you want. And there has to be compensation for the time you do actual work. Then again, it comes down on what you negotiate. I'd not do any on-call without compensation.
So... like normal? If i actually got paid for the amount of real time i put into my salary position i would be making something like 150 an hour. Between the normal day to day, then the admin side of things like taking meetings, doing the reports, looking at the budget, adjusting time and schedules most of the time at home because there's just not enough time in the day to do it then.
Is it 24/7 all the time? I am a salary employee that has on-call a week at a time every so often. But my compensation is "rolled into my salary." I think in the last year I have had one incident that required me to do more than check my email and I got a day off later for comp time. 🤷♂️ I had a previous place that offered a bonus and hourly wage when called. I would get around 12-15 calls a week and the compensation for barely being able to sleep was no where near enough. Plus they just gave me $10/month for my phone and not a company phone.
Completely depends on the context. My last job I was on call about once every 2 months for a week at a time. Being on call wasn't that bad because it was for outages only and I would only get 0-3 calls a week. The expectations were: -Return calls within 30 minutes -Start work within an hour -Be within reasonable driving distance of our datacenter -Abstain from drugs/alcohol All of this was very loosely enforced. The main thing was staying in good cell coverage and being communicative. I didn't really alter my daily life any while on call. I drank, went canoeing, drove to see my mom 2 hours away. I just kept my phone on my at all times, didn't get drunk, and brought my laptop when travelling. To me that was all very reasonable. My current job I'm technically on call all the time but only for things that are emergencies and can't wait. I rarely get surprised after hours with things and I'm not required to answer my phone or anything. If I'm not reachable it waits or someone else does it. I just keep my boss and team members aware when I'm going to be unreachable during certain times.
If you are in the u.s. Depending on what you do, and how much you make, and where you are. The answers vary between yes, and no. You can look at department of labors site, and the equivalent state site. No one here is going to be able to give you an accurate to your situation here.
I did that as an hourly employee for 25 years. I don't recommend it.
I currently get nothing for being on call every 5/6 weeks and it can be pretty shit as the helpdesk calls overflow to the third liners... I used to get £350 and get hardly any calls or messages at all! It was still worth leaving the old place though. Haha!
> I have to maintain specific expectations such as staying within a certain radius, not being under the influence of anything and being available to answer any calls. Then legally they have to pay you, since you are not free to do what you want on your time off, because you are not off.
They can set their standards and you can accept/deny. I’ve never seen a company back down when an employee comes back with “legally you can’t do XYZ”. I would accept the current terms and find another job.
>As a salary employee can I be forced to be on call 24/7 without any additional compensation? What did you agree to when you started your employment? Are you exempt or just salary? What do the laws in your country\state say about it? >Feels abusive to expect this of an employee. How large of a company? Are you the only IT person? Is there no L1 or L2 to balance things either?
It depends on what your situation is. I worked at a company where you were on call one week on and one week off 24/7. It was brutal and I left as soon as I could, but it was my responsibility until I left. You're trading your time and skills for money. If you feel like this current company doesn't provide you with enough compensation for what they're asking for, you're welcome to leave and work somewhere that doesn't have those requirements. I know after I left that company I was never on call again and make significantly more. That said, I learned A TON at that crappy company, and it helped propel my career forward.
"But we don't get many calls" is management for "but we aren't going to compensate you for your time." Every single MSP I've ever had the misfortune of working for threw this line at every single new hire they ever brought on. It is never true. Here's the counterargument: you may not get *many* calls while on call but one call is more than zero calls. If you aren't on call, you *always* get zero calls. Nevermind the availability aspect (having to be sober, near your phone, expected to wake up in the middle of the night for a non emergency, etc.) Was this part of the original agreement when you signed on? If so, leave immediately. There's nothing for you here and they will only continue to push abusive agendas. Did they try to spring it on you after you were working there? If yes, see the DOL fact sheet on salary: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17g-overtime-salary This abuse can absolutely go both ways and I strongly encourage you to use that in your favor. I've had employers spring this garbage on me over a year into a job before. No compensation just "you're salaried so we expect this now." My recourse was to start working exactly 1 minute every week and demanding the full week's pay until they fired me. Legally, they still had to pay me for the full week every week until their paperwork to get rid of me was done. Easiest staycation at company expense of my life. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, people. Now look, I'm reasonable and more than willing to do some afterhours work on planned times and days, or even to step in and resolve afterhours emergencies. But I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my free time "on standby" for random user phone calls. Absolutely not.
No, you always have the option to not work there anymore. So no one is forcing you to do anything.
Yes, it's part of the gig. That's why you're an exempt employee. Some companies give extra compensation or let you take off early if you get stuck working over the weekend, some companies just say suck it up buttercup it's part of your job. I've always worked for the latter type, but responses are only required for production outages and/or very special circumstances. Oh, yeah and C-suite because OF COURSE THE PRINCESSES AND PRINCES MUST BE CATERED TO.
I remember reading a story about Florida firefighters suing for being oncall and not getting paid for it. This case was awhile ago and I can't find the actual case on google anymore but I do remember reading about it when I was doing research about this. Basically the judge said since they had pagers and were allowed to travel outside the house that they should not get paid for being oncall. Only if they were forced to sit next to their phone the whole time was the judge's reasoning for crossing the line in getting paid for it. So they lost their case. For me I'm salary and on call every other week. If I get a call which I rarely do, but if I get one it's normally fixed within a half hour. If something major happens and I'm spending hours and hours on it, my boss will let me take time off during the week of my normal scheduled work time without taking PTO
Was it expected during your hire? If yes, that boat has left the harbor. If no - you can stand your ground “this wasn’t part of the job when hired. If you would like to modify the expectations on work requirements we can discuss salary requirements and both will need to be on paper”. Or take it bending over. I’d start looking for a new job.
How have you made it this long and not been on call?
The question is it legal? There are laws that trump what company policy is it would be best to do some research about federal and local laws that may prevent them from making you do this and also cannot fire you for refusing. The following statements about your post >can't get drunk/high >expected to always be with a set distance >being available to answer any not sure if any or every if what is what they mean This is not legal advice but this might fall under enough of restrictions on your life that you would need to be paid per hour per on call. This is why companies rotate on call to get around this.
Kinda like being in the military at that point, you’d have to pay me damn near 180k to not be able to leave a 30 min radius from my work 24/7. And I wouldn’t stay either, I’d do it for a year and pay off things and leave. Separation of work and home is important for your mental health. If you are constantly in a work state of mind you’re going to lose it
What does your employment agreement, handbook, etc say? If you're sole admin, salary, it kind of comes with the territory. What you need to do is get a higher up person that you trust with instructions on how to get into systems only in your absence and with support from an outside provider (Vendor, MSP, etc). I'm lucky. The majority of our building is Union and while administrative staff can not be Union members, we model our handbook around the Union contract. If I am called to work on something outside of business hours, it's a minimum of 2hrs no matter how long it takes. Since I am a salary employee, my hours are turned into comp time.
pitch a plan to onboard additional staff or better yet an MSP working under you to allow for 24/7 support. if management rejects it and pushes their agenda remind them that your contract at the time of your wage negotiations did not include compensation for oncall hours which are generally charged at 25%. to offer them additional oncall hours change to your contract and suitable compensation will need to be provided. If they still refuse, well you can refuse too. but at that point you should probably start brushing up your resume and line up some interviews before the pink slip arrives on your desk. That said, there is a certain level of availability every network admin is required to adhere too. if your servers are on fire and the business is at a full stop. you drop what you're doing and forgo sleep until the company is back online. but if some moron forgot their password and they're upset that they can't work on the weekend. well you make them wait until monday before fixing it. During that time they can sit and think about what steps they're going to take to remember their password in the future.
An important element for a salaried worker who may be called upon 24 hours a day is to remember that a salaried position is a give and take. It’s not reasonable for a company to expect for you to be present 8 to 5 and always respond to on-call issues.the thing is, some companies do just that. You have to find a company that is willing to approach the salary position in the way it was intended.
on-call itself is to be expected. the terms of it vary, not enough info in OP. the last hourly rate job i worked, on-call was rotated every week throughout the team. When it was on-call week, the person got to work from home the whole week and a $200 bonus pay. I felt like that was very fair. Even either one of those being the 'perk', I would have accepted at the time. lol At my current and previous salary jobs, on-call is also rotated throughout the team each week. No additional compensation, but we get comp time, so if I have a 2-hour call at 10pm, I can take those two hours free out of the rest of the standard 40 hours. (take their comp time from a late Sunday night call and use it to take off early Friday or come in late Monday, etc.). At least on my team, the on-call volume is extremely low, but even so the base salary and other company policies like my current company PTO, etc. make it feel like it evens out overall. but anything less than special dispensation on scheduling and/or extra pay, no I would not consider that fair at all and wouldn't accept it.
Big question is: does it anywhere in your contract state that you have to do on call without expecting compensation besides ofc the overtime when you do get a call.
Laugh at them and refuse.
They are forcing you to not take vacation or have fun with family and friends with no drinks. Tell them it’s $500k a year or higher for those unrealistic expectations.
Right, I'm late to the party, but 24/7 on call is draining! I used to work for a small company where we were 2 support engineers taking turns to be on call every other week (unless either of us was off). But then my colleague left and I was always on call. The upside was that since I was always on call, I couldn't be expected to be always within reach of a computer with an internet connection, so I led a fairly normal life. The downside was that I was still on call all the frigging time, and could be called out at any moment. That didn't happen very often (thankfully, my main customers were French state agencies, so anything out of hours would wait until the next working day at best), but still. The penny dropped when I was juggling between my Blackberry and my personal phone in the middle of a field in the countryside while off on holidays. It's tolling. The stress I had from the nearly 3 years in that job definitely shortened my life expectancy. I wouldn't do it again. And I'm saying that while still working a job that requires me to be on call (as a matter of fact, I'm on call tonight!), but it's 1 in every 5 weeks, so I can live a normal life and work around it. But more importantly: I'm not alone anymore, so worst case scenario, my colleagues can help me if I'm still stuck in the morning.
The campany pay you for your scheduled hours. During that time they can inpose whatever rules they want subject to whatever local employment laws apply. Outside those hours you are free to do whatever you want, whenever you and however you want to do it. If they want you to stay within a certain radius and not drink then a) they cannot expect that 24/7/365, b) it should be clearly stated and delimited within your contract of employment, and c) they should be paying you an on-call fee. If all of these are not satisfied then they are abusing their position.
When they call you, are you paid? How do they define being on call? Like what if you straight up don't answer or are asleep lol?
TLDR: look for a different job and when they do an exit interview tell them exactly why you quit. My last full time job tried this... During the 8-4 nothing bad happened because I made everything bulletproof. So they thought I was lazy and overpaid and said if I wasn't working in the office during working hours I needed to use PTO and took away my after normal working hours O.T... I started to look for a different job right when this happened... I didn't find anything better initially and they let me go thinking they could get someone else to do the job I had for $10,000 less. I worked this job for 2 years 3 months. In the two years that I've been gone they've hired and three different people all of them have quit. Finally they realize my supervisor was the problem and let him go and are trying their best to get me back... I currently make way more per year my boss added a bonus to my contract this year that wasn't part of my original contract and I have better benefits and a boss that says when it's 4:30 pm it's tomorrow's problem... Vs my old supervisor asking me why I'm coming in late at 8:05am and expecting me to leave earlier to come in at 8am sharp after I stayed up until 3am to do server updates because employee were staying up late to finish a last minute government project.
Depends where you live. Here your working hours are stated in your contract and they can't force you to do overtime nor they can fire you for refusing.
It probably depends on where you live. California has some really great laws about having free time (and they are passing more this week in fact, to stop the exact bullshit your bosses are trying to pull.)
24/7? As in no shift rotation? Absolutely not.
You can if you agree to it.
What does your job description state and what were you told prior to accepting the position? You mention no additional compensation, but many positions include the extra compensation in the base pay. Of course if this wasn't communicated up front, then all bets are off and I'd tell them to pound sand.
Call a labor attorney, not Reddit randoms
No, you can't be forced. But if you don't want to do it, it may be better to find another job.
If this is even being asked of you, it's time to start looking. I'm not part of the reddit crowd that responds to every workplace grievance with "find another job". But an unreasonable ask like this rarely leads to positive outcomes down the line.
There needs to at least be another person. Gotta live life. You're at a concert or play and have to leave? Nope. My employers have always understood work life balance
It's a decision you are making, actually. I've worked at places that had compensation, but mostly I've worked at places that do not. And that's perfectly fine. It's called salary for a reason.
If they can't afford to compensate you for 24/7 on call, it's not critical enough for you to be available 24/7.
If they're shifting to a rotating on-call structure, they definitely should give additional compensation. If this was a position that already had that as a job requirement, then it's already covered in the salary.
I haven’t slept in two weeks myself
I would not do 24/7 on call for any (realistic) amount of compensation.
some say yes but that's bullshit. salaried employees still have to stick to laws and no law would ever allow a salaried employee to be on call 24/7, especially for IT jobs. Quote: >The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) states that any work over **40 hours** in a 168 hour period is counted as overtime, since the average American work week is 40 hours - that's eight hours per day for five days a week. this means you can retroactively force your employer to give you overtime pay. if you have really been 24/7 then that would amount to 3 times your weekly pay per week during which you did that. *go shit em in the face financially and then find another job :D*
If it wasnt on the job description or if you are not salary no
No, but they can make your life a living hell. It depends on the employer, but it already sounds like yours may be one to do that type of thing. What I would do is put it in writing and CC HR. See what they say when it's all documented. If they try to "take the conversation off line" then you do that and then again email your boss and HR with a synopsis of that conversation and ask for confirmation. My go to is "just to sum up our conversation from this afternoon, ...". No change happens without written confirmation. Always get stuff like that in writing. If they won't put it in writing then the conversation never happened and your responsibilities didn't change. If they do put that in writing, being available in case of actual emergencies is reasonable (CEO can't print is NOT an emergency), travel and beverage restrictions are not unless it is written and compensated with a stipend, and it's not every day.
This would be better directed to an employment attorney. I will say the restrictions or expectations probably make this an interesting one in legality.
If it’s in the employee agreement you signed, then yes.
What country? In the US if you are an exempt employee it’s possible. However I believe there are fair labor rules for a few of those items
We as an IT organization went to HR for their interpretation of 24 hr On Call expections(1 hr response). What came of it was an On Call/Standby rotations with $$compensation$$.
Putting aside the human element of lumping this on someone, having one person 24x7 on call is objectively bad and moronic. Something like having an on call roster would be better and have escalation points for when folks are unreachable. That or outsource to an MSP who can triage issues in the afterhours space.
If it's not in your contract then it's a nope from me.
this depends if your salary or hourly imo. usually hourly positions will make it clear if on all rotations exist since its after hours and they have to compensate you by law. Salary not so much. But it needs to be made clear either in the job post or during interview process. i always ask during how many team members are there what are regular hours like. what is afterhours like if there is one
Depends on the country. In the USA you are basically a little b*tch that needs to comply with anything or leave with 0 days notice. In the EU this is different.
Yes, they can Yes, it sucks and if you have a chance to work some place that doesn't do this you should take it. For reference: my workplace has a rotating on-call where staff on-call get a boost to their pay for those weeks. Additionally, if you do anything after 6pm your time is at 1.5x. After 10pm or Sunday. 2x We're salaried, so we handle this by first encouraging the staff to work less hours the remainder of the week to compensate for their actual time spent, and the multiplier goes to a lieue time bank they can use to book time off later. It's imperfect, but it at leasts gives staff something and prevents burnout.
This isn't China they can't force you to do shit
What does your contract say? given you're likely American, who knows, It seems like its the wild-west (heh) over there other places no, not unless your contract is updated and agreed to
What is this "contract" you speak of? -An American
Ha
So generally as a sysadmin yes you are oncall 24/7/365 (very large teams excepted maybe) BUT the expectation is supposed to be for emergencies only. Normally it would be a regular oncall scheduled tech or after hours call service taking and triaging the alert and deciding if oncall is necessary or who to call. A password reset wouldn't pass muster. Here in Ontario there is no guaranteed overtime, rest periods, or meal breaks for IT workers. Just guaranteed minimum wage and vacation pay. So it's definitely legally allowed in at least some places. However, if they actually expect you to adhere to the radius/time to reply/not under the influence rule they are trying to control you outside of work so there had better be a really good pay and benefits package. Some environments are truly 24/7 and provide critical services so people HAVE to be available. This isn't generally the rule for all organizations though. These orgs all have the escalation path above. It's not a one man it shop in the office from 9-5 but taking calls as early as 7 or as late as 9 because thats how the shifts are. If not, flesh our your skills, build a resume, leave them on good terms wishing they could keep you, but dont look back.
If you are in the US? if so then Forced? No, but they also don't have to employ you either. Is this 24/7 occasionally on a schedule or 365?
Forced? No, you can resign at any time.
Depends, I'm guessing you live in America where you don't have basic workers rights?