Conference 7.286::digital

    In our group, standby pay is paid to individuals who are on salary
    (exempt employees) but who must be available after hours for specific
    customer situations. Standby has to be arranged in advance, not after
    the fact. The definition of available varies all the way from, "I got
    paid standby for getting a full night's sleep" to "I got out of bed and
    answered the phone at 2 a.m. and had to come into the office to dial
    into the customer's database and analyze a bugcheck dump and get him a
    workaround."  Supposedly, the two balance one another. In theory.
    
    As per policy 3.13 in the orange book, "Employees are paid an amount
    equal to one hour of straight time for each eight (8) hours or fraction
    thereof, that they are on standby."  There is other "fine print" about
    when it applies in the policy.
    
    Marge

In our group (a field IS datacenter) we follow exactly what .0 stated. You
get paid 1 hour in 8 and only if you have to come into the office do you
get call-in pay ($100). It doesn't require management approval to
come in but it's watch as to avoid abuse.

I have problems with this policy since it favors those who live closer
to the office. If I'm working on a problem that requires interaction
every 1/2 hour I might as well come in but if I live an hour away I'll
think twice... 

If I, or any of my people, got called everynight and several times a night
I'd feel compelled to do something about it. It isn't right, to say the least,
to get standby pay for a full nights work.

Ray

    [I deleted a lot of long-winded flaming and just included some
    helpful suggestions...]

    In a time long, long ago a similar situation was resolved in the
    following satisfactory fashion:

    Institute the following:

    Scenario #1:

        Rotating 2nd shift -or- permanent (if volunteer avail.) 2nd shift
        Rotating 3rd shift standby (this person covers weekends too).

    Scenario #2:

        Rotating 2nd shift -or- permanent (if volunteer avail.) 2nd shift
        Rotating 3rd shift
        Volunteer to be on standby weekends only

    --- Current way costs company 16 extra pay hours per week-

        1st shift person does standby all week & weekend = 56hrs pay (40+16)

    --- Scenario #1 costs company 15 extra pay hours per week-

        Rotating 2nd shift person = 10% uplift for shift = 44 hrs pay (40*1.1)
        3rd shift standby /weekend standby = 51hrs pay (40+11)

    --- Scenario #2 costs company 16 extra pay hours per week-

        Rotating 2nd shift person = 10% uplift for shift = 44 hrs pay (40*1.1)
        Rotating 3rd shift person = 15% uplift for shift = 46 hrs pay (40*1.15)
        Weekend standby = 46 hrs pay (40+6)

                                ----------------

    *If* you have enough people you can implement scenario #1 or
    #2.  It costs the company about the same but the burnout factor
    of the staff is a lot lower. Using the shift method guarantees
    (more or less) that the person on duty is fresh, and since they
    are in the office they have more resources (manuals, faster
    terminal access, etc.) And management cannot say that there is
    not a need for after-hours coverage; you have the call load
    to prove that it *is* needed.

    As an added plus the person on shift can schedule some of those
    daytime tasks (doctor, dentist, shopping, etc.) for their week
    on 2nd shift.

    These are just some ideas. I would strongly suggest that this
    issue be worked through the management/personnel (or is it now 'Human
    Resources'?!?) chain as a group rather than on an individual
    basis since this affects everyone on standby. The suggestions
    contained here are reasonable and I think that most managers
    would want to 'do the right thing' and keep the employees happy.

    Lee (An old hand at standby/shift work.)

    p.s. I (and probably others) would appreciate on hearing how
         this turns out... would you (the secret author of .0) be
         so kind as to forward your feedback and/or results so that
         they may be posted here.

    	Here in the VIA group at the Colorado CSC we have 24 hr coverage
    	7 days a week through the use of beeper coverage and standby pay 
    	for those taking the beeper.
    	
    	Some personal thoughts on standby pay here at the CSC:
    
    	It is on a volunteer basis.  No one is required to take the
    	beeper, and to the best of my knowledge nobody's performance
    	evaluation is negatively impacted by an unwillingness to take
    	the beeper.  If you don't like the pay, or if you don't think
    	it is worth it, leave the beeper to others.  In terms of the
    	economic principles of supply and demand, if it is really too
    	demanding for the pay, management will have a hard time filling
    	the coverage and will have to do something about the pay to
    	entice specialists to be willing to take the beeper again.
    
    	If I needed extra money and wanted to work a second job, there
    	are very few legitimate jobs where I can get that kind of money
    	moonlighting.  There was one holiday weekend that I was paid 
    	for 10 hours standby, and probably worked 20.  I couldn't find
    	a second job that paid me as much as I made for 20 hours work,
    	even if I only considered my take-home pay from the beeper.
    
    	The other side to the previous point -- I have had the beeper
    	for weekends where I got few if any calls.  It all evens out in
    	the end.
    
    	Still, who doesn't want to see a bigger paycheck?  I would like
    	to see additional pay if the amount you actually worked was
    	more than the number of hours you were paid for standby.  For
    	example, in my previous example I would have collected an
    	additional 10 hours pay for the extra load that weekend.  On
    	weekends where we work actual hours less than what we are
    	paid for, we would still keep the money simply for being
    	responsible and available.  All in all it is still cheaper to
    	the company than hiring full-time on-site staffing for 24 by 7
    	coverage.  Of course I do not have to balance a cost center or
    	district budget, but from my point of view, that is what I would
    	like to see.
    
    	Joe Oppelt

    In the Massachusetts CSC, we have a beeper that generates 5-10 calls
    every night after hours, and probably the same number each weekend day.
    It goes off between midnight and 4 AM about every third night, so if
    you carry it for a week you'll get 2 or 3 late night calls. The last
    time I had it, I got beeped 55 times, and ended up working pretty much
    around the clock for a week. 
    
    It wasn't always that busy, and the number of volunteers has dropped
    as the workload has risen.  The approach we are taking is to add
    more beepers, and dividing the workload, so that we have several
    beepers that are moderately busy rather than 1 insanely busy beeper.
    We have to come up with a way to break down the products supported
    by each beeper so that we balance the load, but it looks like we'll
    be able to do a reasonable job of that. 
    
    It will cost a little more to add more beepers, but it reflects the
    fact that we are supporting more customers who are paying for the 24
    hour support.
    
    It seems reasonable to me that standby pay is what you get for being
    available. I would expect to do a reasonable amount of extra work
    to earn the extra pay, but 55 calls is too much. By keeping the
    beeper voluntary, and adjusting the beeper workload (by splitting
    the work over an appropriate number of beepers) so that enough people
    think it's worth the extra pay, I think we have a decent mechanism
    for keeping the beeper workload within reasonable limits. 
    
    I hope. If that doesn't work, we'll have to make it mandatory.....
    
    
    
    Greg 

Re: .5

    Just how many hours out of a day can someone be expected to
    reliably function? And by doubling the number of people on
    standby will halve the standby frequency which will bring about
    additional grumbles.
    
    I'd certainly encourage someone to check into the rotating shift
    scheme that I outlined a few notes back...
    
    Lee

Before someone points it out...

In .6 I meant to say "double the frequency", not "halve".

Lee

    STANDBY PAY: aside from employee burnout and the other stress
    related costs, the biggest cost can be in the career paths of those
    on standby...
    
    
    the real danger of standby pay is that employees who are on it longterm
    become accustomed to the higer income, some even take on debts (mortgages)
    with the assumption that they will be able to meet the payments.
    These individuals were under the impression (after 5 or 8 years
    of it) that standby/beeper pay would be a permanent part of the
    job. Management did not correct this misaprehension.
    
    People in this situation can make from 30 to 50% over their salary,
    and this causes them to turn down other oppportunities on their
    career path....
    
    I worked in an organization with the above symptoms. Many people
    in that group NEEDED the standby pay, they had built their lives
    around it. Some individuals in supervisory positions carried the
    beeper to be available to THEIR support people who were also
    on standby. Everyone got the standby pay. This became VERY expensive...
    
    New management was called in to fix the problem, and
    fix it they did....they restructured the work shifts and reduced
    the several standby people to one person. This was an absolutely
    necessary act, but the mistakes made by prior managers wound up
    biting the long-term support professionals (the kind that can make
    a heck of a lot more money working elsewhere) Needless to say, this caused
    economic hardship for the long-timers. Some left the company, some
    took 2nd and 3rd shift jobs for the needed differential pay...
    
    IN SHORT:
    standby pay and beeper coverage are an effective band-aid but probably
    NOT a healthy way to run a business. 
                                                  

    RE: .8
    A strong vote for your view.
    I have experienced that very same phenoma 22 years ago as (by that
    time) young FS engineer (not with DEC). It didn't take long to
    find out that I couldn't make a decent living without the
    overtime pay. That's when I decided to join DEC.
    By that time with 0 unemployed one might have said that there where
    sound economical reasons to work overtime on a regular basis.
    Today I believe that those reasons do not exist anymore...
    Fred

    
    RE: .8
    
    	Another vote for you.  I was THE telecom person for a small
    site in DEC (around 300 persons) and I was constantly on call. 
    A lot of things happened during that time; I found out that my free
    time wasn't really mine or my family's real fast.  Management, when
    I approached them, said that what "I signed on for".  In Essence
    came with the turf.  After a while I started comming and going as
    I pleased and really didn't care about the tennancy of the building.
    That was ok because the net ALWAYS ran fine.  Eventually I left
    that job and went to a new on.  I was asked by my new manager how
    I felt about carrying a beeper and I almost took him out right there.
    I quickly realized that my feeling was not at him so I told him
    that this was one of my major reasons for leaving the old job, which
    he knew from the interview process.  He hasn't brought up the subject
    again.  The money part was great but I didn't get used to living
    on it, that is , figuring it into my budget cause I knew it was
    going to go away some day and I didn't want to get caught in what
    were talking about here.  When it did stop it did not impact me
    like some of the responses here.  I'm not over the "phsych" impact
    of the beeper issue yet, I get tired and irritated just thinking
    about it.  That's not the way it should be.  If Standby is to be
    effective then the people in charge have to run it in a manner that
    will not "burn" you out, mentally or financially.
    
    				Thom Terriffic
    
    	I acquired that name from my old job and it still hasn't gone
    away!
    

    When I worked at CXO, I was asked if I would carry a beeper with me
    over Thanksgiving weekend even if I wasn't officially on standby (The
    customers I happened to be supporting at the time asked my management
    to put me on standby that weekend). I made the mistake of saying yes.
    Management then told me, "good, then you are not officially on standby".
    I had been unofficially on standby every weekend for the previous 2 mos.
    I have a couple of comments for this type of scenario:
    
    1) Management was well aware of the fact that I was 'unofficially' on
       standby the previous months, but never told me that there was such
       a thing as standby compensation. They were getting free labor.
    
    2) The above obviously led Management to believe (and they were right)
       that I held the needs of my customers as a high priority, and therefore
       took advantage of the situation to deny standby pay.
    
    What does an employee do in this type of situation, tell the customer,
    "I'm sorry, but I don't do windows?" I know this is a cliche', but do
    you get my point?
    

    
    
    	I carried a pager 24x7 for 2 years straight recently but also
    went out of my way *NOT* to depend on the standby pay, even when
    I re-financed my house and the bank *WANTED* to use the standby
    as income (they knew I was getting it because my pay is auto-deposited
    every week and the numbers I reported were lower than what they
    saw every week). I will admit though, it *WAS* tempting to use it.
    (When I finally went off full-time standby my manager even went
    out of his way to "warn" me it was coming and to verify it would
    not be a problem.)
    
    As for "un-official" standby, there was a time in the past when
    I carried a pager 24*7 but only got paid actual standby pay (for
    the week) if I received at *LEAST* one call that week. I was
    lucky (unlucky?) enough that I never had to give in to the
    evil thought of "causing" things to happen to get called. As
    is usual with standby it was normally the other way around.
    
    Before that there was even (way back...) when I carried a pager
    24*7 "as part of the turf" with *NO PAY*. That was quickly amended
    when it was discovered that was not the way things were supposed
    to be done. I could probably retire (slight exaggeration) if I
    could get back-pay for all the hours I was on standby in those
    early years. But, despite all things I *DO* look at pagers as
    part of the job I'm doing in a support role. I'm just glad there
    is compensation and can *EASILY* see that at times the rate of
    compensation should be higher for more "active" times.
    
    						Warren
    

    
    	Another thing that hasn't been mentioned is that you only get
    standby pay for *ONE* pager even if you carry more than that.
    
    Many times I've ended up supporting three different systems
    and applications because people we're sick, on vacation, etc.
    You end up carrying one pager for each system/application.
    
    Once I even carried *FOUR* pagers at once. You certainly look
    "wired" carrying all those pagers on your person.
    
    Now if only you could get multiple pay for multiple pagers. After
    all, more pagers mean more work, right?
    
    							Warren
    

Airing this issues here is one thing - please don't think it'll help discussions
with your management, which is the people you SHOULD be talking these issues 
through with.

- ANdy

    REP.>.11  Just say no more.  I have carried a pager since they hit the
    field.  If I don't get payed after hours the pager goes off.  It is not
    a bad attitude, it is business.  If your not on standby and they call
    you after hours then it is min. 4hrs over time plus the standby pay for
    one hour.  If your told it is a bad attitude then you have to decide is
    it worth betaken advantage of.  After a while you will find out the
    work is not everything and saying "I am busy to night with personel
    thing to do" is a lot easier on the nerves then wondering if the phone
    will ring.  Management has a bad habit of slapping your back when ever
    you do something extra and forgetting everything the first time you say
    no.
    
    

    I'm a f/s engineer and have the (mis)fortune of gettig to carry a
    pager. It's been quite interesting following this discussion so I'd
    just like to add the way it works here. 
    
    The pager is carried after hours for a 7 day week. For carrying a
    pager and making ourselves available after hours we are paid a flat
    dollar amount that is approx 35% more over the weekend. If we are
    called out we claim a minimum 3 hours overtime, but don't claim standby
    for this time. For sometime we've been doing a one week in three roster
    which started to get to be burnout material. Recently is been changed
    to one in five weeks and that is far better and is about as often as I
    would ever like to do it. I get the impression that standby is expected
    of us and I've never heard of anyone who's refused to do it.
    If you're not on standby and get called out it's a 4hr min (haven't had
    it happen yet).
    
    The money is nice and on a quiet week it reallly is a case of "money
    for jam". But to budget around it is a mistake. Any overtime money over
    my base income get's but to one side and gets to pay for holidays etc.
    It's certainly a mistake to rely on it, especially when I've had a 60-100%
    uplift in pay over one month.
    
    jim

Note to other readers of this note-

.16 is describing non-US standby policies, which may vary somewhat from what
is practiced in the US. Most of the responses prior to .16 are dealing with
the US.

Just to keeps things straight,

Lee

	In a topic like this *everyone* should make it clear what country
	they are in. There is a wide range of country spicific differences
	in things like this.

			Alfred

    In the Western Area, USA they have decided to get rid of all standby
    as of July 1, 1989. This move has raised some questions as to how
    standby issues will be covered. For those in the wage class 3 or
    below ranks, they get overtime for after hours work. For us in WC4
    its another story. It looks like for after hour/weekend coverage
    they will try calling people to come in. 
    
    It looks like its time to get a phone answering machine....
                                             
    Renis

    Will WC4 people receive comp time?
    
    Marge

    
    
    As far as I know, comp time will not be offered.
    You know what they say, you get what you pay for!
    
    Does anyone know if the other areas are discontinuing stand-by?
              
    -leslie
    
    

Re: .20

What will customers that have after-hours contracts think? Will the customer
accept this as just another cost-cutting measure that will enable DEC to
give them a better product at a lower price? Customers will be willing to
suffer through an occasional not finding an engineer to respond to a call
within contractual commitments, right?

I hope that reality will set in soon....

Lee

    re .-1, .-2
    
    Although I have never had to deal with the situation you describe, I
    can sympathise.  I can also offer a possible suggestion that maybe you
    could take back to the people who schedule stand-by a week at a time.
    
    My husband is a medical resident at a large urban public hospital. 
    Here is how they deal with the stand-by issue (although they term it
    being "on call" - and when an intern or resident is on-call at night,
    they get at most 2-3 hours sleep.  They stay in the hospital, and take
    care of any incoming admissions or patient emergencies that arise.
    Typically there are one intern and one resident per 2 floors at night.
    This does not cover the emergency room - that is covered in straight
    13-hour shifts (shifts overlap by an hour).
    
    Typically a resident is on call every third or fourth night.  When
    on-call, they work a normal daytime shift (7:30 am to about 6:30
    pm).  From 6:30 in the evening to 7:30 the next morning, anytime
    they are needed (which is most of the time), they are paged from wherever 
    they are (if they aren't currently attending to something, they are
    trying to catch 40 winks in the on-call room, which contains a bed
    and a phone).  Depending on the rotation, they either work a full day
    the next day, or they go home to sleep after morning rounds (which
    usually ends aroune 11 am).  When they are on-call on a weekend day,
    it is 7:30 one morning until rounds end the following day.  BTW there
    is no such thing as overtime or stand-by pay.
    
    I'm not sure this kind of schedule would be any better for you from
    the point of view of family life.  However, if stand-by is once
    every six weeks currently, then the alternative would probably
    boil down to one weeknight a week plus one full weekend every
    6 weeks.  It doesn't change the amount of stand-by, it only distributes
    it differently.  I don't see why Digital should have to make you do
    a full day shift the day after either.  The reason the hospital does is
    money.  Residents are cheaper than nurses and other ancillary staff
    (both in normal hourly wage, and in the fact that nurses, etc get
    overtime pay), and there are a limited number of residents.  In a
    hospital being shorthanded means putting lives in danger.  Offhand,
    I can't think of anything here where having something take a little
    longer would kill anyone.
    
    I hope this helps.  
    
    --Cyndi

    re: .26
    
    In addition to the financial considerations, hospitals have residents and
    interns on stand-by for training purposes.  By caring for patients for
    longer consecutive periods of time they have greater exposure to the
    course of an illness.  This is not a factor when working in the CSC.

    Although the hospitals claim it's "training purposes", it's really 
    cheap labor.  Ask any house officers association.  Drawing bloods
    as 4:30 in the morning is NOT training.  (some of the call work is
    training, but a lot of it could be accomplished with shorter than
    36 hour shifts).
    
    Anyway that's off the
    subject.  I was trying to offer an alternative way of scheduling
    a limited number of resources.

    RE. .-* 
    
    	I have heard of different scenarios for "fixing" the standby
    dilemma. The best approach Ive seen is what we are about to implement
    in the Washington DC area. Everyones on standby and a schedule is
    published for the upcoming 12 months. This schedule will be ammended
    as needed, this eliminates training/vacation conflicts. Its up to the
    standby person to swap his/her week with someone else.
    
    	Being WC3 has its advantages as we all know. The newest concept to
    this is that the week your on standby you don't come to work. Everyones
    shift is considered to be from 1pm-9pm. If your called out during those
    hours its considered to be regular shift. If called out any of the
    other 16hrs that day its OT(of course with the exception of weekends
    where it all OT).
    
    	Since this is a new approach and as of yet untested I find it to be
    the fairest and hopefully less taxing.
    
    	And as far as the CSC goes, you need more people working the 3rd
    shift. I work the 3rd shift and have found it most distressing that the
    level of expertice is so low at that time.Being an LCG person trying to
    get GOOD help is like pulling teeth. LCG customers are still around and
    are paying for GOOD coverage at that time and anyother time.
    
    	Sorry about getting a little off track !
    
    Mike Turro

    I was always under the opinion that the purpose of the beeper shift was
    to cover for times when the call volume was not sufficient to justify
    having someone on site full time.  If the person on beeper is spending
    the majority of those hours on calls, then management should be
    reassessing the needs for this product group.  With the pager in our
    group, we generally get a couple calls a week and for this, having a
    person onsite would be a poor use of that person's time.

    Bob

    RE: -.1
    
    You are correct.... Your discription of standby is the way it SHOULD
    be, but it is not the way it is, for us, at this time. 
    
    I gave an example in my entry.. of a typical night... Well, that night
    happened again last night... it played out almost exactly the same way.
    
    Management has been approached, concerning the problems, but they have
    yet to see "the statistics" which would prove we need a full time 2nd
    and/or 3rd shift. "The statistics" are very subjective in their
    content, in that there is one entire product line which is not even
    calculated in that "statistics" gathering matrics. BUT, management will
    not even take that into consideration.
    
    So, you see, management is playing the "numbers game" and we (the
    worker bee) are seeing the effects of "the real world".
    
    Bob G.
    

Find out what they want for justification and give it to them.  Ask them 
for clarity via mail messages.  They may be telling the truth and their 
hands may, in fact, be tied!

The information you give them may work towards a solution that nobody, as 
yet, has seen.  Work with them - not against them!

Bruce

    I'm curious about the standby you are describing. When a call is given
    to you do you have to go on site or can you resolve it from home ?
    W/C 3 employees get overtime and W/C 4's get $100/callout for each
    callout. If you are taking the number of calls you describe it must
    be costing your group a small fortune to service afterhours calls.
    Cost per shift= 40 hours + 16 hours standby + (let's say) 20 calls
    @ 6 hours pay or $100 = normal weeks pay + either 120 hours pay or
    $2000. Doesn't sound too cost efficient. Maybe a headcount issue
    is forcing this method.

    Bob,
    You work on LCG n'est pas? This is a dying (or it may be long dead)
    product line. I doubt if anyone at DEC is going to hire any more people
    to help you out. Think about it. In a few years when our commitment to
    support KL10's expires,what does DEC do with those extra people?
    
    Ken

	I know of a person in CXO who made $1,800.00 in US dollars in one
weekend.

	I think there is more to this story that we are seeing here.

    To clarify my/our standby scenario.
    
    After hours- Customer calls CMC. CMC usually questions customer or
    customer relates problem nad says they want service immediately or
    schedules the call for the morning or when there account rep is
    scheduled to come in next.
    
    If service is scheduled then appropriate person is notified via CHAMPS
    message.
    
    If immediate service is requested CMC pages engineer. Engineer calls
    CMC to find out whats going on. Engineer calls customer to find out
    whats the problem. Sometimes a CS engineer can call  from home and login
    to site to run some type of error analysis. For the most part if
    engineer can't fix problem over the phone then he flies(my scenario) .
    
    The new twist I described a few replies back was if its during the 
    1pm - 9pm hours you go in straight time. (Youve been off all day)
    If other than those hours then your paid OT.. ie (after 9pm - before 1pm)
    
    At present if your on standby you work your 8hrs during your shift. And
    of course your not on standby during your work shift. 
    
    Also at present thirs shift and early morning shifts (4am - 12noon)
    can't work full week standby, only weekend standby (friday - Sunday)
    
    As I previously stated in my original reply I haven't tried it yet
    it isn't in effect until 9/6/91.
    
    I hope it works out...
    
    Mike Turro
    
    
    
    

	Don't go into READ-ONLY mode.  That is one of the problems with not
	just Digital, but much of American companies.

	I understand your frustration better that you think.  And I have also
	threatened to do the same, but I soon realize that silence means
	acceptance.

	If you decide that you cannot continue to say how you feel, I at least
	will understand, and will be upset about Digital losing yet another
	person willing to at least try to make things better.

	dave.