If you require employees
to be on-call as a regular part of their jobs or just occasionally, it’s a good
idea to have a written policy that delineates such matters as how your on-call
procedure works and how employees will be paid. An on-call policy will help employees
understand the ground rules and help prevent disputes. Use the checklist below
to make sure your policy covers all the important points.
Drafting Checklist
__ Positions
covered. Identify which positions will be subject to being on-call.
Hourly employees? Managers? Computer programmers? Depending on the needs of
your business, consider whether on-call positions will vary by season.
__ Eligible
employees. Address whether all employees will be subject to on-call
status, or whether there are specific eligibility factors—such as only new
employees or full-time regular employees.
__ Procedures. Design
your on-call program to fit your business needs. For example, restaurant employees
can be required to call in to find out if they’re needed—and if they’re not,
they’re free to engage in personal activities. But computer repair personnel or
healthcare workers may need to carry a cell phone or pager so they can be
reached in an emergency. Also, consider whether the employee must actually
report in to work (or another location) if called, or whether the matter can be
handled by telephone or computer.
__ Compensation. Be
sure your policy meets legal requirements for on-call compensation. Generally, the
rule is that you must compensate an employee for on-call time when the employee
can’t effectively use that time for his or her own purposes. You must, of
course, pay an employee for any time actually worked during on-call duty.
__ Fitness for
duty. Establish fitness for duty requirements. For example, can
employees drink while on call? What is the procedure if an employee has worked
a long shift, goes home, and
immediately gets called?
__ Rotations. Consider
rotating the obligation to be on-call so that it doesn’t fall on the same
employees and so that all employees will have sufficient personal time to
unwind.
__ Voluntary. Make
it clear whether on-call duty is voluntary or a job requirement. If the system
is voluntary, consider offering incentives to induce employees to volunteer.
__ Coordination
with other policies. Evaluate how your on-call policy can/should be
coordinated with other policies, such as flex time, job sharing, leaves of
absence, fitness for duty, and temporary layoffs. For example, an employee on
personal leave might be interested in on-call work if it can be done by phone
or computer. Or, employees who share a position may be good candidates to be
on-call for emergencies.
__ Legal concerns.
Besides proper compensation, other legal points to consider when
creating your on-call policy include discrimination, health and safety, and negligence.
A discrimination claim could arise if opportunities for on-call work—and thus,
extra pay— are less commonly awarded to women or minorities. Health and safety
problems, and Cal-OSHA violations, can crop up if employees are overworked by
the oncall shift and an accident occurs. Or an overscheduled and fatigued
employee could injure a third party, inviting a negligence suit against you.
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